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Wireless internet zone to cover City of London
Last updated at 09:52am on 12.04.07
An estimated 350,000 workers will have internet access via their laptop or mobile phone
The City of London will become Europe's biggest wireless internet hotspot next week.
The network will span the entire Square Mile, giving its estimated 350,000 workers internet access via their laptop or mobile phone.
It will use a new "mesh" technology to transfer users automatically from base station to base station as they walk by, allowing uninterrupted web use.
Some 130 base stations will be used to cover the area when the system is turned on next week.
Users will be charged about £11 a month.
"I've used the service in a taxi driving through the City and I managed to keep talking," said Niall Murphy of The Cloud, which built the system in conjunction with the City of London.
"This is the biggest hotspot of its kind in Europe as far as we know and is unique as users keep their signal wherever they are."
There are about 2,000 conventional internet hotspots around London, covering almost all the major hotels and hundreds of coffee shops. However, they require users to log in every time. Users of the City system will have to log in only once.
Mr Murphy said: "We've been meeting a lot of the big financial institutions in the area, and we've even found the network is available in a lot of their boardrooms, so we think there will be a corporate use for it as well."
Labour MP Derek Wyatt, head of the all-party parliamentary internet group, said: "Such a large-scale project is an exciting prospect for communications in the UK, allowing people to send emails, make cheap phone calls, surf the internet, do business and even play games online, wherever they are."
The service is expected to lead to a boom in sales of internet telephones. Manufacturers such as Belkin already provide wi-fi phones that instead of connecting to a mobile phone network log on to a wireless hotspot and send calls over the internet.
There are already plans to set up wi-fi zones that would dwarf the City's - Camden, Islington and Kensington and Chelsea are also in line to be covered in their entirety.
Reader views (11)
Archie: That's been going on for years over here. You're not alone.
- Smilespray, London, UK
Welcome to the wonderful world of wireless freedom. BUT, How long before your police-state taps every email in London? We've got that now in the US.
- Archie, New York, USA
Our little town has had coverage for a couple of months and it's great.
- Joe, USA
Philly is 135 sq. miles and in two years wireless covers only 15 sq. miles and performance is similar to dial-up not broadband. Move there because it is a beautiful, historic city, but not for wireless access.
- Wally, Covington, LA
Rural towns all across America already have Mesh WiFi and it's free. Get with it London. What we need it FTTH so we can make wireless robust enough to be meaningful.
This is nickel and dime stuff.
- Hap, Norfolk, VA, USA
A 100 Square block area of our downtown has been wireless for years. But then again, we're in WA state.
- Kim, Spokane, WA
Thanks! Can you say "Wireless Internet Radio?"
- Rex Lee, Farmington, New Mexico
I love how they are proclaiming this as some sort of breakthrough. As if several US cities don't already have this, including Philly.
- Chris, Philly, PA
Just wondering when the lawsuits start for all this wireless causing cancer.
- Kevin, Los Angeles, CA
Philadelphia already has it. Just move to Philly!
- Surge, Philadelphia, PA
Wonderful news! Any idea when the rest of the world will catch up to your city's brilliance?
- Antonio Oppi, Washington, DC
