Municipal Wi-Fi Networks in London, Alexandria

xfletch writes "An famous London Street is now coverered by a free municipal wireless hotspot. Upper street in Islington is now one long Hotspot. The local council has set up this municipal Wi-Fi which they call the Technology Mile using cool-looking lampost-mounted access points [picture] at 200 metre intervals along the street, and the whole area is covered by free wireless internet, allowing users to sit in any of the area's numerous cafes or parks and access the internet. The scheme seems to be an extension of the Streetnet project, and requires a free login, and gives an hour's access before requiring you to login again. It is internet only, so email needs to be via a web-based provider." (Read more below.)

xfletch continues: "British press are reporting some objections raised by comercial Wi-Fi vendors, but conclude that in contrast to the U.S., where bills have been proposed in a dozen states that would forbid cities to offer Wi-Fi services to citizens on the grounds that government should not compete with private enterprise, we are unlikely to see such fireworks in the UK. Apologies for the camera-phone quality photos -- I will take better ones next time I have my digital camera with me."

Not quite as large, but closer to home for many readers, brokencomputer writes "According to a Washington Post article, 'This week, Alexandria began providing free wireless Internet access in its historic center, the first local government to offer alfresco Web surfing at no charge. The system, which relies on broadcasting equipment atop City Hall, the Torpedo Factory and a couple of utility poles, is aimed at outdoor cafe patrons or people who prefer parks to workstations, city officials said.' Interestingly enough, the article states that Verizon, which is the dominant high speed internet provider in the area, is not objecting to the city's plan."

Comments

http != the internet

[Gyorg_Lavode]

I'm sure this will be redundant as soon as I post it, but the HTTP is what enables web page browsing. The Internet is the entire network, hardware, software, and protocals.

Re:Free my big fat ass

[EnglishTim]

Oh...and it's a State run service. So it's not going to be particularly resistant to things like, say, intelligence service requests for private user information, because it's the State which provides most of the money which the council runs on. Such things aren't likely I'd say to be *overtly* used to influence behaviour in such cases, but you know as well as I do it has a significant influence and is most certainly a conflict of interest - where the people who might ask for information just happen to also be rather closely involved with the people who give you funding.

In the UK our personal data is 'protected' by the Data Protection Act, which puts stiff limits on what can be done with our personal data. However, recently diabolical measures were bought in in the name of 'anti-terrorism' which defanged the act somewhat and hugely increased the amount to which government departments can share our data.

So yes, they probably can now share information with the police and other agencies about users, but it won't be some back-handed thing. They've been given that power explicitly by the government.