Square Mile gets mesh Wi-Fi

London's “Square Mile” was mesh Wi-Fi enabled today after wireless ISP (WISP) The Cloud teamed up with wireless comms vendor BelAir Networks to give Wi-Fi access to an area of approximately 2.6 square kilometres in central London. Wireless access uses mesh technology, which links access points and repeater nodes together using the 802.11a wireless protocol and uses 802.11b/g protocols for client access.

The Cloud's business development director, Owen Geddes, said, "In North America there's been a number of mesh projects, but London is a particular challenge because while the US has a nice grid system to work with, in London there's lots of wonky buildings and little tight lanes. That's why we've ended up with a very high density of APs – 127 – which is a lot higher than in the US. "

Geddes said that The Cloud have to monitor the nodes on a regular basis, which can mean changing the Wi-Fi channel and sometimes actually re-positioning the nodes. "The main part of the monitoring now is just checking data transfer rates from AP to AP, although we do have teams that go out and check on the client side that the coverage envelope is as it was previously", he added. There are around five backhaul links off the network that we monitor as well and these use fibre connections into The Cloud's UK datacentre.

Ovum analyst Mark Main pointed out that the majority of people “don't expect Wi-Fi to be much more than a nice-to-have adjunct to existing communications methods". He argues that this seems to be acknowledged by The Cloud because although the network depends on paid-for subscriptions, the company states that only thousands rather than hundreds of thousands of users are required for commercial success.

There are two different ways of accessing The Cloud's network. Firstly through any one of the SPs that offer access to their network, for example, BT, O2 and iPass. The other way is buying access directly from The Cloud. Geddes said, "We do an hourly voucher costing £4.50, but we're really trying to push our monthly subscriptions. For a laptop, for unlimited 24/7 access it's £11.99 including VAT."

The Cloud also do a number of packages for smaller devices. "For a Wi-Fi enabled Nokia handset, access would be £6.99 per month. For the smaller devices we use MAC address authentication so that when you've identified the device, you don't have to go through a manual login process again," added Geddes.

See also:

London leads iPass Wi-Fi league table

Between July and December 2006, 11,000 iPass Wi-Fi sessions took place in London  06 Mar 2007

Wi-Fi VoIP takes off

Polycom to buy SpectraLink  08 Feb 2007

Wi-Fi finally discovers its voice

Developments in technology and service provision are bringing voice over Wi-Fi into the mainstream  25 Sep 2006

ISP bolsters Wi-Fi offering

The Cloud offers Ultra service, boasting unlimited broadband Wi-Fi access for under twelve pounds a month  10 Jul 2006

Wi-Fi service trumps 3G

Unlimited mobile Internet access at 7,000 UK hotspots for £12 a month  08 May 2006

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