Wireless Bringing Broadband to the Masses
by Nicki Hayes, October 18, 2002
Wireless technology is bringing broadband internet access to some of the world’s most remote and undeveloped regions, including war torn Afghanistan. Surely the areas of the developed world that are still struggling to deliver broadband could learn a thing or two?
Did you know that while you’re reading this there are millions of people in rural Europe who are trying to find out how to speed up the delivery of broadband internet access to their communities? Simultaneously there are millions of people in developing countries who have no idea that internet connectivity can be anything other than always on and fast - thanks to wireless technology.
Yes, in many of the world’s developing regions telecommunications systems are leapfrogging a generation, progressing straight to wireless. Even in war torn Afghanistan, there are people walking into internet cafes right now, enjoying broadband access, thanks to wireless technology. Surely we could learn a thing or two from such countries?
Let’s take the UK for example where a third of the population is still not in range of an affordable broadband service. Of the two thirds that are, the vast majority of connections are either via cable television systems, or with ADSL. However, neither of these solutions is on the cards for many rural areas in the immediate future, due to expense. Infact British Telecom (BT) has set minimum threshold figures for the number of subscribers it requires before it will convert local exchanges to ASDL. These vary between regions from 200-750 subscribers.
Indeed, in spite of alternative research commissioned by BroadbandforBritain.co.uk, which estimates the number of consumers needed to render broadband exchanges profitable to be much lower than BT’s figures (50!), the UK government and BT defended the slow roll out of broadband across the UK at the Labour party conference last month. In fact E-commerce minister, Stephen Timms even went so far as to say that it would be a mistake to provide government funding for broadband rollout on a significant scale - something the government of South Korea would disagree with I’m sure!
No, instead the UK government is to spend a mere £30 million (UK) on broadband pilot projects around the country, which Timms hopes will demonstrate alternative methods of provision . And guess what? There’s at least one pilot project applying for funding that is planning to use wireless technology.
Yes indeed! Nestling between the borders of the Yorkshire Dales and Cumbria in the north east of England is the Eden Valley, home to EdenFaster, a community project planning to deliver broadband connectivity - wirelessly. If they succeed, ten thousand people, 500 businesses and 50 schools will be brought online with a connection that is 20 times faster than ADSL and half the price. EdenFaster plans to use off-the-shelf Wi-FI (802.11) technology from Entersys and Check Point and the natural vantage point of a nearby hill, to tap into the nearest substantial supply of bandwidth 30 miles away and beam it back down into the valley. With the aid of repeaters in nearby villages EdenFaster will then create a wireless mesh between the houses, a mesh that acts as a local network and creates a “walled garden” enabling local services to be delivered even faster. Using a gateway to control access to the mesh means it is ideal for local schools too, and, the local network becomes technically stronger and more resistant with each new subscriber. Clever!
EdenFaster is not the only wireless broadband community project in the UK. In Wales, for example, the arwain open wireless community networking project (www.arwain.net) is piloting a wireless network right now, delivering broadband in the Cardiff area. Arwain also uses off-the-shelf and license free network technology (802.11), and, in keeping with its not-for-profit status, is even developing free software to manage the connections. Bravo!
There are a host of other similar projects seemingly popping up around the UK everyday, all of which must be encouraged to apply for the available government grants. EdenFaster has, and hopes to know whether it has won the funding early next month, so hopefully you’ll be hearing more of them in the near future. The success of such projects should encourage the UK government, and other government’s worldwide, to make more funding available to wireless broadband programs. After all it’s about time they did something to kick- start this mobile economy.
Still, at least they’re doing something right in the UK. This week they instructed mobile operators to build technology into their new 3G networks that will allow parents to bar children from accessing certain services and web sites, such as those containing adult content. Nice idea, although it’s my guess that children are far more likely to know how to use such a system than their parents!
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About the author:
Nicki Hayes is The Wireless Developer Network's (www.wirelessdevnet.com) European correspondent and the part-time judge part-time jester of its new online debate -
Holding Court. Nicki also takes on freelance writing and corporate communication projects relating to business to business internet and wireless issues and has
contributed editorial to a number of publications including Unstrung.com, Wireless Business & Technology, Guardian Online, Financial Times, Banking &
Financial Training, eAI Journal and Secure Computing.
About the WirelessDevNet (www.wirelessdevnet.com):
The Wireless Developer Network is an on-line community for information technology
professionals interested in mobile computing and communications. Our mission is to assist
developers, strategists, and managers in bridging the gap between today's desktop and
enterprise applications and tomorrow's mobile users communicating via wireless networks.
We are interested in supporting the deployment of these evolving technologies through
high-quality technical information, news, industry coverage, and commentary. This
information is provided within a true on-line community that supports developer/vendor
dialogue through message boards and user-submitted tips, articles, links, and software
downloads.
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