One might think that the plan sounds absurd, but apparently, London Mayor Boris is as serious as serious gets. The man plans to turn the entirety of the city into a WiFi hotspot. It is possible and the man intends to provide WiFi coverage for every lamp post and bus stop in the city.
As funny as the plan sounds, the fact that each of these installations already has the sufficient energy sources makes the task actually possible. This is good since according to the Mayor, he wants it done as soon as possible.
Giving WiFi access to an entire city is an idealistic plan; while it is possible there are plenty of concerns that should be taken into account. First off, it was just a short while ago that the digital economy bill got pushed through. The bill leaves internet service providers vulnerable to all activities of their users. If this law is fully implemented, then no ISP will be silly enough to offer their services for the WiFi network that the government will be setting up. Unless London is about to get its own government run ISP, it is hard to see this plane taking off the ground anytime soon.
Second, nobody is saying if the service will be free. After all, what is the point of having citywide coverage if the service is expensive –second, juts how much will it cost in the first place? A full, free WiFi network would certainly be clogged easily by the sheer volume of people who have smart phones and laptops.
Mobile network operators will certainly not be happy if they also start losing 3G subscribers as more people will prefer to use the free WiFi access instead of a paid service that gives users a monthly bandwidth allowance. In any case, Boris wants the network up and running by the Olympics in 2012.
Tags: 2012-olympics, Boris-Johnson, digital-economies-bill, Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi-coverage