The world's first Wi-Fi metropolis appeared in Asia

While cities like Mountain View, San Jose (USA) or Brussels (Belgium) are still struggling to build wireless Internet coverage plans, Taipei has achieved this goal quite early.

Source: Wifly US wireless network company JiWire has been testing the entire Wi-Fi infrastructure in Taipei and confirming its e-mail, security and other basic Internet services here. ensure quality standards. JiWire said that most customers are satisfied with the new service, although Taipei still uses the older generation 802.11b WLAN standard.

Taiwan's capital now has more than 4,000 access points (hotspots), providing connectivity for 90% of the 2.6 million people. Two official service distribution companies are Chunghwa Telecom and Q-ware Systems. Some other organizations also support Wi-Fi in cafes, tea shops, shops .

Taipei's Wi-Fi network was formed to address traffic congestion. Citizens can access data, single words and other administrative tasks, reducing the need to drive to the office.

In order to undergo independent testing by JiWire, Taipei had to resort to multinational support, including Hewlett-Packard and Intel.

Meanwhile in Spain, the company called Fon is selling Wi-Fi routers for only $ 5. Fon was sponsored by Google and Skype to form the wireless internet on every street in Europe and the United States.

Juergen Urbanski, Director of Fon, said they will set up 50,000 access points worldwide in September, then 150,000 hotspots by the end of 2006 and a million points by the end of 2007. So far, more than 54,000 people have posted signed Foneros membership (Foneros), up from 3,000 in February.

Cheap routers help people quickly set up hotspots with Fon's software. To own that router, the user must commit to sharing the wireless connection with other Fon members for 12 months.

But Fon is also facing some technical and legal barriers. Wi-Fi networks currently have limited coverage, so the company needs to attract a large team of Foneros to create a large public access network. Internet service providers also do not want customers to share broadband connections with others. Urbanski said it is in the process of negotiating with some major US service firms.