Swindon Borough Council has teamed up with Rikki Hunt (the concept creator) and digital technology firm aQovia to setup a company called Digital City UK (aka - Signal), which boldly plans to install a wireless ( Wi-Fi ) broadband mesh covering the whole borough with free internet access for all!

The FREE element of this service will be somewhat limited to basic Internet and email access, complete with some degree of other unspecified usage restriction(s). However subscribers will be able to pay for a 20Mbps upgrade at "significantly less per month than major broadband competitors following a free three-month trial".

Furthermore there will also be pay-as-you-go (PAYG) options so visitors to the town can benefit from the Wi-Fi network; pricing details have yet to be finalised. We suspect that some ISPs in the area might not be too pleased with the new state sponsored competition, though on the other hand it is a public private partnership.


So what else do we know? The network will use the reasonably secure WPA encryption protocol (why not WPA2, which is a lot stronger?) for security. It will take the installation of around 1,400 access points to cover the whole area (186,000 citizens) and Signal will supply wireless repeaters that can be installed in windows to boost the signal around homes.

The £1 Million funded rollout begins in Highworth in early December 2009 with the whole Borough of Swindon being connected by around April 2010. It's hoped that other Towns and Cities will follow; the service aims to make a profit.