Unwired village: Vevey offers free wireless Internet

Wi-Fi networks in Vevey enable free outdoor access to the internet (Nokia) swissinfo.ch

The village of Vevey, Switzerland, nestled amongst vineyard-covered hills on the picturesque shore of Lac Leman, has long been a hot spot for the likes of Dostoevsky, Victor Hugo, Charlie Chaplin, and Graham Greene.

Now its town centre has become a hotspot of another kind, the wireless Internet kind.

The City of Vaud launched Freespot, a free wireless Internet access service, in March primarily to stimulate e-voting and the use of the Internet by citizens in the area, but it turns out that outdoor access is also good for local restaurant businesses.

Following a promotion of the availability of Wi-Fi “dans la rue”, the sale of coffee in local cafés went up by an estimated 30 percent, according to Byron Sherafatmand, CEO of Eaglecom sarl, a startup company specialized in Internet technologies.

His estimate is backed up by the statement of Robert Schneider, responsible for information technology at the City of Vaud. “Use of our Wi-Fi network peaks over the lunch hour when people are outside but still want to check their email or surf the Internet,” he said.

“It is really a low cost way to introduce people to the Internet,” said Roland Grunder, who heads up a non-profit organization called Swissmedia SA, based in Vevey The city paid about SFr 15,000 to install the network and the yearly broadband connection to the Internet costs about SFr 2000.

The Vevey wireless network covers 20% of the Vevey population via 10 hotspots and can handle 250 concurrent sessions. Ubiquitous coverage via Freespot service is planned for the end of 2005.

Grunder said that the city government also benefits by having its homepage appear as soon as users log on to the wireless network in Vevey’s town centre. “It helps them to raise awareness of the content on the city’s Internet portal,” said Grunder, adding that his organization is setting out to convince municipalities all around Lac Leman to implement free wireless networks on the street.

The Lausanne-based startup company, Eaglecom Sarl, has set up and run 60 free hotspots to date, with plans to set up 400 by the end of 2004. Its Freespots are available in a number of locations, one of the widest networks being that of the gas and service station chain, AGIP Suisse SA, also based in Lausanne.

AGIP offers free Wi-Fi Internet access in all its service stations across the country. According to Carlo DiGiandomenico, Marketing Manager, AGIP Suisse, AGIP offers the service to customers, to make its service stations more attractive to people who want to check their email when they make a pit stop on the highway. “In the future, we want to offer Freespots across Europe,” said DiGiandomenico.

Free wireless access to Internet is rare in Switzerland, as the incumbent telecommunications operator, Swisscom AG, as well as privately-owned Togewa Holding AG, both based in Bern, acquired most of the early startup Wi-Fi firms here more than a year ago.

The two firms quickly rolled out wireless access points in hotels, airports, and public areas, offering access at 90 rappin per minute. (Togewa is a private company, partly owned by Infonet Service Corp., which in turn is controlled by several large telecommunications operators, including Swisscom. )

According to Grunder, Freespot is not a competitor to Swisscom because its service is only offered outdoors. “Besides all these Wi-Fi networks need a broadband connection and it is usually Swisscom that gets the business,” he said.

by Valerie Thompson