Paris city mayor, Bertrand Delanoe, has said that he wants blanket wireless Internet cover for France's capital by the end of 2007. Such blanket coverage would help to make Paris the most connected capital city in the world, the mayor said on Tuesday.
Under a new plan, the city hopes to set up 400 free WiFi access points next year and allow Internet service providers to install antennae on strategically-located public property. Delanoe told reporters. "It is a decisive tool for international competition and thus important for the city."

The plan also calls for slashing taxes on companies that lay down fibre optic cables in a drive to have 80 per cent of all buildings within the city connected to so-called 'ultra-high speed' fibre optic networks by 2010. According to Delanoe, sixty per cent of Parisian households already have high-speed connections.

License fees for fibre optic cables already snaking through the city's sewer system would be cut by 25 percent, and the tax break would go up to 90 per cent for the first 400 meters of new cables that branch out to connect buildings currently lacking the high-speed lines.

The free wireless access points, to be located in parks, squares, libraries, and public areas, will be set up by private firms that win contracts to be awarded in early 2007. The project will also experiment with free WiFi access for an entire city quarter by the end of 2007.