In a ground breaking collaboration of public and private sector services, in 2004 Bristol City Council and Cityspace created the UK's largest outdoor urban wireless broadband network providing public services to residents, visitors and city workers.

Known as a 'Hotzone' (the linking of many 'hotspots'), the 3km wide network was established as a test bed for seamlessly delivering communication and information services across the city within the council's 'Legible City' initiative.

Bristol Legible City is a directive to improve people's understanding and experience of the city through the implementation of identity, information and transportation programmes. Projects include direction signs, on-street information panels with city and area maps, printed walking maps, visitor information identity and arts projects.

As one of the earliest technology partners in the initiative, Cityspace had already established a network of iPlus Points across the city. To date, there are 28 of these terminals delivering free, easy to use information to the diverse population in city with a thriving tourism, business and residential community.

Being highly progressive, eager to adopt new technologies to support the Legible City programme, Bristol City Council was keen to take up wireless broadband when Cityspace, through its StreetNet product, proposed collaborating on a pilot for creating the largest wireless broadband Hotzone in the UK.

In phase one, the goal was to create a seamless, unseen infrastructure throughout the city centre to support the current on street information network at its busiest hubs and add a new medium for information delivery.

The resulting 'Hotzone' provides fast and free access to council information, e-Gov services, a raft of visitor guidance and journey navigation services and free internet access for everyone on the move within the designated pilot area.

The project took four months from inception to completion; a 3km wide 'Hotzone' of wireless broadband signal was created through the deployment of discrete antennae mounted on lampposts.

As a wireless implementation, there was no street disruption or inconvenience to the residents of Bristol. From the council's perspective it proved to be a fast, low cost exercise in providing state-of-the-art public services

Today, anyone with a wireless-enabled device (as all laptops and hand held computers are today), can instantly pick up the 'always-on' signal, whether in the street or in any of the 100-plus restaurants, bars and cafes in the historic city centre.

A specially designed landing page directs users to a 'walled garden' service, providing an easy-to-navigate menu of information and communication options from council services to BBC news online. Free access to the internet is available 24x7 and residents and visitors are visibly benefiting from the service, often seen using laptops and notebooks in the many cafes, bars and restaurants within the 'hospitality Hotzone'.

The Hotzone provides a secure network for council and mobile city workers to work much more efficiently by providing the ability to access their office networks (Virtual Private Networks) whilst on the move. This creates a continuous contact channel, thereby improving reporting, communication and services.

Further, city surveillance and information networks can be deployed and redeployed quickly and easily at vastly lower costs than traditional cabled units. Street applications which operate more efficient within a wireless broadband Hotzone include: CCTV, traffic management and RTPI systems (Real Time Passenger Information).

Additional benefits of the Hotzone to the council include: support of corporate networks for business, offering a secure environment capable of transaction processing, enabling VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) applications, e.g., help points and ultimately offers the fastest and cheapest carrier of data to the public on the market.

'The Bristol Hotzone is truly the UK's first comprehensive outdoor wireless broadband service and acts as a showcase for cities wanting to deploy robust outdoor communication solutions,' said Marc Meyohas, CEO of Cityspace.

'This deployment marks a milestone in the evolution of communication and information technology; taking it out of the home and office environments truly integrating the benefits into people's lives.'

This is the first wide scale wireless initiative to be offered to the general public by a local authority, making this private/public partnership a potential blueprint for urban wireless network initiatives.

As a wholly managed service, Cityspace developed the StreetNet landing page; a walled garden of relevant public services which allows the local authority to offer as much or as little information through this free medium, whilst retaining the ability to offer information from third party provider via a 'white labelled' access system.

Through the involvement of private sector partners, Cityspace is developing methods of sustainability that will allow the network to grow in size to support a greater number of users and applications. These developments are supported through a multitude of applications beyond straight forward internet connectivity and have ensured that StreetNet is a product that can become an important fabric in the creation of a digital City that serves the needs of many differing users, both human and mechanical.