Wi-Fi hotspots could be appearing in lamp posts, traffic lights and other pieces of street furniture across the UK if government plans go ahead, reports cnet.co.uk.
As part of the government’s Urban Broadband Fund, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) can spend £150 million to create super-connected cities with 80Mbps internet connections or faster.
One of the options available under the scheme is to install hotspots in street furniture: lamp posts, traffic lights, benches, bins and CCTV cameras to name but a few.
Internet service providers could install Wi-Fi in such places and then collect money from users, ‘whether from people paying to log in or from public money’.
However, it is not known whether council tax money would go indirectly into the pockets of ISPs or not.
Public Wi-Fi hotspots could also be added to other areas of interest such as libraries, museums, council offices and public transport, adds recombu.com.
The government also intends to spend some of the cash on delivering broadband ‘vouchers’ to small businesses. These vouchers will cover some of the cost of having fibre-broadband installed, which could be useful for small enterprises and start-ups.
The move follows a warning by the National Audit Office, which admitted that the government’s scheme to bring speedy broadband to rural parts of the UK is running two years late.
