Broadband Wireless Internet Access (BWIA) / WiMAX Stories

Universal Broadband

From inRich.com / Richmond (Virginia) Times-Dispatch - www.inrich.com

Monday, Jul 09, 2007 - 12:01 AM Updated: 09:05 AM

By JEFFREY KELLEY
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER

last of two parts

Wired or wireless?

Once we find the answer to that question, Virginia localities that are underserved with high-speed Internet service may finally jump into the 21st century.

Here's the kicker: Broadband speed comes in many forms, and the answer is different for every town, city and county. Virginia's political and business leaders are learning as much as they can about high-speed Internet access -- who has it, who doesn't and how to make it affordable for all state residents.

"Broadband is important, not just to rural Virginia, but to every part of Virginia. It's similar to what interstates were when we used to have just two-lane and four-lane highways," said state Sen. William C. Wampler Jr., R-Bristol, a leading advocate for statewide high-speed Internet access. "It's as important as when we first brought electricity to the commonwealth."

Broadband access means more than faster Web surfing and quicker music downloads. It could save lives by allowing health-care providers to rapidly exchange medical records over long distances. It could enable more efficient distance learning so schools could offer more online classes. It can make possible more "teleworking," in which employees save time and gas by using their computers to work from home.

Wireless broadband -- transmitted and received from satellites, radio towers or cell phone carriers -- appears to be a key to opening up the state's most rural locales to high-speed Internet service. But it's not as fast as a wired connection from a cable-television provider or fiber-optic lines, which stream data through light.

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Full story at:
http://www.inrich.com/cva/ric/news.apx.-content-articles-RTD-2007-07-09-0115.html

Lead for this story from Google Alerts.

Wi-fi buses drive rural web use

From BBC News - www.bbc.co.uk

By Jason Margolis
Technology correspondent, Boston

Buses equipped with wi-fi are being used to deliver web content to remote rural villages in the developing world.                                      

In rural India and parts of Rwanda, Cambodia and Paraguay, the vehicles offer web content to computers with no internet connection.

The buses and a fleet of motorcycles update their pages in cities before visiting the hard-to-reach communities. As well as offering popular pages, the United Villages project also allows users to request specific information.                              

A small box, with an antenna, onboard the buses and motorcycles communicates with the rural computers.

Local business

In many parts of the developing world it is too expensive to lay the fibres and copper cable to deliver a standard internet connection. Wireless technologies also do not reach many remote places.

The founder of the United Villages initiative Amir Hassan said the company had been set up to give those people in these areas a slice of the web for a fee.

"There's only 0.003% percent of the web that rural India cares about," he told BBC News.

"They want to know the cricket scores, they want to see the new Aishwarya Rai photos, and they want to hear a sample of the latest Bollywood tunes."

The village computer was often in the local store, he added.

Every time the wi-fi bus rolled by the village - up to six times a day - the pages were updated, he said.

Full story at:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6506193.stm

(Lead for this story from Dewayne Hendricks posting to the Dewayne-net mailing list.)

Wireless Broadband Grants Announced By N.H.

From Foster's Online - www.fosters.com

Saturday, March 24, 2007

Wireless broadband grants announced by N.H.

The New Hampshire Division of Economic Development's Telecommunications Advisory Board has unveiled a $100,000 matching grant initiative to stimulate and support wireless broadband public/private projects throughout the state.

"This is good news for the state of New Hampshire," said Gov. John Lynch. "This will help us reach our goal of ensuring there is broadband connectivity throughout the state, especially in the North Country and the western part of New Hampshire."

Full story at:
http://www.fosters.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070324/FOSTERS01/103240184

(Lead for this story from Dawn DiPietro posting to the isp-wireless mailing list.)