WiMax comes to London

July 27, 2005

Wireless service provider Libera says it will deliver a symmetric 2Mbit/s WiMax broadband service for £295 per month to businesses in central London by the autumn.

The service will compete with leased lines from fixed telecom providers like BT and Cable & Wireless, but will use wireless rooftop antennae to connect into backhaul links from Colt Telecom, Fibernet and Layer 3 Communications.

Robert Condon, Libera chief executive, said the WiMax access package should expand to greater London and then to other major UK cities as demand grows, and could offer firms resilient WAN links with multiple backup paths.

The service will initially transmit signals in the 5.8GHz radio frequency waveband over distances of 3km to 4km. But it could eventually deliver optimum quality of service (QoS) supporting voice and video traffic between offices up to 5km to 6km apart if current legislation restricting the power output of transmissions to 2W is relaxed.