Hello Nottingham City Council,
First let me say how proud I am to live in Nottingham and that it has been voted as the least car dependent city in England. It is a lovely city to live in and there are many great things going on that enhance the quality of my family’s life. Thank you.
However a few improvements could be made. One of these would be free city wide WiFi, nothing amazing, just making sure that all city residents, businesses and visitors have access to the internet. As you already know it is proven that countries that have better education and access to sources of knowledge perform better than societies with out. Free WiFi would enable all homes with a computer to have access to knowledge. Children would be able to research the internet for their school work. Adults would be able to source information on services, competitive prices and have access to online banking for example.
Business in the city would flourish. The wireless net work enabling all business to build cheap/free websites, use social media and in the case of cafes provide work space for the continuing boom in independent working.
This would attract further investment in to the city for larger businesses looking to move out of the over crowded and expensive capitol and in to lower over head business spaces. This would provided further jobs and income generation in to the city.
It wouldn’t be expensive and a charge for higher speed services could be made. This free WiFi would enable Nottingham to be one of the first true digital cities in England and further enhance the already great quality of life.
Thank you
I’ve sent the above as an email to Nottingham City Council
Guerilla Bass 
Great letter, hope you get a response in some shape or form.
Wasn’t free city-wide wifi access something http://www.connectednottingham.org.uk/ started out with (although they’re more B2B now though)?
Nice thinking, we like the sound of this!
Thank you, I think it would enhance an already great city:)
Hey Paul, thank you for your comment. Yes I belive they did, but as a casual observer they seem to have stopped now? Is this right, may be some thing to do with EMDA going?
I’m not sure, you know as much as I do. I think it started of with the idea of city businesses opening up their access points (or at least creating an safe area on the and an allocation of bandwidth for the public to use), but as you can imagine I think the security implications would put most businesses off.
Again, it looks like their main focus is B2B connections, rather than wireless connection.
Its a shame as that would have been great. I often seek out places that have free wifi (cafes/bars) to become my virtual office.
I suspect the Digital Economy Act will put many businesses off from offering free services as well.
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We have free city wide WIFI here in Ponca City, Oklahoma USA. The key selling point was our electric and water meters use the wifi to report usage eliminating meter readers, vehicles, fuel, ect……. It actually saves the city money to provide it, and the connection per user is around 1MB so fast enough for causal usage. If you approach it as a money saving tool for the city you will have better odds. Our system is dual band dual SSID and law enforcement, fire, and ambulance uses it also, with their traffic having priority and being on the hidden secure SSID.