Saturday, November 11, 2006

Interweave Consulting news: Wireless Cities in Newcastle

My current client assignment is with BT as a project manager for the Wireless Cities project, rolling out public WiFi across cities in the UK. My own cities include Newcastle, which went public on Thursday. The local press reported it -- click here.

Public WiFi networks depends on Radio Access Points, (RAPs), similar to a home wireless broadband router, installed on lamp posts. This is how we put them up (not me! I took the photo ...).

A 'cherry picker' putting up a RAP

And this is what they look like when they are up.

RAP mounted on lamp post

The Radio Access Point is larger than a home wireless router because it's housed in a weatherproof container. These are US devices and are hardened against hurricanes and shotgun blasts. Obviously not necessary in Newcastle!

Close-up of RAP

On the current plan, at this stage not a single operational device has been installed, so from a project point of view, this is all work which has to be done over the next few months.