Boris Johnson Pledges Full Wi-Fi Coverage For London 2012

London is to get a city-wide blanket of Wi-Fi coverage by 2012 following a pledge from Mayor Boris Johnson.

The major was speaking at the Google Zeigeist event in Hertfordshire, and promised to make London one of the most connected cities in the world. The move comes as the UK capital continues to upgrade its infrastructure in time for the Olympic games in 2012.

Olympic Games

BT for example has already pledged to rollout out its superfast broadband network in time for the Olympic Games, and said it would connect 10 million homes across the UK, or 40 percent of households, to its next-generation access (NGA) fibre service. Recently it upped its investment to around £2.5 billion so it could roll out fibre to around two thirds of UK homes by 2015.

Johnson said his vision was that “every lamppost, every bus stop” in the capital would offer wireless internet access. Apparently 22 London boroughs have signed up for the Project WiFi scheme so far, but no pricing plan has been announced.

Speaking to eWEEK Europe UK last year, Selina Lo, chief executive of Ruckus Wireless said that gaps in national broadband infrastructures should be filled by Wi-Fi, not 3G or mobile broadband. She felt that 3G does not have the right attributes to fill the gaps in broadband provision, and argued that Wi-Fi-based systems are much cheaper than the alternatives, so broadband can be provided more economically this way.

Metro Wi-Fi

Of course, London is currently awash with Wi-Fi hotspots, and indeed the city of London (the financial square mile) does have its own blanket Wi-Fi coverage.

No pricing plans were announced by the major and it is not clear at this time whether Wi-Fi access would be free to everyone.

Last year Swindon boasted that it was the UK’s first free Wi-Fi town after it announced plans to install a Wi-Fi network across the Wiltshire town. All 186,000 citizens gained blanket “Wi-Fi mesh” coverage in April this year.

But Swindon was not the first.

Back in August 2006, to much fanfare, the citizens of Norwich gained access to free Wi-Fi from a project backed by Norfolk County Council and the East of England Development Agency. However, the two year pilot scheme called Norfolk OpenLink didn’t last. According to a spokeswoman from Norfolk County Council, the pilot finished in the middle of 2008.

And cities such as Milton Keynes for example have enjoyed a WiMax service since December 2007, provided by Freedom4, formerly know as Pipex Wireless.