London's Soho to be bathed in Wi-Fi: Several articles, such as this one, report on the plan for London's City of Westminster Council to spend a pile of money to become a Wi-Fi provider for public safety and private use. Coincidentally, this morning's New York Times had a story about the same council aggressively enforcing anti-dance rules in clubs without the right permit. Apparently, the noise enforcement mentioned in the Register article is quite severe because of the combination of trendy clubs and wealthy homeowners. Keep that darned racket down!
Also, England is a big deployer of CCTV (closed circuit television): cameras are practically everywhere, being monitored for lawless behavior. Opinions vary on whether this is a good thing (it reduces crime, but only where it's being observed) or a bad thing (police state). The press release sent out from the council quoted the councilor whose idea this is as saying, For example, we could expand our CCTV coverage at a fraction of the current cost without the need for traditional connections. Not only that but officers would be able have access to CCTV and other data observation and collection points.
CCTV over wifi- not such a good idea- risks of congestion caused by bandwidth-hungry hi res video, and deial of service attacks using simple 2.4Ghz transmitters.
More detail at http://www.planetmikeblog.blogspot.com/2003_04_01_planetmikeblog_archive.html#200220740