r> RALEIGH, NC/EXETER, UK, May 17 - Dundee today moved a step closer to becoming Scotland's city of wireless innovation, with the announcement of a partnership between the University of Abertay Dundee and LastMile Communications, the British company pioneering a wireless delivery platform using WiFi.
Under the agreement, the Abertay campus will become a test bed for LastMile's state-of-the-art node-based wireless information system. The technology offers end user-focused content to mobile devices on demand, and tailored precisely to their location.
Abertay's School of Computing and Creative Technologies will provide the systems expertise, and students will have the opportunity to be involved in the system's interface design, as well as developing a number of games which can be played across the city over the network.
Lachlan MacKinnon, Professor of Information & Knowledge Engineering at Abertay commented, "Through this project, we are aiming to take the best elements of both local and online communities, giving local residents access to online information which is both relevant and of interest to them.
"For Abertay, being involved with this leading-edge technology has obvious synergies with our development of new degree courses and research interests in smart systems, and with our new campus developments in innovative teaching space and upmarket new student residences," he added.
"Personalised and local information is the most popular content on the internet today, as users try to sieve through the plethora of websites to find the answers to what they want to know," added Antony Abell, CEO, LastMile Communications. "Dundee has developed a reputation for innovation, and our technology has the potential to provide a backbone for the delivery of local services and information well into the future."
LastMile has designed a node-based content delivery platform, which allows information to be stored and processed at the edge of the network, rather than at the centre as with most conventional networks. Because of this, it reduces the need for unnecessary network traffic by putting processing and information within the network itself, enabling users to access information more quickly and make existing networks more efficient.
Initial trials are expected to take place over the next six months.
About LastMile Communications (http://www.lastmilecoms.com)
LastMile Communications is a British company pioneering a secure, edge of network wireless content delivery solution that helps supply rich media, voice and data to business and residential customers. Its unique node-based hardware system helps create wireless networks within fixed geographical locations, such as communities or office parks. By storing content locally on nodes, users can access or download information at speeds up to four times greater than that of cellular or other mobile networks. The result is low-cost, high performance wireless content delivery for service providers, municipalities and users across many industries. LastMile has offices located in both Exeter and London in the United Kingdom, as well as in Raleigh, North Carolina, United States.
About The University of Abertay Dundee
The University of Abertay Dundee is one of Scotland's modern industrial universities, with a century-old tradition of meeting the educational and knowledge needs of industry, commerce and the professions while pursuing research of genuine excellence in the fields of computing and creative technologies, environmental science, business and management, and social and health sciences. Smart technologies such as the LastMile technology are a growing area of interest at Abertay in terms of both applied research and teaching. The university's School of Computing and Creative Technologies is planning to launch brand new honours and postgraduate degrees in Smart Systems this autumn, designed to tackle national skills shortages in the industries producing the sophisticated technology of tomorrow.