Pipex Wireless will steal students from BT

OVER PIES at half time, Pipex Wireless COO, Sean Stephenson, told the INQ how his company would steal masses of student as customers from BT when its WiMax based wireless broadband service finally gets going.

"Imagine you're a university student living in Manchester. During the course of your studies you'll probably have three different addresses but be living in the same general area," Stephenson explained. "If you're a BT customer that's three different land lines you'll need for standard ADSL."

With the Pipex Wireless service, all a student need do is carry his or her wireless base station from one rented room to another. "I'm not even sure you'd need to tell us you've moved," Stephenson confessed.

Pipex Wireless, which is a joint venture between Pipex and Chipzilla, is using infrastructure equipment supplied by Airspan Networks.

Stephenson revealed that this will enable his company to offer a truly symmetric broadband connexion - say 4 Mbit/s in both directions - which is ideal for consumers who need to upload as much data as they download - including students, of course.

It also enables Pipex to prioritise network traffic. So VoIP calls won't suffer if the network gets heavily loaded.

The first commercial available services may come as early as July 2007, Stephenson estimated.

Pipex is, of course, a major sponsor of Fulham Football Club. Sadly on this occasion they lost to Wigan. µ