As mentionned on the 20th of October on this site, the City of Geneva and FON have officially announced a joint project to provide WiFi access to the city’s residents and visitors.

A website FON-Genève has been created and residents willing to share their Internet access are invited to complete the registration form to reserve their Fonera (the FON wireless access point) available soon for collection at the Geneva City Hall.

Geneva FON wireless access point : Live Map 

Let's hope that Internet users will play the game and Geneva will become a real connected city and communes of the canton will soon follow.  

Free and universal Wi-Fi community builder "FON Movimiento" is spreading fast across Europe. In September an agreement was signed with Cegetel, France 2nd largest ISP to introduce the free "Neuf Wifi FON" service. This service offers Neuf Cegetel's subscribers to share some of their Internet bandwidth through their "Wifi Neuf Box" and to become part of the FON community. Cegetel estimates that by end of 2007, 1 million of "Neuf Box 4" will be ready to support this new service. 

Members of the FON community get free and secured Internet access through any "FON Spots" Wifi Access Point around the globe. 

Earlier this month in United Kingdom, BT also joined forces with FON and offer to 3 million BT's broadband customers to share their Internet access and join the FON community.

Now it is the Geneva city council to sign a convention with FON to consolidate the small existing wireless network available in some key locations of the city. The city council envisages to distribute up to 500 FON routers to its citizens who may wish to share their Internet Access via the FON community (complete story, in French, on TSR telecom blog).

Non-member of the FON community will be able to get access to the Internet through FON Wifi networks using a 3 USD/day fee "FON Access Pass".

Let's hope this solution will be more successful than previous attempts as most of them were sunk by politicians and endless administrative discussions.

" Post Tenebras Lux" ? 

In Geneva, Switzerland, there are several projects more or less on tracks with a unique goal…providing Wireless Internet Access city-wide:

• Pour une capitale des télécommunications à la pointe du sans-fil . Under discussion at the City Council. Answer expected during Summer 07.

• Swisswifi is awaiting a political green light to go ahead with a commercial version providing access to up to 90% of the canton's population by installing 3500 antennas on public transports & traffic lights infrastructures.
• L'Esprit de Genève an association created on July 1, 2004 has for objective to give a new image and redynamise the relationship between Geneva and its citizens, which has already mapped Geneva's Wifi Free Access points has launched a project named GEspot that develops a free communication infrastructure in order to offer to Geneva's citizens and visitors free wireless access to the Internet.

  Unlike FON (a semi-open internet community), access to GESpots' wireless access points is totally free. Owners of GESpot access points can turn them on/off as they wish (keeping access point ON 24/24h is a mandatory requirement with FON).On their side, GEspot sells ready to connect Wifi Terminals (Linksys WRT54GL at 105.- USD) and ensures the automatic referencing of all the terminals in free access. Visitors using the WiFi access will find this facility as soon as they are connected to www.gespot.ch

If none of these projects work, the historical telecom operator, Swisscom, still proposes Internet access through its WLAN Hotspots (check prices first !) and of course its GPRS/EDGE/UMTS/HSDPA network (check prices first). 

As I'm not anymore a resident, but a Geneva's visitor, I hope to see such projects to become reality soon.   

Sources : Largeur.com &  Dubuc's blog