Pipex steps up UK WiMAX trials

UK ISP Pipex Wireless is gearing up for its second commercial trial of WiMAX services, over three sites in the Leamington Spa and Warwick areas of the UK.

In partnership with National Grid Wireless, Warwick District Council and Intel, the service provider will be trialling leased line replacement, VoIP and dedicated broadband.

Pipex Wireless intends to initially deliver trial services to Warwick District Council and subsequently approach businesses and home-users in the Warwick area. The trial network will be commissioned in the second quarter and will run for six months. Other towns and cities are planned for deployment later in 2007.

The service provider delivered its first end to end WiMAX services in Milton Keynes in December. The company will start targeting volume customers towards the end of this month.

Pipex Wireless is a joint venture between the Pipex ISP and Intel and is deploying WiMAX in the 3.6GHz spectrum in partnership with kit supplier Airspan Networks.

Earlier this week, the fixed line broadband unit of Pipex announced that revenues for 2006 increased by 122 per cent year on year, principally due to the acquisition of Homecall in March, the Bulldog customer base in September and Toucan in October.

At the end of December the group had 570,000 broadband customers.