Thetownend.com

http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article6920142.ece

Interesting....

BT must be fuming.

Looking forward to seeing the upgrade prices.

You have to pay for the upgrade with mondex.

 ???

Amazing how an initiative like this gets people talking about Swindon in such glowing terms.  Have a read of the comments at the bottom of the Times article.

Fair play.  A good news story for once.  I'm sure other places will follow soon enough if it takes off (as I think it might).

Pity I've just signed up to a new 12 month broadband contract.

It'll be interesting to see of they roll out VoIP accross the network. Free calls to any phone in Swindon would be great.

Aren't there already similar networks in the UK? Milton Keynes and Norwich for example? I remember reading about them being planned but can't find anything concrete on Google about them.

It will be interesting to see how well, and if, it works. Especially the speed you get for free and whether they've planned well enough to handle the bandwidth. Its unlikely to be a replacement for home broadband, at first at least.

Still, it will be good to have a constant wifi connection even at low speed - especially for mobiles with wifi.

hahahahaha!!!

 Ah takes me back to the halcyon days of "piped" TV, which was a sort of cable TV run by radio rentals in the 60's....they had a big old place up at Greenbridge, and if you lived within a certain distance from it, could receive TV down a cable, rather than an aerial..which was ace, because it did away with "atmospherics"

This was when the black and white picture looked like it was coming direct from the Arctic Circle during a blizzard, and happened fairly regularly.

 Swindon then was supposed to be on the cutting edge of Harold Wilson's "white heat of technology" and was used for this experiment.  It had to be right too, as we won the LC and Robins won the speedway, and David Murray John got his radical cock in the sky.

Unfortunately didn't work out that way...even though Mondex was proper ace, seeing how as part of their market research sample they kept giving me wedges of dosh to spend, in returning for keeping a record of where I spent it.  The Beehive must have had the most used Mondex machine in town.  :)

 

Of course, we were also the first town to have cable in the 80's with Swindon Cable, with their movie channel called Cinematel.

I've been looking at mine for a while now wondering whether to change ISPs or not. Kind of gave up on it for now but could be worth waiting to see what the upgrade prices are for this in the new year.

name digital city seems a bit lost in swindon, a town, doesn't it?

Why the hype? It'll be shit, no better than dial-up

shut up and enjoy slough

:)

Oooh, I wonder if they need any out of work IT folk for this project? A speculatve letter going their way I reckon.

It's a great idea, i just hope they make a good job of it!

Wasn't it Ricky (I'll spell his name properly, even if he himself will insist on spelling it like he's a Nordic porn actor) Hunt that also took out the copyright on Swindon City Football Club?

How will they make it secure? It's going to be a difficult task, but the town will be attracting all sorts of hustlers. maybe that fit one may make an appearance?'

i honestly don't know, i know dave keates came up with swindon city fc sunday league club :)

Beat me to it bennett!!

I might be wrong but I think if Swindon became a city and wanted to become Swindon City then they would have to get the sunday league team to change their name as you can't have 2 clubs with the same name registered at the FA!

i scored their first ever goal (in a friendly, and down by 8 at the time)..then scored the goal that gave them their first ever point

go me!

1) What the fuck does "ma olen taimetoitlane" mean?
2) What language is that anyway?
3) How cool is it that a TEF thread for "ma olen taimetoitlane" is 2nd on the 1st google page.
4) How the fuck did I miss the Toasties thread?

it's estonian for i am vegetarian

"i am leaf-eater"

:)

So it looks as though it is switch on day for Highworth? Any residents able to give feedback once it is live?

http://www.swindonadvertiser.co.uk/news/4795937.Wi_fi_project_to_go_live_in_Highworth/

Anyone seen how much the 'upgrade' service will cost?

Apparently you only get 2 hours free per 24 hours...

Still, depending on access requirements and the refreshing and distribution of IPs, it could save some people some money on proxies.

I think it is bang out of order that Swindon Council "loan" this new company £450,000 of Swindon tax payers money to help them out, that is a hell of a risk, and since when did the swindon residents agree to investing in this company

Fair comment. Love the idea of free wifi, but it is the company not the tax payer that should take the burden of risk.

Where does it say they've loaned them money? My understanding was that they'd put up a third of the cash in return for a third of the company, so if it works they'll make money out of it.

What jonny said. It was a joint venture. The council stumped up some of the start-up costs, the company the rest.

Cool, more money to be spent on roundabouts and traffic lights if it's a success. Less money to be spent on roundabouts and traffic lights if it's a failure. Maybe SBC can make a mint and then spend some real money on the town for once.

So if it fails the tax payer is down £4.5m and then the council will be bleating about how they have to cut costs and increase council tax due to losing that money, but isn't the point that they should have consulted taxpayers before using 'our' money.

Where has this money come from, is it being taken from areas that they are proposing cutting ?

If this project was that good why wasn't any multi-national's falling over themselves to get involved with it.

Have they given details on when they expect a return on the money, not as far as I'm aware, and what they have done to ofset the losses, I will give them credit if this takes off and earns a huge profit but at the moment I can't see it there is too much competition for broadband wifi access that bundles in other things like Sky for example to make it cheaper

Where are you getting your figures from? The only figure I've seen is a total investment of £1m, with it implied that SBC have coughed up a third of it. Though it might not even be that much as they're using SBC owned property for the base stations, which would normally cost a company a fair few quid to rent.

Everyone always goes on about Swindon being a shit hole and SBC being fucking useless, then they do something unique and forward thinking like this and there's still people moaning.

What about Ashford Town FC? One described as Middlesex and one as Kent.

I see that the official line is delays mean costs are increasing and they are now looking to phase this in over a larger time frame (up to a year). And also there are likely to be changes to the free model, moving from being time based to being data usage based.

Shame, looked good in theory, but I'm having my doubts we will ever see this finished.

Rikki Hunt in "delivery not up to promise" shock

He's an ideas man, it's not his fault that the real world doesn't operate the same as the world inside his head does.

Good point- maybe he needs a corporate lawyer to get the ideas out of his head to become reality. Maybe someone whose adversaries even admire him. Where is that twat now - the trail went cold after he got thrown out as a non exec director or Royal United hospital bath