Taking wi-fi to South Wales

By Basheera Khan

Wi-fi is the word on everyone's lips at the moment. More than just a buzzword, it's a technology which has been implemented by businesses and home users all over the world and probably on your high street by one or two enterprising burger bars and coffee shops.

In much of Europe and particularly in Wales, it's seen as the deliverance of businesses in the very many areas that fixed line telecoms operators haven't yet reached, providing an alternative method of broadband Internet access which is more affordable than satellite solutions, and for the most part, more reliable.

Swansea-based YR Free Internet Ltd is one of a handful of companies that are trying to beat off the competition by gaining a strategic foothold in the market of WISPs (wireless Internet service providers) before others join the bandwagon.

David Llewellyn-Evans This means hard work, and lots of it - David Llewellyn-Evans, the company director, can attest to that. At the moment, he says, demand for his company's services is so high, and requests for more information so plentiful, that YR Free is looking to recruit more staff just to keep up.

That almost all these requests came through word-of-mouth is a clear indicator of how wide the gap in the market is. Up until fairly recently, the company hadn't been actively marketing its services, as it was waiting for a patent application for its custom management system to go through.

Llewellyn-Evans comments, "The technology we use is based upon your standard Mesh network system, but the beauty of our system is in the actual management of it all, and the way in which bandwidth can be restricted from client to client; we can remotely manage the way it works, and keep track of each client to make sure that they're behaving within the parameters of what we set out with regards to usage. It also allows us to keep everything secure from a distance as well."

"We have two levels of security - one at the hardware level, and the next on the network layer. Security is taken very seriously and we're improving things as we go along; the management system is under constant development and refinement, to incorporate new aspects."

Currently there is one standard business access package, and three packages for home or personal use, all charged according to the speed of the connection delivered. At the heart of the YR Free solution is the YAP - the YR Free Access Point. This is the 'brain' which is attached to the antenna that every customer receives upon installation. This receives and directs the signal, allows the customer the bandwidth they've purchased, and determines how much of the remaining bandwidth to pass on to the next YAP.

Although YR Free's WISP activities have been greeted with great enthusiasm, Llewellyn-Evans says the company's focus is cast wider than just within the broadband delivery industry.

"The fact is that it's the backup and the added value that YR Free can deliver in terms of data management systems; our intention is to use broadband as a springboard. The fact is, we can all have broadband, but [its usefulness] depends on what you do with it."

The company is currently focussing on areas that are well below their assigned BT trigger levels. In 2003, it ran a pilot project amongst a number of home office teleworkers in the Gower, which proved the case for delivering wi-fi broadband to the home. Within the next fortnight, it'll be enabling five commercial clients in the Crofty Industrial Estate in Penclawdd, to rigorously test the business case.

YR Free is a fairly young company, funded primarily through its programming operations. It anticipates it'll need between 200 and 500 customers to secure its financial future, with at least 60% coming from the commercial sector. But Llewellyn-Evans is not at all fazed by this forecast.

The YR Free view is that wireless has been underplayed so far. The high level of expectation that has been raised by BT's marketing, the fact that enabling local exchanges is seen as the simplest way of getting broadband, has taken a lot of the limelight. The low take-up rate on satellite has condemned it to being not the most natural successor to non-traditional access, and NTL, having got over their financial problems are being quite aggressive, but within its own marketplace. That leaves a lot of holes in the Internet access picture.

Llewellyn-Evans says, "We know it's going to work - not everything is falling into place at the same time, or as quickly as we would like, but on the other hand, we have faith in what we're doing. Wireless is a proven means of providing a solution within certain areas and on that basis, there is no reason why it shouldn't succeed."

Contacts

YR Free Internet Ltd
Tel: 01792 644 555
E-mail: mail@yrfree.net
Web: http://www.yrfree.net



Menu: Home, Services, Events, Features, Interviews, Profiles, Reviews, News, Resources, Press