I received an email from Octavio Herrara, who is attempting to gather resources and build a community based wi-fi network in Cali, Columbia. His effort is impressive, and the grassroots network he’s trying to build to serve low- and middle-income families in his town is important.
bq. My name is Octavio Herrera and I am part of a initiative in Cali, Colombia (South America) to build an open wireless network and due to the fact that you develop model to build wireless networks in low income housing we are interested in some advide or information you can provide about this concern, we have reviewed to concept about organizing in a cooperative like an “example in the netherlands”:1 and we found that in our community mainly composed by low to mid income houses we can build a public access wireless network based on this principle.
bq. well, this initiative is just begining, supported mainly by the desire to have wireless internet access for the community of cali, colombia, due to the lack of broadband internet connections here, so a small group of people (mainly young academics) are interested in building a wireless network, not just to provide broadband internet access, but just to share resources, anyway we are organizing a cooperative and creating a strategic plan to get resources to build the network but we need all the help and advice we can get from people around the globe who already have been in this same situation or at least have experience building this kind of network.
bq. Thanks again and any help you can provide will be gratefuly received.
If you are interested in helping him out, drop me a line and I’ll put you in touch with him.
[1]http://www.smartcommunity.nl/news/broadband_news/consumer_owned_cooperative_model_proves_to_be_a_success_in_nuenen_the_netherlands
Filed under: Community Wireless, International
Hi Dana,
My name is Gustavo I am the Corporate Development Director for Synesis IT , We are a leading IT company based out of Wall Street, currently we help mostly financial firms leverage their current infrastructure to gain best performace, most of the times we will recommend and implement new solutions for them. This in the end to help them save money , gain best ROI, May seem out of scope for the Cali project, but we are also a mobile solutions company, i.e CITIRX , remote access solutions., We are setting up an office in Colombia as well . I’d like to talk to you more and find out what kind of exposure this would get us as a company, the end result we help each other,
best Regards,
Gustavo