UK city gets into free wi-fi game

Posted on September 2, 2006 / 3 Comments

“Norwich is pioneering a free wi-fi project which covers three sectors of the UK city and its centre.

The £1.1m, 18-month pilot has been live for three weeks and is backed by the East of England Development Agency.

Paul Adams, from Norfolk county council said: “It allows people to see the benefit of wireless technology.”

The city centre, county hall and educational establishments such as the university all have wi-fi access.

Mr Adams, director of corporate resources and cultural services, said: “The original idea was to use it as a demonstration project – to wireless-enable a significant part of the city so we could begin to see what the benefits were in terms of economic development, benefit for the public and public services workers.”

“We don’t know what will happen when the project ends. Technology may have moved on” said Adams.

More than 200 antennas are positioned around the city, mainly on lampposts, creating blanket wi-fi coverage.

The city is one giant hotspot, utilising a mesh network which means users can get seamless internet access as they wander the streets.”

Full story

3 Comments

Sriganesh Lokanathan
September 6, 2006, 2:03 am
While more and more cities from the developed countries are getting into free wif-fi to increase connectivity, some are still far behind, albeit of their own cultural/religious choosing.

The linked story from the Washington Post is an amusing report on how the Amish community in the US (which has traditionally eschewed technology in their austere and simple lifestyles) are investing in community phones with rather \’interesting\’ rules governing use and location of these phones. Don\’t forget to view the associated photo gallery to the story.

Link to Washington Post article: Still Called by Faith To the Phone Booth
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/02/AR2006090200843.html
Sriganesh Lokanathan
September 6, 2006, 3:10 am
Forbes.com article:

With most of the U.S. technology industry focused on the East and West coasts, you\’d think the best place to get online would be San Francisco, or perhaps New York City. But Atlanta tops Forbes.com\’s survey of America\’s most wired cities.

While Georgia may be best known for hot weather, college football and peaches, Atlanta is no slouch when it comes to technology and the Internet. Home to telecommunications and Internet service providers BellSouth and EarthLink, as well as Cox Communications, the third-largest U.S. cable company, Atlanta beat several cities more closely associated with the Web, like San Francisco, Seattle and New York.

Read the rest of the article at:
http://www.forbes.com/2006/08/30/wireless-wired-broadband_cx_df_0831wiredcities.html
Divakar Goswami
September 6, 2006, 5:05 pm
Singapore to have nationwide WiFi by year’s end

By Michael Kanellos
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
Published: August 28, 2006, 12:24 PM PDT
http://news.com.com/Singapore One nation under Wi-Fi/2100-1039_3-6110189.html

By the end of the year, it will be possible to roam almost anywhere in Singapore and get a wireless signal.

As part of its Intelligent Nation 2015 program, the island nation will be able to boast of countrywide Wi-Fi coverage in a few months, Bill Chang, executive vice president of wireless service provider SingTel, said in a recent interview.

“At the end of the year, Singapore will be one mega hot spot,” he said. “They are breaking Singapore into three regions and looking at ways to maximize coverage.”

The country had a pretty good head start. The official report released with the unfurling of the Intelligent Nation program pointed out that Singapore already had one public hot spot for every square kilometer at the end of last year. Communication between hot spots will be augmented by mesh networking, according to the Intelligent Nation report. Commercial WiMax–a wireless standard that allows signals to travel over longer distances than those using Wi-Fi–will begin in Singapore by the end of the year, said Chang.