Manchester City Council is planning the largest WiFi zone in Europe to enable more citizens and local businesses to access the internet.

The proposed wireless area would cover 400 square miles of the city, allowing its business and residents to access the internet for free.

While many cities have central WiFi access zones about a mile wide, there is often not where most people and businesses are, says Manchester City Council's Digital Development Agency head Dave Carter.

'Most of them, especially the small businesses and low income citizens are based outside, in the five mile zone around the town centre, in the suburbs,' he said.

'What we want is something that gives all of that area a basic level of free access to the internet and this is the best way to do it.'

The planned service, which will be installed by a commercial partner, will provide residents with access to a 256Kbit/s connection and reserve higher bandwidth services for a premium service.

One of the aims of the project is to give businesses in Greater Manchester the ability to get on the internet very cheaply, says Carter.

'There is a great opportunity here for businesses to use this service to do a lot more of their work and trading over the internet,' he said.

'We want to encourage those who for expense and technology reasons don’t see it as an option, to change their view and start using it innovatively in their companies.'

By only covering town centres with premium services many current city centre WiFi projects have selected a small target audience and left a lot of people and businesses out in the cold, says Ovum analyst Eric Woods.

'Manchester's idea for a pervasive city-wide WiFi zone could give businesses a very low entry point of expense for internet connectivity,' he said.

'For smaller start-up business it really will lower the bar to access to the internet. It will allow businesses like small workshops who don't currently see much use for the internet to get it and find ways in which it can benefit their business.'

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