Edinburgh’s free public wifi provider rebrands with ‘smart cities’ focus 

The company which provides a free public WiFi service for Edinburgh’s city centre has rebranded with a ‘smart cities’ focus.

As of this week, IntechnologyWiFi has changed its name to IntechnologySmartCities to reflect its expanding expertise in helping local authorities deliver enhanced public services.

The company was founded in Harrogate, North Yorkshire, in 2013 as a provider of free public WiFi to increase digital inclusion and support the growth of the digital economy. 

It has successfully deployed networks in locations as diverse as Edinburgh, Coventry, Southend, Watford, Windsor and Maidenhead and Yorkshire County Cricket Club and grown a base of more than 1.5m registered users. 

The company is bringing its 5G-equivalent WiFi networks to new locations, including Portobello Road Market in London, parts of the Lake District and a cathedral city in the Midlands, in the coming months. 

It is using its network experience to develop Smart City services in partnership with local authorities for the benefit of citizens and businesses. 

These services, which are based on Internet of Things (IoT) sensor technology, are designed to add social value, increase sustainability and protect the environment and include:

-Air quality monitoring tools to help improve public health 
-Social housing tools to ensure properties are safe, healthy and efficient
-Waste management tools to enable more efficient bin collections
-Street lighting tools to boost public safety and reduce energy costs
-Pest control tools to monitor and manage infestations
-Asset tracking tools to monitor valuable inventory. 

IntechnologySmartCities is piloting a number of these services in Coventry in partnership with the city council after rolling out one of the UK’s first city-wide IoT networks.

Its underlying technology allows for readings taken from a range of city-wide sensors to be analysed and processed, giving organisations the informed insight to enhance working practices and decision making at a local level.

Once installed, the company’s network is open for innovators to develop piggyback applications for sectors such as retail, leisure, tourism and automotive.

Public bodies can access these services through Spark, the Crown Commercial Service’s new Technology Innovation Marketplace.

Peter Wilkinson, chairman of IntechnologySmartCities, said: “We started our company in 2013 to provide free public WiFi to citizens and businesses.

“We are proud of our achievements to date which include the UK’s largest free public WiFi service covering Edinburgh’s World Heritage Site, our city-wide IoT network in Coventry, which will be the UK’s first truly connected City of Culture and our work in market towns like Wetherby, where we have installed a 5G-equivalent network. We continue to build our WiFi networks in our mission to bring best-in-class connectivity to towns and cities across the UK.

“We are working closely with an increasing number of forward-looking local authorities to deliver better public services for less money and believe our new name IntechnologySmartCities sends out the right message to the market about our proven capabilities in these emerging technologies.”