15 September 2020

There are many towns and cities utilising public Wi-Fi solutions in various forms with ranging areas of coverage both in the UK and worldwide. In fact, pick up any august tech publication or visit a relevant website and you’ll see that ‘smart cities’ or ‘connected cities’ feature somewhere.

This is very true in many northern English cities, which are investing heavily in various comms technologies in a bid for parity with more affluent parts of the country. Yet while many projects are announced from the rooftops, some cities, councils and other relevant authorities are keener to keep their powder dry. In other words, some information is in the public arena but much of it is not. The following details some that our cities have completed via the SuperConnected Cities Programme and published information about the previous implementation in Barnsley.

Through the SuperConnected Cities Programme, the following 22 UK cities were successful in obtaining funding and have implemented public wi-fi solutions.

Barnsley implemented the following: The Barnsley Free Wi-Fi project was a joint venture by AWTG Ltd and Barnsley Council. AWTG teamed up with Barnsley council to roll-out a free Wi-Fi service to the town centre. AWTG planned, deployed and tested the network and completed the deployment of the free WiFi network in the summer of 2011 and did it for free as a research and development exercise to test off-loading 4G traffic onto wireless. The network was planned to run for a minimum of two years and was hoped to attract shoppers into Barnsley town centre and encourage people to use the Internet to see the benefits that this could have to their everyday lives. AWTG took less than 6 months from conceptualization to going “live” to the public. It was the first ever free network of its kind in the UK. AWTG provided support, monitoring and trouble- shooting of the network to provide round the clock availability for the users in Barnsley.