Comment: Village people wait for wireless

Initially, the development of wireless alternatives to cable and Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) links looked like it might take broadband into areas otherwise untouched by high-speed Internet access. But, unfortunately for those living in rural and other sparsely populated areas of the UK, this doesn't appear to be happening.

The truth is that operators of any broadband service, based on whatever technology, will seek to maximise profits by building infrastructure only where they are assured a large number of customers. And for the average village, hamlet or small town - precisely the areas often inhabited by corporate teleworkers - the figures just do not add up.

An example can be seen in fixed wireless services based on the 2.4GHz frequency waveband - now more economically viable since the government last year lifted licence restrictions that prevented carriers and service providers from offering commercial services.

At this admittedly early stage of the game, it appears that most of the 2.4GHz fixed wireless services on offer are in urban areas. Apart from the indoor hotspots in airports and the like, fixed wireless has made its home and its reputation in city-centre business districts where DSL, cable or leased lines are either unavailable or uneconomical for whatever reason.

But building a more expansive wireless network based on the same 802.11b technology used in private company wireless LANs should, in theory anyway, cost relatively little beyond the cost of the access points and the planning permission for the sites of those access points.

Modified antennae can boost the range of these access points to around 7km, which means that grouping as few as 10 together into overlapping cells could easily reach to 100km at the furthest point. Shrewd planning should get around the near line-of-sight restrictions, and with most customers already owning the access equipment in the form of a computer and 802.11b WLAN PC Card, such ventures can be set up quickly and cheaply. All of which would leave the operator to charge reasonable prices for the bandwidth on offer, from 256kbit/s to 2Mbit/s.

So far, however, nobody appears to have made these rough calculations, or at least they are yet to offer a commercial service for remote teleworkers based on them.

Which leaves country dwellers with high-cost, low-reliability satellite services or DSL.

Frustrated subscribers could try to get as many local people as possible to sign up to BT's pre-registration scheme, which has so far resulted in the upgrade of 20 exchanges across the UK for DSL. BT has now apparently dropped the minimum trigger number to 250 for some exchanges.

Or, they could lobby for a sizeable cash contribution from central or local government, or perhaps consortiums of interested parties such as local businesses or other privately funded institutions, towards the cost of upgrading BT exchanges.

Either way the chances of success seem slim.

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