Over 200 rural villages in India's Maharashtra state have formed a wireless Internet cooperative, establishing 50 wi-fi "hotspots" in their communities. The co-op has managed to raise more than $400,000 (RS20 million) to expand the reach of wireless Internet locally. Maharashtra is not alone, however; communities across rural India have begun embracing wi-fi, recently legalized by India's government. At a recent technology conference in Bangalore, India, speakers suggested that these rural communities were actually ahead of the curve in terms of wi-fi deployment when compared to their urban Indian counterparts. Given the lack of communications infrastructure in much of rural India, wi-fi is quickly filling a niche as more villages desire to go online. Some Indian companies, though, have invested in deploying fiber optic lines to rural areas, but much of this bandwidth is unused; experts suggest that these companies should partner with communities to further expand "last mile" Internet connectivity throughout rural India. SOURCE: InfoChange India; AUTHOR: The Hindu Newspaper
simon
-- www.simonwoodside.com -- 99% Devil, 1% Angel
-- general wireless list, a bawug thing <http://www.bawug.org/> [un]subscribe: http://lists.bawug.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless
