Smart car helps people connect in Coventry town centre

The West Midlands Mobile and Wireless (WMMW) project is encouraging Coventrians, tourists and students to use its Smart car to connect to the internet.

Parked outside the cathedral, the Smart car has been turned into a wireless hotspot by a team at Coventry University based at the Coventry Technology Park. A wireless hotspot allows users to surf the internet from their mobile phones, PDAs and laptops by connecting via an access point which in this case is the smart car.

From their mobiles, local residents can send/download emails whilst on the move, in a bar or restaurant, while visitors to the city centre looking for information on Coventry’s tourist attractions, shopping or entertainment can connect to the internet to find out what the city has to offer. They just need to be within 100 meters from the car.

Coventry University is one of five West Midlands universities collaborating on this Advantage West Midlands ICT Cluster project which encourages small and medium sized businesses to use mobile technology to grow their businesses. New technologies such as VOIP provide cheap telephone calls over the internet and RFID places a chip into a document or product so that it can be tracked easily.

The Smart car is also used as a mobile workstation with a built in PC and server which can link into any wireless network. Wherever it is it can access the internet via the integrated GPRS satellite. The car also has a VOIP system built in to allow calls to be made via the wireless network to any landline or broadband user for free.

The WMMW ICT Cluster project has also developed a wireless network in Coventry City Centre called GodivaNet. This mainly covers the area inside the city centre ring road which allows West Midlands Mobile and Wireless to offer many services to the local business, tourists and also students.

Jay Gohil, Senior Project Officer, West Midlands Mobile and Wireless
said: ‘At the present moment we are expanding and improving this network which is due to be completed by mid April. The Smart car will mainly work within this network to showcase the products and services we have produced and those that are currently available.’

-ENDS-

Notes to Editors:
The ICT Cluster in one of 13 clusters established by Advantage West Midlands as part of an economic development strategy. These clusters have been chosen on the basis of their current strength in the region and their potential to create jobs and economic growth.

The ICT Cluster hosts the Annual West Midlands ICT Cluster Conference and Awards (22 November 2007).

Advantage West Midlands is one of nine Regional Development Agencies in England whose role is to provide leadership and action to create more, better jobs and in improve the quality of life for all in the West Midlands.

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