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Free WiFi launched in London
We are increasingly living in a wireless world. WiFi
hotspots continue to proliferate in coffee shops,
libraries, hotels, and are now, with ambitious plans afoot
for blanket coverage, even beginning to spread over entire
cities. With more and more of the country kitted out with
WiFi enabled laptops and a burgeoning new generation of
WiFi phones and gaming equipment it seems we're entering a
brave new world of universal connectivity. It isn't
inconceivable to imagine a not too distant future in which
you'll be able to access the internet virtually anywhere at
anytime.
The latest Wireless network venture in London will see a
22km stretch along the River Thames converted into a giant
WiFi hotspot. Running from Millbank to Greenwich the
network will be free to those who don't mind limited
download speeds of 256kbps and for those who want a bit
more speed, £2.95 an hour or £9.95 a month will buy you
500kbps.
According to MeshHopper the company behind the venture
which is being branded as "online-4-free", the one
condition for those using the free service is that they'll
be required to view 15 to 30 second ads every 15 minutes,
those paying for the faster service won't have to.
The project marks a significant development in the
introduction of city-wide WiFi networks, not only for its
massive scale but because unlike similar networks such as
the City of London backed venture run by mobile operator
The Cloud it's available for free. It follows on the back
of a city-wide service launched in Norwich last year and
anticipates a free network due to be launched in Manchester
in August.
According to Dan Toomey, chief executive of Free-hotspot
who joined forces with MeshHopper in the project "This
really marks the arrival of free WiFi in Greater London.
Millions of Londoners, as well as commuters, visitors and
tourists can now expect to find free Wi-Fi as they work or
play along the Thames." Of course, whilst free to those
willing to tolerate less than blistering speeds and the
occasional interruption of ads, this is a undeniably a
commercial venture. In this respect it will be competing
with The Cloud's offering which will cost £11.99 a month
after an initial free month but may well give surfers
faster speeds.
When Norwich launched its pioneering council run city-wide
wireless network last year there was a degree of
controversy with Broadband providers regarding it as
potentially damaging competition; for this reason speeds
had to be capped at 256kbps and sessions limited to an hour
only.
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For more Wireless Network info and articles on a host of IT
related subjects visit
http://www.techworld.com/networking/wireless-network.cfm
