Nottingham to plant WiMax Forest

Nottingham Trent University is leading a rollout of WiMax in the city to allow businesses and community organisations to road test the technology.

The "WiMax Forest" network is due to be switched on towards the end of October and equipment to receive the signal will be installed over the following 12 months.

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Nottingham Trent students will be able to access the long-range wireless broadband network along with local businesses, community groups and selected families.

Various organisations, including Intel, are investing around £250,000 in the Nottingham pilot after it was proposed by the university's Strategic Partnership group. Other organisations involved in the rollout include East Midlands New Technology Initiative Network and Accelerate Nottingham, part of the Greater Nottingham Partnership.

Speaking to silicon.com, member of Nottingham Trent University's public spaces research group, Frank Abbott, said: "WiMax in a way is a technology which is additional to what's already there and can fill in certain gaps and do certain things which the normal - either fibre or wireless - provision can't do and [Intel] wanted to see how people could exploit those opportunities."

There will be two WiMax broadcasting stations sited at Djanogly Technology College and Haddon Park School.

Among other things, the pilot will examine the impact buildings and landscape have on WiMax signal distribution.

In addition, local businesses and community organisations will have the opportunity to experiment with different applications of the technology.

Abbott said: "The long term plan is that it becomes a network which is owned in some way by the community."

Several other UK towns including Milton Keynes and Warwick in the Midlands are already experimenting with WiMax.