Pipex Communications is one of only two holders of a national WiMAX license in the UK, the other license holder being Pacific Century CyberWorks Ltd, the largest telecoms operator in Hong Kong.
In April this year, the Stoke Mandeville, UK-based ISP formed a joint venture known as Pipex Wireless after Intel Capital invested $25m in the venture. Pipex transferred its entire 3.6GHz UK spectrum license to Pipex Wireless, which aims to offer a broadband service using 802.16d fixed WiMAX (Wireless Interoperability for Microwave Access) in London and Manchester sometime in 2007. It previously said that it eventually hopes to roll it out to about 50 of the most densely populated areas of the UK.
However, it now seems that Milton Keynes could be one of the first British towns to get a high-speed wireless WiMAX network. The Buckinghamshire town is perhaps better known for its concrete cows, and by UK standards is relatively modern after it was constructed in the 1970s.
Indeed, it is considered one of the UK’s fastest growing towns, with a thriving business community and an excellent road network. However, parts of the town cannot receive fixed-line broadband as its telecoms infrastructure was built using aluminum rather than copper cables. The news that Milton Keynes could soon be hosting a WiMAX network seems to have surprised officials at Pipex.
It’s early days to be talking about the Milton Keynes WiMAX trial, said Graham Currier, Business Development Director at Pipex Wireless. We are engaged in radio and operations planning and hope to be able to provide more detail in September as we commence network deployment.
Last week, Pipex Wireless said that a performance trial in Stratford-upon-Avon, UK, saw particularly impressive uplink speeds. When using an internal antenna, the trail revealed speeds in excess of 2Mbps for a house 1.2 kilometers away from a base station. However, when an external antenna is used, speeds of 10Mbps down and 9Mbps up were achieved.
When the external antenna was used, longer range tests shows that it could achieve 6Mbps down and 4Mbps up when 6 kilometers away from the base station.
WiMAX has long been touted as a rival to Wi-Fi, as well as 3G or HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access) offered by mobile operators. Recently US mobile operator Sprint Nextel Corp said it would spend almost $3bn building the first nationwide mobile WiMax data network in the US, in tandem with Intel Corp, Motorola Inc and Samsung Corp.
