The United Kingdom has unveiled plans for citywide Wi-Fi networks that will give residents in nine cities high-speed wireless Internet access from laptops, PDAs and mobile phones.
The first phase of the project, due to be completed by March 2006, will see citywide Wi-Fi hot spots rolled out in Birmingham, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Nottingham and Oxford, along with the London boroughs of Kensington and Chelsea, Camden and Islington.
The networks are being built by European wireless provider The Cloud. They will be open to any Internet service provider that wants to offer services. Blanket wireless coverage will be provided in the cities through Wi-Fi equipment fitted on lampposts and street signs.
People who want to use the wireless network will pay one of the ISPs for access, and revenues will be split between The Cloud, the local council and the ISPs.
Wi-Fi coverage for more cities is expected to be announced later this year. George Polk, CEO of The Cloud, said the aim is to provide wireless coverage across all U.K. cities and major centers of population.
"Providing ubiquitous wireless broadband access over a network that is available to millions of Wi-Fi devices...will have a major impact on the way people communicate, work and play in city centers," Polk said in a statement.
"Such a large-scale project is an exciting prospect for communications in the U.K., allowing people to send e-mails, make cheap phone calls, surf the Internet, do business and even play games online, wherever they are," Wyatt said.
If I were going to use it, I'd probably look for some secure proxy software, because you can be sure the government will snoop on the traffic going through its wi-fi. In principle it sounds good - see <a class="jive-link-external" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upper_Street" target="_newWindow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upper_Street</a> for example...
This deal would be with the relevant local councils. If you think they are capable of snooping with the resorces available, then your very misguided.
Birmingham City Council for example, have a policy of upgrading desktop OS's only when they buy a new machine, they have a mix-match of machines running Windows 95 onwards!
The company didn't try hard enough to stop a 10-year incursion by hackers likely working from China, says a former Nortel exec cited by the Wall Street Journal.
Google creates an animated doodle that features a boy, a girl, Google's search engine, and a jump rope. But might there be darker, more analytical, more troubling interpretations to this tale?
When the sun goes down, that's when the iPad gets busy for folks with news readers. The iPhone? It's more of a daytime habit. If you're building an app for both devices, heed the lesson.
EnerG2 opens a plant to make an engineered carbon that will improve performance of energy storage devices and make storage for start-stop hybrid cars less expensive.
If you think they are capable of snooping with the resorces available, then your very misguided.
Birmingham City Council for example, have a policy of upgrading desktop OS's only when they buy a new machine, they have a mix-match of machines running Windows 95 onwards!
I'm keeping my fingers crossed for WiMax.