"Chilly Sunday morning at Syntagma," Biljana blogged. "After an early morning jog, a no-sugar latte macchiato ... nice way to start the end of this weekend ... Hugs and kiss(inger) from Wi-Fi Syntagma!"

Anybody with any sense of perception walking through Syntagma Square has seen plenty of Biljanas. They're the ones sitting on the park benches staring into opened laptops, checking email or uploading their latest, sometimes obscure, updates from Athens onto the web.

It turns out that Biljana is one of almost 42,000 internet users who have availed themselves of the three free Wi-Fi hotspots in the Greek capital, clocking up a total of 175,000 connections and transferring 7.24 terabytes of data in the process.

Nectarios Koziris, the project's scientific coordinator, says about half of users are tourists, the remainder live in Greece.

Internet users outside Athens may soon see public-access Wi-Fi arrive in their areas. Before the end of the year, 160 hotspots are to be created in large cities and towns, Koziris says. At a recent conference, Vassileos Asimakopoulos, special secretary for digital planning at the ministry of finance, pledged funds for an additional 300 hotspots across the country.

The northern city of Trikala already has a free Wi-Fi hotspot in operation.

Source :.Athensnews