Welcome to Wireless Oxford
Internet watchers amongst you will have seen other cities, in Britain and abroad, getting geared up with various levels of wireless internet connections. Most of these concentrate on a small area of the urban centre, or have attracted large sums of public money to set up.
We believe that Oxford, a global centre of innovation and learning, needs to be at the forefront of these developments. But we want to go further. Basing our ideas on the model of "Wireless Philadelphia" in the United States, we believe that creating an infrastructure that all residents, workers and visitors can access wherever they are throughout the whole of the city, is essential to enable us all to participate in the connectivity revolution that these new technologies are going to bring.
High speed, ubiquitous internet and telecommunications access has the potential to transform the way we live, work, learn and shop. Ensuring the widest possible access to this technology may be as key to the wellbeing of citizens of the twenty-first century as quality roads, sewers, water and electricity supplies were to the nineteenth and twentieth.
Wireless Oxford "Prospectus" launched
Submitted by webmaster on Mon, 04/08/2008 - 15:15.Last year, when I first wrote to the movers and shakers in the economic development schene in Oxford about the idea for Wireless Oxford I got very little response. But in the past few months one of those we wrote to back then, the Hamilton Trust, has got back in touch interested about the potential for Wireless Oxford to deliver low cost or even free basic internet access to school children as part of wider projects the trust is working on to improve access to educational facilities for all kids, but especially focussing on families with fewer resources of their own.
Oxford Mail and BBC Oxford on Wireless Oxford
Submitted by webmaster on Mon, 04/08/2008 - 14:51.On Saturday the Oxford Mail ran a story entitled "Let's Create a Free Internet" having picked up on the idea from my main personal Blog.
Tonight I have been asked onto the Bill Heine "drive time" program between 5pm and 6pm to discuss the idea with him. Though we are at a very early stage still, and I was at first a little reticent about making a big thing of it so early, the coverage has been sympathetic and if it gets more people interested and agitating for it to happen it can't be a bad thing!
Potential partners
Submitted by webmaster on Wed, 25/04/2007 - 23:02.Today we have begun to approach individuals and organisations who we feel may be willing to help promote Wireless Oxford and possibly to become involved as corporate partners. These range from the two universities, the City and County councils, to economic development organisations such as the Oxfordshire Economic Partnership and the Oxford Trust. Additionally we have contact a number of individuals who have interests in social and educational development in the city.
Most importantly perhaps, we have also approached two of the key technical and infrastructure suppliers of broadband mesh systems in the UK. One company already has a significant relationship and investment in Oxfordshire and the other operates a similar project for Milton Keynes and we hope that they will be willing to give us advice on preparing a business case and feasibility study from which we can create a prospectus to take Wireless Oxford one step further and look for wider support and investment.
How we are different
Submitted by webmaster on Wed, 25/04/2007 - 20:13.You may have heard about other projects going on in cities across the UK and beyond. Last autumn Norwich claimed the title as the first place with widespread free wireless access for example. Recently there has been much coverage of Manchester's ambitious idea to connect the entire 400 square miles and 2.2 million population of their metropolitan area.
Wireless Oxford would be different...
