Wireless Mesh Network Trial in the UK

Huw writes "With cable only in selected areas and ADSL only available within three miles of selected telephone exchanges, residents of the South Wales valleys are pretty much stuck with dial up connections to access the internet. BT may have the answer with a wireless solution according to this article from the BBC. Quite how wireless networking will cope with a hilly area like this remains to be seen, but hopefully we'll soon see broadband available for anyone who wants it." The company home page has some more information about their system.

Comments

Wireless restrictions

[jonman_d]

I haven't had any experiance with wireless at all, so I was hoping that anyone out there who's used this technology could enlighten me.

I would think (?) that there's got to be some latency with wireless access, but how much is it? Is it as bad as satilite access? Or is it just a little worse than, for instance, a regular cable hookup? (read: can you play quake without getting horrible lag? ;) )

Moreover, with all the cable companies limiting the use of cable modem service, and (I'd assume, please correct me if I'm wrong) wireless resources must be a lot more limited, are there large restrictions on what you can do with a wireless connection? For instance, running any sort of servers what-so-ever (I know my cable ISP hates it when I simply have ftpd running to transfer files from another machine). Of course, I doubt you'd run a server off a wireless connection, but, like in my case, sometimes you must, if only for a short period of time.

Anyone who's had experiance, I'd love to have your imput.

Free your mind

[EvilTwinSkippy]

I think they will do quite well.

I've been using wireless for broadband for a few months now. In downtown Philadelphia the local cable company is not very serious about taking on new customers. We were told that someone would be there to set us up next week for about 4 months. We offered to pick up a box and install it, but they kept giving us the runaround.

The last time I had DSL the company went out of business a year into my 2 year contract. We also had problems with the local phone company using our DSL wire to string up new phones. (I'll never forget the Covad service guy: "Sir, your DSL line has a dialtone.")

My 802.11 wireless rig is going through a few trees and doesn't seem to mind. Hills are easy, it's called a rooftop mount.

A first for a phone company

[peterdaly]

Trial customers in the 80-square-kilometre area will receive movies, music videos and entertainment shows on-demand to their living room.

And just think, Verzion won't even roll out DSL in my area, unless it is to piggyback a more expensive service. (Verizon currently sells us a T1 which enters the building over a DSL line...won't sell us DSL, go figure.)

Communities have done things like this before, but never a phone company to my knowledge. That is where the news is with this.

Maybe the US telecom's could learn a lesson from the Brits.

-Pete

Only four access points per area...

[User 956]

UK approval of 802.11a was delayed by the fact that military and satellite networks also use spectrum in the 5GHz range.

Intel's agreement with the UK regulator, the Radiocommunications Agency, sidesteps this problem by limiting users to undisputed parts of the 5GHz spectrum. (A similar agreement will allow users in the Netherlands to buy systems there too.)

Because of this limitation, UK users will have a maximum of four 802.11a access points in a given area, while the fully licensed product allows users in the US to have up to eight.

ZDNet also has a story

[gabeman-o]

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2118153,00. html