Author: simon
Wightcable WiMax: Coming To Ventnor
Monday, 17th March, 2008 at 5:55 pm, Isle of Wight
WiWhat? WiMax. Sounds great doesn’t it? It’s Wi … but to the Max. Can’t get better than that, not since Mega dropped from most people’s vocab.
What WiMAx actually gives is the ability to transfer large globs of data, wirelessly. Like WiFi … but Max-ed. It’s called IEEE 802.16 to those who like that sort of thing.
Wightcable — they of the old cable TV fame — bid for, and won the license for the Island
Looking at the recent planning applications, it’s clear that Wightcable are being very serious about this.
This isn’t an application that been knocked together the morning before it was sent it. They’ve clearly commissioned loads of research on this, including where the best place to locate the aerial and equipment to serve Ventnor the best. Knights Court was nominated.
Once up and running, they’ll be able to provide telephone, Internet and TV - all wirelessly. No more being limited by who they can run a physical cable to.
You’ll need special equipment to connect to it, but the increase in potential customers will be considerable. Each transmitter has a 1-2Km range.
A while back the Town council OK’d the planning permission for it - not clear if they knew it was WiMax or thought it was another mobile phone aerial. It’s just got to go through final stages of planning and they’ll be able to get started.
With a company called WightCable getting into delivering wirelessly - you’d assume they’ll be changing their name soon, to something more illustrative - something like WightMax?
Email This Story To A Friend
March 17th, 2008 at 7:36 pm
Simon. Stop dribbling at the prospect of all this technology coming to little ole Ventnor. Will I be able to get more than the 4 terrestrial channels without having to wait until 2012 or having a dustbin lid screwed to my house?
March 17th, 2008 at 10:41 pm
I am excited about it, but are currently holding back from dribbling : )
Which channels are available are down to the deals/packages that WightCable offer. They may do Video on Demand (VoD) as well.
March 18th, 2008 at 8:37 am
Let’s hope their WiMax is more reliable than their own server which currently (18/3 0840) says:
* ns1.wightcable.net returned (SERVFAIL)
* ns2.wightcable.net returned (SERVFAIL)
May 3rd, 2008 (2 weeks ago) at 1:05 pm
Does anyone know if wroxall will be covered by this wimax service?
May 4th, 2008 (1 weeks ago) at 8:57 pm
They have been leafleting around Merstone, and as I live in Arreton (where some of the village can’t get broadband because they’re just too far from both Shanklin and Newport exchanges) I emailed them for more info. Deafening silence so far…