UK's Manchester residents set to get Freedom4's WiMax

Freedom4 are bringing WiMax to the masses in Manchester, one of the UK’s biggest cities as outlined in this story I was reading. I’m excited at the possibilities with WiMax — particularly when it comes to mobile and laptop connectivity across a wide local area. I like the idea of being able to stay connected with my laptop across London, for example, whether I’m in a cafe, park or office. Now it’s certainly possible with 3G data, but I’d like to see how WiMax performs.

Freedom4 is hoping to bring the service to over 250,000 SMEs (and, I imagine, geeky individuals who want to try it out) by the end of the year.

Wireless broadband has been a long time coming to Manchester. But service provider Freedom4 is now preparing for a marketing push and roll-out of coverage that should see its WiMax service available across the city centre.

It’s been over two years since internet service provider Pipex and Intel Capital, the investment wing of the US IT giant, promised to deploy wireless broadband across Manchester and London by 2007. The Pipex group has since been dismantled, but the service project is being continued by two former divisions, Freedom4 and Vialtus.

I think a visit to Manchester is called-for, eh?