Article Tools

• 

The historic walled city and commercial center of Derry, Ireland – the first citywide Wi-Fi network in Northern, Ireland and one of the first such services in the British Isles – is now live with Wi-Fi wireless coverage, providing digital tour guides and free Internet access services using the Tropos Network’s MetroMesh Wi-Fi system. Additional applications are under way including public works services for mobile field workers and automated public utilities as well as business and commercial applications.

With this walled city network in the heart of Derry, the Economic Development Section of the Derry City Council has completed phase one of the “Walled City to Wireless City” initiative which was created to cater to business travelers, tourists, local residents, businesses and students at the universities. Today, the city’s Wi-Fi network offers free Internet access to users in restaurants, cafes, and the central library.

The Wireless City Digital Tour is a state-of-the-art multimedia guide that provides a location-aware interactive experience for visitors. They simply pick up a handheld Wi-Fi-enabled device at the tourist information center on Foyle Street and enjoy an audio/visual-guided tour around the historic walled city. As this is a digital tour, users can start and finish when they like and spend as much time as they want at any given site along the way.

The Economic Development Section of the Derry City Council, is embarking on the next phase of the initiative to connect and expand the network throughout the entire city for public agencies such as mobile field workers and utility applications as well as business and commercial applications.

“With this citywide Wi-Fi network, we are showing the same Derry innovation and entrepreneurial spirit that built the Historic Walls of Derry in the 17^th century which was, like today’s announcement, quite an achievement for its time. We will continue to be at the leading edge of using technology as an essential part of enhancing our city experience and use it as a competitive advantage to benefit the whole community, creating greater economic and commercial opportunities,” said Mark Lusby, economic development manager for Derry.

“The City of Derry realized that the only practical way to provide public broadband services was through Wi-Fi and mesh networking technology,” said David Easton, managing director of Evolution Systems, the network integrator for the city. “We chose Tropos Networks’ system because their MetroMesh system provides the best performance and coverage with affordable initial capital and ownership costs and is easy to expand for additional coverage and services.”

Tropos MetroMesh routers have been mounted discreetly on buildings throughout the walled city with backhaul connections to British Telecom broadband lines. The multimedia content is stored on a local server located in one of the council premises, which is accessed by PDAs or other mobile devices over the mesh network.

“It’s a testimony to the value of our solution that we are instrumental in communicating the history of the City of Derry, Ireland to visitors – truly an innovative application that enhances the city experience. In addition, the network creates new conveniences and business opportunities for its residents, businesses and students with citywide Internet access,” said Bo Nilsson, managing director of Europe, the Middle East and Africa for Tropos. “We are pleased to enable one of the first cities in the British Isles to have city-wide Wi-Fi.”