Wireless Street Lamps for Traffic Monitoring

RMH101 writes "The Register has a story about a UK initiative to create a country-wide wireless data network using street lamps. It's come to pass through a government initiative to monitor all cars' speed and location, all the time, everywhere. The company involved, Last Mile, are proposing an intelligent mesh of smart street lamps embedded with storage and wireless networking to create 200MBit network access across the UK, including remote areas not reachable by conventional broadband. Work is due to start this year."

Comments

vandalism just got a lot more fun for criminals...

[twiggy]

Just wait until criminals and/or bored kids know where these things are embedded... the metal box they're going to need to protect it from damage is probably going to block any chance of a wireless signal from coming out ;-)

While this sounds like a cool idea, I see too much room for abuse... Besides, they're using it to track all this traffic activity... do you want to use the government's internet connection so they can track that part of your life, too?

Re:monitoring

[gowen]

Is there anything left in the UK that isn't being monitored

Err, yes.

Cameras on all the streets

Err, no. Cameras on some streets, but hardly everywhere.

wireless monitoring your speed

And damn right, too. Speaking as a cyclist, given the number of psychopathic, homicidal pillocks who are allowed to throw 2 tons of metal around on Britain's streets, I want even tighter controls on the speeders. The selfish little bastards put their (marginal) time savings over the safety of the rest of us. If I was as reckless with a gun as all-to-many drivers are with cars, they'd lock me in prison, not just suspend me from driving for a few months.