Broadband service uses Wi-Fi, satellites
Monday, July 07 2003
by Matthew Clark
Ireland's South West Regional Authority is testing services that will see thousands get low-cost broadband in a scheme that involves satellites and Wi-Fi.
The organisation, which promotes the coordinated delivery of public services in Cork City, County and in Co. Kerry, said it is testing the service with the aid of networking hardware firm 3Com and Irish wireless broadband services company Ildana. 3Com is providing the "last-mile" 802.11b (Wi-Fi) wireless connections, while Ildana is providing the satellite package from Massachusetts-based iDirect.
The European Space Agency's Telecommunications Applications Programme is also supporting the initiative, which is to serve as a test bed for the possible launch of similar services throughout the EU. Intel is understood to be another partner in the scheme, which should last until the end of the simmer.
The premise of SWRA's plan is simple: about 2,000 homes and small businesses in the South West will be connected to broadband using 802.11b hook-ups. These wireless LANS (WLANs), which will give users connections speeds of up to 11Mbps, are tied in to the satellite broadband service. During the three-month trial, users will receive the broadband access for free, but it's hoped that the trial can be turned into a commercial venture that will see participants pay only about EUR25 per month for a broadband connection, about half the going rate for DSL in Ireland.
But as the SWRA's director John McAleer points out, DSL is not available in many part of Cork and Kerry and is unlikely to roll out in many areas in the near future. Already 14 locations have been broadband enabled, he said, mainly in the far western town of Cahirciveen, with sites in Bantry, Youghal, Dingle and other towns due to come on stream in weeks ahead.
"The plan is to implement roaming across various hotspots so that a user travelling in Bantry in Ireland or Venice in Italy will be able to access the Internet via his/her Cahirciveen account," added John Murphy, managing director of Ildana. He said that customers' personal profiles would follow them as they roam.
"These regions have largely been and are likely to be ignored by terrestrial means of connectivity so this has become an important requirement," Murphy added. "The most obvious and cost-effective means of implementing this would appear to be wireless and more specifically 802.11b/g."
In fact, an increasing number of towns such as Carrickmacross, Drogheda, Ardee and Dunleer, have in recent months seen wireless broadband services rolled out in an effort to provide broadband connectivity. In most instances 802.11b/g was not the technology used and instead other fixed-wireless services have been put in place by companies like DigiWeb, Leap Broadband, Sigma Wireless and Irish Broadband. |
