Tags: FiWi  Better public services

Accelerate Nottingham is leading a group of its partners which has a clear desire to implement municipal wireless (‘MW’) and next generation access (‘NGA’) networks in the conurbation of Greater Nottingham. 

NGA networks offer the possibility of very high speed broadband connections (orders of magnitude higher than existing broadband services) and MW networks offer high speed wireless networks available across large areas of cities and regions.  Many experts believe that the combination of NGA and MW form the essential ‘building blocks’ of the developing ‘Knowledge Economy’ enabling new services to be offered by both the public and private sectors and promoting high levels of citizen engagement and cohesion. 

The  partners in Accelerate Nottingham, particularly Nottingham City and Nottinghamshire County Councils, the PCT, Nottinghamshire Police and Nottingham Trent University) already understood some of the benefits that NGA and MW networks offer, and they asked for our help to take this forward , finding the best route to promote broader engagement.

A Framework for the Future

We proposed that Nottingham engage in a series of focused trials and experiments designed to demonstrate the value of NGA and MW.  We are currently working with Accelerate Nottingham on the development and implementation of a number of project ideas.