Free WiFi campaign

[MikeS1]

From the Gadget Show website:

"This week on The Gadget Show, Jason explored a pilot scheme which supplies the city of Norwich with free WiFi internet access for its people.

A great idea, but not enough. We want to see free WiFi in every major town and city in the UK; for business, for tourism, for the future, and for anyone and everyone who relies on the internet.

If you agree, please sign up to our online campaign here, and we'll take it all the way to the top."

You can add your name to the petition on the website:

http://gadgetshow.five.tv/campaign/wifi/

 

[Guest]

Great Idea.

But

As soon as you have free internet access you have free phone calls!

Not sure how all the equipment will get paid for if no one pays to use it!

If you are a BT broadband user you can have free internet access on the BT openzone system that is available in most towns and cities in numerous hot spots. My daughter uses it when out working and my niece sits in McDonalds or the like talking via Skype to her I T engineers in India FOC.

It's a great idea but you have to pay somewhere along the line to fund the system.

Wi-fi enabled mobiles will give free VOIP/Skype calls if more people get them.

 

[JeremyClarksson]

Done - think about it free internet access and voice calls.

Drawbacks would be losing the excuse to keep the kids away from the computer when we are away and carrying on working as I work for myself from a computer.

I think the pluses would rule though.

 

[sparkes]

euro is correct. there is always a cost. Adding wireless access on that level would cost millions of pounds and the people who did it would be out of pocket because they would have to provide the infrastructure and the bandwidth.

Can't see it working some how.

As for the town that already has it, paid for by who? if its the council then the people have paid for it via tax!

 

[RogerL]

Nothing's ever free.

The cost of installation and continued use has to be met somewhere.

So who's going to pay? BT - they're just a commercial company like any other. ISPs - they'll lose their current revenue stream from broadband. Local Authority - that'll just put the Council Tax up. Chamber of Commerce - good idea but they're not there as a tax collector. Local Sales Tax - maybe but it'll increase local costs.

If someone will explain how it's really free, then I'll sign up.

 

[JohnI.Stephen]

Obviously this will come but the Gadget Show (and of course I) hope that this will be sooner rather than later. The economics are easy to fathom here. The actual cost of providing Wi-Fi hot spots with acceptable bandwidth (128kbps) is absolutely minimal. The value to local business is significant as it means that they have potentially 000s of extra people remaining in and around city centres each of whom will probably want to be periodically watered and fed.

It's a bit like providing local public loos. No it won't of itself make you any money but it will ensure that people are able to stay longer in the Central Business District. An enterprising bakery / coffee shop in the centre of Keswick (Cumbria) has a public Wi-Fi hot spot and again, people will congregate and buy coffees, cakes etc whilst they do their email etc.

I am just waiting for some CC sites to 'wake up' and provide Wi-Fi Internet access. However, 15 years ago I was despairing at people who thought that email would never catch on ...

John

 

[sparkes]

A couple of points

128K is unusable for anything other than email with the current fad of web sites going multi-media. And even providing a QOS on such a low figure across every town in the UK would not be abolutly minimal as you suggest. I have designed several real public wireless services and I can say that the hardware for these is not cheap. In your home you have a fraction of the issues that a public service has.

However, it will come. I use BTOpenzone as part of my ISP deal and I think this is probably the best way to go. Pay one price for internet access anywhere. That way its paid for, quick and works.

Steve

 

[JeremyClarksson]

From a BT RNS (news release) this morning

"BT's plans to build a first phase of 12 Wireless Cities by the end of March next year means that most of the UK's major city centres will soon offer comprehensive, high quality, Wi-Fi coverage with Openzone access"

If you want to read the whole thing

http://www.investegate.co.uk/Article.aspx?id=200612140701088635N
Primarily aimed at business at the moment but looks pretty cheap

 

[Moley1]

Guess a lot of these things will be near free in the end. Remember when mobiles were 50p per minute!

Moley