Posted: 28th Apr, 2003 By: MarkJ
Concerns are growing that plans to introduce a broadband wireless LAN (Wi-Fi) Hotspot in the West End, particularly the Soho area, may be heading for trouble:
Rival WiFi providers have expressed dismay at the prospect, predicting that access point overload will quickly follow. There are already dozens of freelance WiFi zones in the area, including Starbucks and BT OpenZone nodes, not to mention even more accidental access points provided by employees in the area, who have installed their own access points on corporate LANs.
Richard Lander of WiFi Mesh company, LocustWorld, said that the prospect of seeing the council successfully roll out a wide-area wireless project in a month was "far-fetched."
Other experts remembered the chaos of this year's big computer exhibition, CeBIT, in Hanover - where too many WiFi access points were installed, reducing the bandwidth from a theoretical 11 megabits per second, to about 10K - slower than a GPRS cellphone.
The newswireless.net item raises some valid concerns, which could, in future, apply to more areas than just the West End.
It's rightly suggested that a special body should now be setup to examine these issues and develop methods to improve access.