Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Haringey to Agree High Street Wifi Deal Next Week
Haringey is set to get more public high street wifi in a deal to be agreed next week.
Over 10 million Britons log on to high street Wifi every week and Londoners are the most frequent users of the service with almost half of us making use of it at least once a week.
Against this background Haringey is to approve its own high street wifi deal next Wednesday, 21st August.
The deal will see Wi-Fi hotspots positioned in busy high street locations across the borough, making use of council owned infrastructure, including lamp posts, rooftops and CCTV cameras.
The Council participated in a procurement collaboration between eight London boroughs led by the London Borough of Camden. The deal selected communications infrastructure and media services company Arqiva as the provider and opened the way for each council to negotiate the details of deal individually.
According to the Haringey Council Report, our deal will mean "limited free public wifi in high footfall areas". I was told a few months back that Harringay's high street will be covered. If the deal is similar to the one done by Camden, this will most likely mean 30 minutes free wifi a day.
Arqiva will derive a revenue from the ten year deal through advertising banners on the free wifi sites and the wholesale selling of wifi capacity to other mobile network operators.
For our part, we the ratepayers will receive just under half a million pounds over the lifetime of the deal.
Whilst it's no doubt welcome that Haringey is signing this contract, I'm not thrilled at having more advertising festooning our high streets and wonder to what extent this part of the deal was inevitable.
Advertising or not, clearly someone in the borough is unhappy about the deal. The following notice from an unknown source is doing the rounds on local email networks:
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by james walsh on
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May i ask at what frequency level the signal will be. Will you be able to say, download a movie, or will it only allow you to check emails etc ?
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Permalink Reply by Marek on
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At this moment it is quite difficult to say if it is good or bad and what is the real purpose of this 30-minutes per day free wi-fi. How many wi-fi points will be around Haringey and what will be their locations. We will see in practice.
No heave usage of the internet for sure and only one basic question - what about the security of this connection if no password is necessary for this connection. Every cafe and restaurant giving free wi-fi at least have their password so I am really afraid of hacking our devices and potential infections.
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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James, I suspect that the technical stuff will be covered in the "exempt" parts of the report. Though why not try emailing and asking? You might get a prompt, straightforward, clear answer.
There are aspects which, quite reasonably, companies would expect to be held back for sound commercial reasons. Although in Haringey - like many organisations - the problem is knowing how far commercial confidentiality is used validly. It seems to me that secrecy has become the default position of a local council which prefers to keep its residents in the dark as far as possible.
Marek, I'm not aware that anyone else has raised the security issue with Haringey. Though it seems unlikely this was not considered by at least some of the other boroughs. As with James' query, you might want to email the Council and ask about it.
Like Hugh I'm dubious about increasing the use of Council lampposts etc for advertising. The figure of £478,000 is given as Haringey's minimum income from the deal. However this doesn't sound quite so rosy averaged over ten years as £48k p.a. (And presumably they'd need to deduct the existing income from sale of lamppost advertising.)
One aspect which bothers me is the way that any doubts and need for consultation seem to have been brushed aside. The implication is that wi-fi paid for by advertising is unambiguously a very good thing.
Cllr Joe Goldberg is quoted on the council's website saying that it's "modern" and "fit for the future".
“Bringing free wifi will make Haringey’s high streets more modern and competitive, encouraging residents to shop locally by giving them fingertip-access to more information about what is available in their community.”
Like the rest of his quote this is just PR fluff.
One issue for me is that encouraging residents to shop locally near our home in High Road Tottenham would need a little more than free wi-fi. For example, I'd want to see more effective measures to tackle dumped rubbish; and to prevent traders stacking goods on narrow pavements. There also needs to be a complete rethink on parking charges.
(Tottenham Hale ward councillor)
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