Subject: [NEXTEL-1] U.K. Plans Roadside Wireless Network

From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 08 Apr 2004 00:52:51 -0400

U.K. Plans Roadside Wireless Network
April 6, 2004
By Matthew Broersma

LONDON—The U.K. government is planning to upgrade its roadside
telematics system with a wireless network designed to blanket the
country with low-cost wireless Internet access.

At this week's Wireless LAN Event here, a small Exeter-based company
called Last Mile Communications (a trading name of five-year-old TIVIS
Ltd.) launched the patented technology the government is eyeing for its
massive roadside infrastructure upgrade. Under Last Mile's scheme,
contractors would install about 150,000 inexpensive wireless broadband
transceivers in such equipment as street lights and traffic lights,
which will run off available power or even solar energy.

Do We Need a Mesh
Standard?

These units will self-configure into a network capable of passing
signals from one node to another until it reaches an Internet uplink, a
technique known as multi-hop or mesh networking. Anyone within about 250
meters (about 820 feet) of a node will be able to access a wireless
connection of 40M bps to 400M bps, although the connection will probably
initially be made using standards such as Wi-Fi or WiMax, which are
considerably slower. A typical consumer broadband connection runs at
about half a megabit per second.

The network is designed to connect to the broader Internet via any sort
of uplink, including a standard T1 line or satellite broadband
connection, the company said.

If Last Mile's scheme is successful, it would make wireless dramatically
more prevalent than it is now, with Wi-Fi hot spots currently limited to
places such as airports, coffee shops and convention centers. It could
also be a solution to the problems carriers have faced in bringing
high-speed Internet access to remote areas that aren't serviced by cable
broadband or DSL.
"Others in the industry are trying to find a way of making the
fragmented (Wi-Fi) market pay for itself," said Last Mile CEO Antony
Abell. "We have hit upon a model to make it happen."

Last Mile says it has spent the past few years quietly filing global
patents on the use of wireless mesh networks in roadside communications
systems; its original focus was on in-car telematics.  Then, when the
Highways Agency launched its public-private partnership upgrade project,
called the National Roads Telecommunications Services Project, it found
that the system it had in mind required the use of Last Mile's patents.
The result is that Last Mile's technology is being used by two different
consortiums competing for the National Roads contract.

The company is beginning trials in Exeter this year, with first
deployments expected in 2005.

The system uses microcells, which broadcast at far lower power and have
less range than mobile phone masts, but use the 63 GHz radio frequency
rather than the 1.9 GHz of U.S. GSM phones, which means far higher data
rates. The system will provide the Highways Agency with new services,
such as the ability to monitor vehicles and provide drivers with
detailed information about road conditions via in-car telematics.

But this will only use a fraction of the system's bandwidth, leaving
contractors to sell on the rest to businesses and consumers via
partnerships with ISPs or telcos. Coverage will be focused on major
highways and urban centers, Abell said.
The sudden success of Wi-Fi has given new life to projects aimed at
extending the availability of wireless data networks. Some companies are
experimenting with modifications to Wi-Fi that allow hot spots to form
larger meshes serviced by a single backhaul. Other startups, such as
MeshNetworks, are using more sophisticated proprietary mesh systems to a
similar effect.
WiMax is a promising solution that has industry support from the likes
of Intel, Siemens and Alcatel; it is a wide-range technology aiming to
create cheap wireless broadband that's available anywhere, not just in
the vicinity of a hot spot. Backers see it as an alternative to wired
services such as ADSL or cable, and a later upgrade will add mobility.
The first WiMax equipment is due for ratification next year.

Last Mile's Abell said the company's transceiver posts would support
standards such as WiMax and Wi-Fi for the connection between the node
and the user.

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1562489,00.asp
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