Free town-wide wifi

Swindon will be the first UK town to offer free wireless internet access across the whole town.

Digital City UK Ltd will run the project for Swindon Borough Council which has a 35% share and they intend to roll out the technology in other towns and cities in the UK.

The Swindon project, costing around £1 million will install a "WiFi mesh" offering blanket internet coverage for its 186,000 citizens and presumably a large number of visitors. The system will be free but Digital City hope to make money by selling relatively cheap 20MB links to those who require faster browsing and download speeds.

I wonder what the free speed will be? I suppose so long as it is faster than a 3G card then it will be fast enough for most people and it will be free. Somehow I doubt that access will be unlimited or Swindon could become the illegal download capital of the UK.