A stroll along the Thames in London will allow you see scenic sights such as the House of Parliament and the Tower of London, and now you can even check your e-mail and surf the Web for free. A new metropolitan Wi-Fi network has launched in London, and this includes the infrastructure from MeshHopper, which released a fee-based Thames Wi-Fi network last year. Free-hotpost.com has previously set up 1,500 smaller networks in buildings and open spaces around Europe, but this newly launched 13.6-mile stretch of the River Thames is their biggest network to date.
The service is free for users to access if they agree to view an advertisement of 15 to 30 seconds in length every 15 minutes. If the ads aren’t your thing you can pay for a ad-free service that is about $6 per hour or $20 per month.
Paris (France) just announced that the city started to roll out its “municipal” free hotspots (only one hundred are deployed, it should reach 400 hotspots later in september). It is really free (no ads) but only available from 7am to 11pm. Why a time range ? Because otherwise it would be considered as an ISP and should comply with some telecom rules.
For more information (in french):
http://www.paris.fr/portail/Economie/Portal.lut?page_id=7799