Boris wants London to be a "wifi city"

James O'Malley Wi-Fi
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boris.jpgBoris Johnson, the inexplicable Mayor of London has offered some platitudes on making London a “wifi city”, making wireless internet available everywhere. Though he hasn’t offered any concrete plans or chucked any money at the idea yet, he seems keen to tie the idea in with the preparations for the 2012 Olympics, telling BBC London Radio “Let’s do it, beginning in Stratford in this fantastic area of opportunity”.

Apparently what has spurred the Mayor’s support for wifi technology was Gordon Brown announcing today that he wants to give out £700 computer vouchers to schoolkids, which Boris has dismissed as a “crap idea” (paraphrasing), suggesting the wifi plan instead.

Boris also said “what we need is a city where anywhere you go, you can log on, you can get on the web” – unfortunately he didn’t finish this sentence with the phrase “for free”.

Hopefully I’ll be sitting on one of the lions on Nelson’s Column and writing on TD to tell you about it soon.

(via BBC News)

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James O’Malley
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6 comments

  • Why not turn BT tower into one big Wi-Max antenner. That way no new structures would be needed yet, London would get good coverage, or at least for the inner city area…

    It also strikes me that if McDonalds can offer free wi-fi, a few more carefully placed antenners would complete the “grid” allow almost unlimited access for “free”…

    Heck, it could become part of the conjestion charge, pay to drive into London but you get free wifi…

    • I like that thinking. If only they could put wifi internet on the tube somehow… though on second thoughts, maybe they money would be better spent on air conditioning.

  • At this point, and certainly by 2012 in terms of hardware availability, it’s going to work out a ‘f***-tonne’ cheaper to invest in Wi-Max deployment over Wi-Fi.

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