IfG.CC - The Potsdam eGovernment Competence Center

The Irish government has named five trial programmes that will receive funding to deliver wireless broadband Internet access across the country. The Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources, Dermot Ahern TD, said the wireless LAN projects would commence shortly in Dublin, Cork, Mayo, Sligo, Galway, Limerick and Louth and continue throughout the year. In a statement the Minister noted that some locations in Ireland would be better suited to wireless access technology, rather than access using fibre optic cables or wires, and said he believed the technology would make it easier for local business, schools and the wider public to use the Internet.

The trials are aiming to demonstrate the feasibility of WLAN broadband technology, to identify how and where it can be used, and what constraints exist.

From 29 applicants the government chose to award funding to Rococo/Trinity College (EUR23,500); Amocom (EUR11,757); Digiweb (EUR66,446); O2 (EUR111,268) and Esat BT (EUR47,539), for a total of EUR260,510.

WLAN access is to be available in Dublin's Digital Hub; Trinity College Dublin; the Cork City and Mahon area; Dundalk, Drogheda and Ardee (including adjacent towns of Blackrock, Knockbridge, and Dunleer); Westport and Sligo; a conference and exhibition centre; a ferry terminal; and hotel hotspots in Dublin, Limerick and Galway.

In Trinity College, where Rococo will help deploy the WLAN, it is hoped that the technology could help ease pressure on the university's computer labs, where students currently flock to check their e-mail. Speaking to ElectricNews.Net earlier this month, Rococo said that under a joint plan with Trinity, about 50 students would receive PDAs and WLANs would be established in various university locations.

WLAN services, particularly those based on the 802.11b industry standard (known as Wi-Fi), are becoming increasingly popular with Irish businesses as a means to let workers log on without plugging in. As early as August of 2002, Dublin along already had some 400 wireless hotspots from which authorised users could log on to the Internet or corporate intranets.

O2, which is jostling with Eircom for position in this market, said last November that it had agreed WLAN deals with Jurys Doyle Hotel Group, Bewleys Hotel Group, Lynch Hotel Group and CIE. Speaking to ElectricNews.Net, John Gunnigan, strategy and business development director for O2 said the new funding would allow it to expand the WLAN services it had planned to offer. "This funding will allow us to go places we could not have gone commercially, including a location in the west of Ireland," Gunnigan said.

"We have been looking at WLAN from a feasibility point of view for about 15 months, and we see this as a part of a suite of wireless data services, starting from GPRS through to 3G. It's an alternative access medium," he said. "The Department wanted to investigate to what extent WLAN could be used as an alternative access medium and were willing to offer funding on that basis."

Quelle: electricnews.net