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| Bristol Selects Cityspace as Its Preferred Partner Cityspace announces its selection as preferred partner by Bristol City Council to deliver a major extension to the Bristol wireless network, originally deployed as a pilot by Cityspace in 2004. The extension will expand the existing network to cover key business areas, transport routes and several disadvantaged communities and once again make it the largest of its kind in the UK. The wider network will support plans by the council and its partners in Connecting Bristol to deliver wider social and economic change across the city and boost Bristol's bid to win the national Digital Challenge for which it is one of ten finalists. The existing 3km network has proven successful in its aim to provide the diverse community of Bristol with free access to council information and the internet and today attracts over 15,000 users a month. The new network extension will continue to provide free broadband internet access to the public as well as paid-for services to business. However, the main driver will be the ability for the council and other public bodies to develop mobile working and wireless applications to improve services to the customer, cost effectiveness and efficiency. Some key areas where it is expected to help include: • Mobile communications and reporting for council service teams including parking attendants, food hygiene and trading standards inspectors, surveyors and engineers; • 'Nomadic' CCTV to address crime hotspots in the city • New community information, engagement and skills and training initiatives to provide new opportunities to people living in disadvantaged areas • Further improvements to the city's growing network of real time passenger transport information services across the city The specification for the network will be based on the very latest BelAir Networks suite, which is fully compatible with the existing network and interoperable with future WIMAX frequencies. Work and planning is underway on this second phase of the network, which is expected to take 12 weeks. This will allow for testing of the first council applications to begin in March 2007, once details of the agreement between the city council and Cityspace have been finalised. The network is made up of 4 radio nodes mounted on streetlights and/or buildings. The 4-radio architecture allows Cityspace to create a blanket of 802.11 b/g 56Mbps access across the city with relatively few fixed egress points. Fixed Pre-WiMax backhaul costs are considerably reduced as Cityspace can touchdown at existing internet concentration points. Each node in the network has up to 75Mbps of backhaul capacity to its peers, offering unsurpassed levels of capacity and expandability. Connection to the internet is via conventional 100Mbps Ethernet or Ethernet over fibre. Licenced WiMax backhaul is an option for the future, as it WiMax mobile access. write your comments about the article :: © 2006 Computing News :: home page |