Milton Keynes to get blanket WiMax coverage

Concrete cows and roundabouts to get blanket coverage

18 August 2006 20:52 GMT / By Stuart Miles

Milton Keynes famed for its concrete cows and roundabouts it to be the first UK city to boast a high-speed WiMax wireless broadband network.

According to Reuters, ISP Pipex and chipmaker Intel will cover the city in a blanket of wireless coverage with the more far-reaching wireless technology.

The news comes on the back of better than expected trial performance of the new wireless service in Stratford-upon-Avon.

Steven Jewell, head of IT for Milton Keynes, said WiMax would be rolled out across the city bit by bit.

"Milton Keynes will be probably the first place for a major proving roll-out of WiMax in the UK", Jewell told Reuters.

"Signals will be sent out into various parts of Milton Keynes - it won't be the whole of Milton Keynes to start with."

Standing for World Interoperability for Microwave Access, WiMax is a wireless broadband standard designed to extend local Wi-Fi networks across greater distances such as a campus.

According to the company, speeds in excess of 2Mbps up and down have been achieved indoors at a range of 1.2km from the base station with no direct line of sight in the current trial. Drive tests using the indoor antenna in a vehicle at various distances from the base station have shown symmetric speeds of 5Mbps.

Speeds of 10Mbps down and 9Mbps up have been achieved to external antennas at the test house at 1.2km from the base station. Longer range tests with external antennas have achieved 6Mbps down and 4Mbps up at a range of 6km from the base station.