France Telecom Thursday said it will promote 802.11b wireless LAN technology for home and business use and set up a network of public wireless LAN access points.

The company sees 802.11b wireless LAN as an enrichment of existing fixed and wireless Internet access services and will invest to make the technology widely available to business users and consumers, it said in a statement. No financial details were disclosed.

France Telecom did not specify when it would start rolling out its wireless LAN offerings, saying only that a series of products announcements is in the pipeline for the coming weeks. No one at France Telecom was immediately available for further comment.

The French carrier follows British Telecommunications PLC in the U.K., AT&T in the U.S. and other carriers that also have announced plans to roll out public wireless LAN networks.

Wireless LANs using the 802.11b standard, also known by the Wi-Fi marketing name for compatibility-tested 802.11b products, provide 11M bit/sec throughput for data.

The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.