Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Swindon UK Builds Municipal Wi-Fi

Keep building those community-wide public Wi-Fi hotspots! Next up—Swindon in Wiltshire, U.K.. 1400 access points, free 20Mb access for up to two hours a day, all to build a framework for expanding more connectivity for business and government:

Swindon council leader Rod Bluh said the project would lay the groundwork for some exciting potential new ‘wired up’ public services that could be offered by the council and partner bodies in future. “The really exciting part of the project is the applications we can roll off the back of it: business security at a very low cost, energy monitoring services, even medical services. I think this has got the capacity to change the way the public sector does business, and parts of the private sector” [Tristan Parker, "‘Mesh’ Scheme Offers New Model For Free Local Wi-Fi," E-Government Bulletin, 2009.11.30].


Universal Web access means local governments can use the Web more to inform and involve their citizens. I think Jefferson would dig that.

 

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