Free Cambridge Wi-Fi Network Goes Live For Tour De France

A free Wi-Fi network has gone live in Cambridge as part of Connecting Cambridgeshire’s plans to improve mobile and fixed broadband coverage across the county.

The network has been built by Cambridgeshire County Council, Cambridge City Council and University of Cambridge, with access provided by BskyB-owned hotspot provider The Cloud.

The University is investing in the network as plans to extend its existing education Wi-Fi network to all Cambridge and Anglia Ruskin students, staff and visiting academics and to cover open spaces such as Parker’s Piece and Jesus Green.

Cambridge Wi-Fi

The service will go live in time for the Tour de France, which will come to Cambridge on 7 June as part of the famous cycle race’s latest visit to the UK, but the university and local leaders say the network will have lasting benefits for the city.

“The University of Cambridge has taken this opportunity to invest in free public Wi-Fi because of the value of extending our existing University networks and bringing a lasting legacy for the city, which everyone can benefit from,” says Jon Holgate, Head of Network, University of Cambridge. “We expect thousands of people will use the free Wi-Fi for the Tour de France event which will be a challenge for the network capacity, and the good news is that the service will still be available when the cyclists have moved on.”

“This is just the beginning of our plans to expand public access Wi-Fi for the city and beyond, so more people can share the benefits of being connected where-ever they are,” says Councillor Lewis Herbert, Leader of Cambridge City Council.

Last year, BT was awarded Cambridgeshire’s funding from the Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) project, which should see 90 percent of homes and businesses have access to 24Mbps by 2015, with everyone else having access to speeds of at least 2Mbps.

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