Ofcom boost for Wi-Fi arrives

UK COMMS regulator, Ofcom, will soon permit services providers to pump up the power used by their WiFi and WiMax base stations according to SkyPilot's vp for product management, Brian Jenkins.

That will lead to dramatic increase in the number of cities planning to deploy wireless broadband networks.

According to researchers, In-Stat - the number of cities expecting to deploy such networks was 100 in 2004, rising to 400 in 2006 but by 1010 there should be 1,500.

Ofcom published a report recommending a 'power increase for wireless broadband access' back in May. An Ofcom spokesperson told the INQ that there's been no update on the recommendation.

However, Jenkins told the INQ he expected the increase to be given the nod any time now. Which is good news for SkyPilot which provides the necessary backhaul for such networks using mesh technology.

To date most of the company's products have been rolled out in the Americas but in Europe SkyPilot has supplied Bamboo Telecom in Malaga, Spain and Mvox in Germany.

The company sees its technology as being deployed mainly in areas where building a fixed line network would be uneconomical. That translates to blanket WiFi coverage in big cities and broadband along with Internet telephony being deployed in remote areas.

The INQ believes that mesh technology - where a high speed (45 Mbit/s) connexion can be shared by all users connected to any node on the mesh - is just as applicable to cellular networks as it is WiFi networks.

It would be a good way of providing the backbone for HSDPA (Super-fast 3G)coverage where currently a slow fixed line connexion has to be shared by multiple users. µ

L'INQ
SkyPilot