Street furniture gets the green light
Birmingham is to take part in an exciting pilot test which will see Virgin Media install 4G base stations inside traffic lights and provide free WiFi across the city centre.
Wireless services work well, but the range is limited, as is the number of simultaneous connections which can be supported by a base station. The best way for operators to solve both these problems is to provide more base stations in more places but finding enough suitable locations for the base stations is proving a challenge. The circuitry of a 3G or 4G base station is not, in itself, particularly large or expensive. The real expense comes from the installation costs, the need to site them in secure units with space for an aerial, and the cables needed to provide them with a continuous power supply and a hard-wired communications link back to a data exchange.
Street lights and traffic lights provides a great ready-made solution to this problem. They are distributed, they are sturdy, they have the elevation needed for the aerial, as well as the power supplies and cabling ducts. The nature of street furniture means you find them where you find people.
Birmingham has entered into an agreement with Virgin Media to leverage this hardware as network infrastructure. In exchange for access to all of Birmingham's street furniture, Virgin Media will be providing free wi-fi coverage in the city centre and will provide the council with a share in revenues from other operators making use of its 3G and 4G network. The free and unlimited wifi should be available from September onwards and will cover areas including the rail stations, the High Street, and the Cathedral plaza.
Virgin says their will be no caps on usage. However, I expect that as with other "free" wifi providers, you will still have to register to use it and agree to terms and conditions which includes providing information such as your name and phone number. Virgin Media has said it reserves the right to inject advertising into the connection, and one must presume that this will include location-related advertising.
If this model of WiFi provision is adopted by other city centres, it could provide a well-timed boost to wireless capability. Currently, on consumer-oriented websites, we see up to 20% of visitors using mobile devices and tablets.
28th August 2013
This article comes from the SKILLZONE email newsletter, published monthly since January 2008, and covering topics related to technology and the internet. All articles and artwork in the SKILLZONE newsletter are orignal content.