May/June 2004

Could lamp posts hold the key to mobile connectivity for the future? That's the hope of a new UK-based company called Last Mile Communications, which has aroused worldwide interest with the launch of a plan to fit local wireless links to 15,000 lamp posts around Britain.

Its proposal rolls together elements of various existing technologies, including wireless Internet access, telematics and location-based services. The system should be capable of transmitting data at 40 to 400 MB per second, the company says. Trials are scheduled to start soon, and an initial UK deployment is promised for early 2005.

Since the scheme envisages roll-out on country roads as well as towns, the opportunity arises for wide-ranging but highly-localised discriminating telematics information such as traffic reports. Last Mile claims that the system will be faster than existing mobile telephones, and more resilient.

The technology is complex, but in essence, low-cost transmitters connected to fixed comms links would be mounted at regular intervals on lamp posts, and would use a proprietary technology called Wdirect to gather and cache information at each post or "pico-cell". This would be broadcast to anyone close by with a computer such as a laptop or PDA equipped with a suitable wireless communications port.

 

This would not necessarily give users unfettered Internet access; as currently conceived, the plan focuses more on location-specific content. Some such information would be free (for instance maps, safety, police and tourist information); the rest would be user-selectable from menus, and would be paid for either by advertisers or, in some cases, by users. It would be accessed through an intelligent application called MagicBook.

It looks as though users could obtain full Internet access as well, paying some kind of subscription fee for the privilege, and the company does talk in general terms about offering better value than existing broadband networks. But there is little mention of this in its initial statements, which major strongly on "content".

This has surprised some observers, who see attractions in a system that could provide affordable, unrestricted two-way communications of the kind offered by Wi-Fi hotspots or GRPS/3G mobile links. Indeed, rival schemes have already been mooted in Britain and elsewhere, providing public-access Wi-Fi hotspots over wide areas (even whole cities), and these could prove a more attractive alternative. However, it is understood that Wi-Fi hotspots and Last Mile technology could if necessary co-exist.

A more immediate question is whether local authorities would be allowed to offer capacity on their street infrastructure for commercial enterprises such as this. Westminster Council in London is one which has put forward its own scheme for Wi-Fi networking based on lamp posts, but is reported to have deferred developing it into a public-access network for the time being.

Last Mile is however bullish about its prospects, and says confidently that it "expects the link to the fixed communications infrastructure will become as ubiquitous as landline telephones."