Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

UK to get Public Wireless LAN

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the start-running-ethereal dept.

shanksd1 writes "The IEE Review for May reports that BT is announcing the UK's first public access wireless LAN, with a little help from Motorola and Cisco. 400 wireless hotspots of range 100m should be implemented by June 2003, and 4000 by June 2005. These 500 kb/s access points will be located in hotels, railway stations, airports, bars and coffee shops."

1 of 140 comments (clear)

  1. Public access to CCTV by Tim+Ward · · Score: 3, Offtopic

    This is not a new idea - it was suggested years ago in an article in Wired.

    Actually nobody in the UK (apart from the criminals) does anything but enthusiastically support the CCTV systems, particularly when a child goes missing.

    As a district councillor I have been invited several times to visit our council's control room, but haven't bothered to find time yet because, whilst it would be an interesting visit, it's not a bit deal as I have precisely 0 constituents worried about CCTV who need to be reassured. (I think that in fact anyone who asks to visit the control room will get a tour. So in fact I think we already have public access to the CCTV pictures.)

    The only complaints we get are that CCTV sometimes fails to catch criminals; and that there aren't enough CCTV cameras, which is a complaint we get every time there is a crime not covered by the camera system.

    [Of course, in a country where everyone is entitled to own guns and they have more shootings than we have burglaries they might simply be used to being victims of crime as a way of life, and "privacy" nutters might, with the backing of the NRA, make more noise than they do here?]