Looking for wi-fi in Paris
 

Hi. Does anyone know how easy it is to get wi-fi in central Paris - at cafes, etc? Does Starbucks have it, similar places?

My daughter is moving to Paris for the year and does not yet have housing. She arrives September 23rd. Her plan is to rent an apartment on a weekly basis for a couple of weeks while she looks for monthly rentals. But she's having trouble finding weekly rentals so just booked a hotel for the first week at least and it doesn't have internet access. So we are hoping there is free wi-fi and would just feel better if we had knowledge of a few places. Her hotel is in the 2nd.

Thanks

Lots of public place have free wifi:
http://www.paris.fr/portail/Economie...rtlet_id=17981

I have no information to add, but I'm just thinking you have a great excuse to visit Paris now.

Isabel, in other words, nearly every public park has free wi-fi. McDonalds has it. Many, many cafes have it. I have not been everywhere in the world, but I think of Paris as being a very easy city for wi-fi. If only American towns and cities were so wi-fi friendly.

Thanks, I suspected as much but it's nice to know for sure. Neither she nor I have been to Paris is three years.

Nikki - my thoughts exactly. But I will miss my frequent trips to Boston to see her. As she says, one or two trips to Paris will more than make up for it.

All around Place des Vosges is Wifi and the George Pompidou, a lot of Paris is, also around the Hotel de Ville.

I often just sit on a bench and get a connection. Public parks have the official municipal free wifi, but I have been skimming it from places like Häagen-Dazs.

i'm not sure who is getting connected through the "official municipal wifi"... every parisian we talked to said that doesn't really exist. and when i was there last week, i can attest that it doesn't. if you are going to Paris with an iphone, you should know that everywhere you go you will pick up something called "Free Wifi"... but it isn't free. you actually won't be able to get connected without a password. my husband and i only found luck at places that advertise it... mcdonald's, starbucks (you have to buy something to get the code), the pompidou. there are a lot of cafes that have it, but you have to ask for the code. we were fairly frustrated at first because we had read here and other places about "paris' free wifi", so we didn't purchase a data plan for our trip, but we were planning to use it while out and about to look up restaurants, etc. just be aware it's not everywhere, and it's not always free.

I was surprised at the difficulty I had two weeks ago, also; the hotel did not have it, and even at Starbucks it took the clerk a few tries to get my IPod Touch connected. I really had better luck at a place called "cyber cube" ( I think that was the name of it, in the 6th), where I had to pay by the minute.

The apt. I rented in April in Paris had free WiFi,and it was so simple to use that I assumed this trip would be no problem. I tried to use it at CDG the morning we left and could not connect there either.

McDonalds in Paris (at least the one I visited on Avenue de Wagram near the Arc de Triomphe) did not require a purchase to use their WiFi - I popped in and out a few times and used it, though I did buy things a few times, too. People seem to camp out there for extended periods on their laptops, and apparently McDonalds doesn't care.

Sorry for those who can't find wifi in Paris. I was able to log on in every public park where I tried. Easy. Sit on bench, turn on netbook. Connect, check e-mail, or make reservation or whatever. No problem.
In addition, I would not make a hotel reservation unless the hotel indicated on their web page that they had wifi, and guest reviews confirmed it worked. Would never just guess it would be available.

Cynthia, I guess you were lucky. I tried a few parks while I was in Paris. Not a one had free WiFi.

All of the parks are supposed to have free wifi, but I confess that I have never actually tried in a park. I have been known to sit on a bench on the Champs Elysées and connect to the free Häagen Dazs wifi.

portable wifi via SFR (telecom provider)
http://neufwifi.sfr.fr/clients-3g/

SFR wifi hotspots (quite a few)
http://cartewifi.sfr.fr/

Paris train stations, including the Eurostar terminal at Gare du Nord:
http://www.eurostar.com/UK/us/leisur...re_du_nord.jsp


These options are not cheap, though.
I would use the wifi to log onto skype, call home and hang up, and then have someone from home call back using a calling card, SIP or voIP to my french mobile number (incoming calls free). I think there are a couple of experts here who can elaborate on this. Unfortunately one of them (Robespierre) is no longer with us.

I didn't even realize that we were still recycling this topic...

I was wondering that myself. As the OP I can say I no longer need the info, but perhaps other people have the same question and that's why it was brought back up. I will say that my daughter didn't seem to have any problem finding wi-fi at numerous cafes during those first two weeks till she got her apartment. She said sometimes she had connections where you had to log back in every twenty minutes, and that she usually felt she had to buy a coffee or whatever to sit there for a long time, but didn't mind.

I'm surprised my laptop "remembered" this apartment from last year, and I didn't have to set up all the codes and things again to use wifi-- just turned it on and was online.