Army fires up wi-fi for troops

Troops in Iraq and Afghanistan will get access to a free wi-fi service next year to keep in touch with friends and family.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown said in a statement: "In recognition for the work of all our forces in Iraq and Afghanistan - and to help our troops stay in touch with home - we will provide additional funding from the reserve to double the number of internet terminals and provide free wireless internet for soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan so they can email their families from their living quarters."

The service will be provided by Paradigm – the team in charge of the Ministry of Defence's £2.5bn satellite system - and will be password protected with wireless points put in the living quarters of service personnel; it will operate at speeds of 128Kbps.

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Project Mercury – a programme to increase the number of telephones and hard-wired internet machines in Iraq and Afghanistan - is due to complete in December 2007, with work to install wi-fi access to begin immediately after this project is complete.

The wi-fi network should be completed for Easter 2008, and the final cost of the service is still being calculated.

The wireless internet service will be part of the Operational Welfare package available to all those deployed on operations – which includes the provision of DVD players, radios, television sets and 30 minutes of free phone calls per week to anywhere in the world.