Espresso Productions is participating in the live trials of a new generation of xDSL and 100mbit services supporting a superfast city network - in a project run by the University of East Anglia's Centre for Applied Research in Education (CARE).
The network trials are being launched at the 'Net Success' conference hosted by CARE on July 19-21. Espresso services on the live network will include Espresso for Primary Schools, example services for libraries and a range of local interactive resources, applications and templates for galleries, museums and other public institutions.
Espresso for Schools to be demonstrated over this super fast City Plus Metropolitan Area Network
Espresso Productions is participating in a blueprint for a super-fast computer network linking citizens and businesses in a regional or local area.
The project is being run by the University of East Anglia's Centre for Applied Research in Education (CARE) and will be launched at the 'Net Success' conference in Norwich hosted by CARE on July 19-21.
The trial 'City-Plus' Metropolitan Area Network will feature high-speed communications and data connections to schools, GPs and small businesses. It will use xDSL and 100mbit services, operating at speeds of up to 10 times faster than ISDN, which is currently the fastest available to ordinary users. This will enable applications like videoconferencing to be run at costs affordable to individuals and small organisations.
Professor John Schostak, Director of CARE, says: "The key to all this is the cost, as we are concerned that all citizens should have access to these types of networks, and the message we want to get across is that you can obtain very high speed networking at relatively low cost.
"There are two aspects to the creation of a city network: one is the technical side, and the other is the human side - how does one create the kinds of applications and networks that are appropriate for how people actually work and what they need?"
Applications to be woven into the Norwich network include Espresso for Schools and several other broadband Espresso productions, under the "Your Espresso" range including localised applications and templates for libraries, museums and galleries.
Tony Bowden, Managing Director of Espresso, says: "We are pleased to be supporting CARE in this exciting project, which will see Espresso content flowing through this state of the art broadband terrestrial network.
Other applications on the network include policing and land management - all areas that have already made moves to use large-scale networking to provide services online.
For citizens, local networks would take the guesswork out of finding local services, Schostak says. With information organised into a directory format and everything based locally, you would know that if you want to find a doctor in Norwich you will not, as happened to him recently using a web search engine, be directed to a doctor in Norwich USA.
The networks could feature high-speed external connections as well, using satellite technology, he says.
The conference is the start of a year-long campaign to get organisations of all kinds interested in setting up city networks across the UK. Schostak says that local network projects need to be consortia-based, alliances between public and private sector bodies. "At the moment the picture is fragmented, with the sectors not working together properly. The difficulty is in getting different types of organisation to hold a dialogue and work towards a network with mutual benefits. There needs to be a core group of bodies that see the network as their main strategy for their region or city".
He says universities, councils and other public sector bodies are a natural starting point. But each region or locality has different needs, for example rural areas will have completely different networking needs to cities, so each will need a different group of organisations to meet those needs.
Although public sector bodies are likely to lead the creation of local high-speed networks, businesses will stand to gain a great deal as well, as they will be able to reach their customers more easily, and vice versa. "The growth of e-commerce is hindered because Internet businesses can't reach their customers effectively - the UK has Europe's largest e-commerce market but has the smallest market penetration".
Some other cities including Manchester and Bristol have already linked some organisations with broadband technology, but Norwich is aiming to be the first to introduce a comprehensive city wide network. It is planned to keep this networking infrastructure operational at CARE to allow public sector service developers to use it for future trials and workshops.
For more information see:
http://www.open.gov.uk/km
For further press information or paper versions of this release please contact:
Espresso Marketing, Riverside Studios, Crisp Road, Hammersmith, W6 9RL
Tel: +44(0)20 8237 1200
Fax: +44(0)20 8237 1201
Email: info@espresso.co.uk
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