04-08-2004, 04:00 PM
|
|
Swami
Join Date: Feb 2004
Posts: 4,303
|
|
The Streets of London are Lit with Wi-Fi
Have I mentioned Wi-Fi before?  The Register has got a very interesting report up which says that: "� at the WLAN Event in Olympia, Last Mile has officially revealed its plans to install 150,000 wireless circuits, including memory, in 150,000 lampposts in the UK. To do this, it takes advantage of a near-global agreement on roadside telematics - monitoring vehicles - on which in plans to piggy-back commercial services. The plan has raised eyebrows at Westminster Council, which last year announced a radical scheme to put Wi-Fi on all its lamp-posts, primarily to provide wireless connectivity to Council workers, but with the hope of selling services to the public - hotspots, in fact." So, two incompatible wireless technologies, to be deployed in similar locations. Left hand, meet right hand. Ah � I see two haven't met yet? :wink: So why go with this new wireless technology over Wi-Fi?
"The Last Mile technology uses very much faster data than Wi-Fi can achieve, and enhances this with clever proxy/cache design. Each lamppost contains not only the 63-65 GHz wireless unit, but a large memory store, which will hold around 80 per cent of the data that most people will want to download."
"Westminster, however, is committed to Wi-Fi. �..It already has four wireless cameras, and Rogers spoke enthusiastically, today, about how they have the potential to revolutionise urban society. " Well, we'll see how the revolution pans out, but for the time being, blanket Wi-Fi coverage would sure be nice! Currently, the local authorities aren't allowed to profit from equipment they use, so new legislation would be needed to allow the public access to their network.
It is possible that the service providers may be going to put "�other wireless technology onto the same pole, and using Last Mile as backbone, while providing standard IEEE 802.11 wireless for public consumption." So you get a double bang for your buck, with cheaper, low powered, intelligent wireless data transmission for vehicle telemetry, and more ubiquitous, higher powered Wi-Fi available for public consumption. Cute! 8)
"If you look at how much electronics and storage you can get into a lamppost, or a traffic light, or any other bit of ordinary street furniture such as a 'Keep Left' sign or a 'No Entry' indicator - it's impressive. We reckon that we can launch our system with a very conservative data service of up to 40 megabits per second for every user in the micro-cell around a lamppost," Abell added. "And we're confident that we can then upgrade the performance to a maximum of 400 megabits - maybe not for every user, but for several - in a 200-300 metre range. That's more data than anybody currently knows what to do with."" 8O You don't say. Be sure to check out the rest of the Register article for more details. Interesting times indeed. So what would you guys do with 400 megabits of bandwidth streaming to your PDA?
|
| |
|
|
|
04-08-2004, 05:01 PM
|
|
Thinker
Join Date: Oct 2004
Posts: 318
|
|
Cool!
Think of the PPS rating! You'd go blind 8O
|
| |
|
|
|
04-08-2004, 05:08 PM
|
|
Oracle
Join Date: Dec 2003
Posts: 830
|
|
id stream http://di.fm premium while im walking around/commuting.
|
| |
|
|
|
04-08-2004, 06:52 PM
|
|
Oracle
Join Date: Mar 2007
Posts: 952
|
|
Interesting, I wonder if there are plans for such a large rollout in the US.
Thanks for that DI link, Streams really well on the built in Media player. If you're a premium member can you see what's playing on WMP? All I see right now is WM( Streaming bt Advection.NET in the titlebar.
|
| |
|
|
|
04-08-2004, 09:52 PM
|
|
Intellectual
Join Date: May 2006
Posts: 165
|
|
Re: The Streets of London are Lit with Wi-Fi
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Jonathon Watkins
... plans to install 150,000 wireless circuits, including memory, in 150,000 lampposts in the UK. To do this, it takes advantage of a near-global agreement on roadside telematics - monitoring vehicles - on which in plans to piggy-back commercial services.
|
Hmmm... Call me paranoid, but this sounds less like something cool and more like Big Brother wanting to monitor where we are at any given time...
|
| |
|
|
|
04-09-2004, 03:37 AM
|
|
Ponderer
Join Date: May 2004
Posts: 63
|
|
This is great news, especially as I live in the UK 
Primarily this will be excellent for making VoIP phone calls as VoIP slowly replaces the standard telephone system. The plentiful bandwidth that is appearing rapidly will lead to just a monthly subscription fee to access any hotspot (and probably a bandwidth cap to avoid abuse). Then you'll be able to make VoIP calls for "free". There are also a couple of mobile (cell) phones released this year which can switch between 2G/3G and 4G (Wi-Fi) on the fly!
Also, this is also great for my main rant which concerns rental of music. Now I can just stream all the music from my online music store without having to figure out how to get it all on my iPod/PPC etc, and I just pay-per-listen.
The future is almost here!
|
| |
|
|
|
04-12-2004, 09:49 PM
|
|
Swami
Join Date: Feb 2004
Posts: 4,303
|
|
Welcome RenesisX, good to have you on board! 8)
I totally agree with your point about VoIP, but am really not sure about renting music. We recently had an interesting discussion at DMT about it,.... and I'm not convinced. I really want to own my own music at the end of the day and I am not sure many will want to rent.
I don't believe that WiFi is 4G mobile phone technology by the way. :wink:
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
Linear Mode
