November 18th, 2009, 7:56PM in Technology by Marc LequimeView Comments
The major Wiltshire town has become the first town to have full free WiFi coverage.
Swindon, Wiltshire, just became the first town in the UK to have official full-town mesh free WiFi. The WiFi will be accessible from over 1,500 access points, and will cover the entire towns population. That means all 186,000 residents of Swindon will have free WiFi connection for ever – however, having access limits and download limits – but with a possible upgrade to 20mb speeds. What’s more, Line rental is free, and there’s no connection charge.
This could be the start of an entire wave of towns or cities within the UK to get free WiFi. It’s more on a point that cheap, not necessarily good WiFi should be free to all.
The Swindon Borough Council leader Rod Bluh stated that, “this is a truly ground-breaking partnership which will have real benefits for everyone living in Swindon. We’re doing it, we’ve done it, and we’re the first to do it.”
Anti-virus software, aswell as popular services offered by Microsoft and Google will be on the network to keep everything running smoothly. The WiFi is provided by Signal, and has cost the town nearly £1mil – however, it could be a great implementation that could cause more people to get faster upgrades for the internet.
Source:
