City to lead hi-tech revolution

From the archive, first published Wednesday 12th Apr 2006.

Bradford is poised to lead England into an internet revolution and turn the city centre into West Yorkshire's biggest office space.

It could see workers browsing the internet on their laptops from Centenary Square or e-mailing friends from the streets of Little Germany.

Phone giant BT has chosen the district as a testbed for a new kind of technology called Wi-Fi that provides high-speed outdoor computer links.

Bradford Council has confirmed the talks are under way and it must now decide whether to allow the network of mini transmitters to be installed on top of city centre lamp-posts.

Through them computer and mobile phones users could get everything from live video-conferences to super-fast photo and music downloads.

Until now so-called internet `hot-spots' have been confined to coffee shops and airport lounges.

If the Bradford scheme gets the go-ahead it will be only the second city in the UK, behind Cardiff, to trial the technology over a wider area.

Ten of the mobile-phone-sized transmitters over a square kilometre would give the same coverage as a traditional phone mast and serve all phone networks.

Both BT and Bradford Council believe there are no radiation risks from the technology.

A BT spokesman said: "We are interested in working with Bradford Council to develop a network of unobtrusive and discreet wireless antennae starting with the city centre but potentially stretching out to other areas."

The company believes entrepreneurs will soon expect all cities to have wireless computer networks.

The spokesman added: "The business sector of the sort that is emerging in Bradford is that which we would expect to take advantage of this technology."

Johnathon Low, business development manager at the Little Germany web development company Webmotion, said: "Wi-Fi covers everything from being on the web to internet phonecalls - you can do a whole lot with this kind of system."

He raised some concerns about on-line security but he said Bradford was an ideal location.

He said: "You have the regeneration work going on here and if you get on board with something like this early you get a high profile.

"There is no reason why this cannot work. I have not been in this industry too many years, but I am excited by what we are going to be able to do."

Mike Cartwright, Bradford chamber of commerce's policy and representation executive, said: "As well as directly aiding business in the city through laptop facilities and so on, it could help tourists and others on the move and we look forward to hearing more about it."

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