West Midlands residents are to get free or subsidised web access
via power lines.
Solihull
Community Housing is providing the access to residents via
electrical plug sockets. The residents include the long term
unemployed, low paid workers, single parent families with young
children and the disabled.
The scheme will also create a wireless hotspot area which
Solihull
Metropolitan Council hopes will attract local businesses to a
part of north Solihull designated a deprived area.
Solihull Community Housing (SCH) manages 11,000 council homes on
behalf of the council. It is implementing the technology in
partnerhip with CI-Net, a specialist in wide area networking
(WAN).
SCH plans to provide bandwidth to the buildings via
CI-Net's
RedKite wireless connectivity service, which uses
pre-Wimax radio
signals to deliver high-speed, symmetrical broadband without
physical telecoms lines.
The RedKite wireless radio signal will be transferred to the
buildings' electrical power lines to enable internet access through
electric sockets in tenants' homes.
"One of our technical challenges was finding a low-cost,
low-maintenance, reliable way of providing internet connectivity,"
said Chris Deery, head of IT at SCH. "We wanted to minimise the
civil engineering work required to deliver broadband to the
multi-storey buildings, as well avoid causing disruption to
individual tenants during implementation.
"We also wanted a solution with the ability to expand over time
so we could start with one building and roll it out to more tenants
in future."
SCH is receiving council funding for its initiative, as well as
applying for funding from the
European Regional
Development Fund to enable it to extend the service.
The organisation plans to start providing the service next
month.
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