Monday, August 26, 2013

Greek community creates an off-the-grid Internet...

In an effort to buck the expensive rates of unreliable corporate telecom companies, a community in Athens, Greece has created its own private Internet.

Built from a network of wireless rooftop antennas, the Athens Wireless Metropolitan Network (AWMN) now has more than 1,000 members. Data moves “through” the AWMN mesh up to 30 times faster than it does on the telecom-provided Internet.

According to Mother Jones, this off-the-grid community has become so popular in Athens and on nearby islands that it has developed its own Craigslist-esque classifieds service as well as blogs and an internal search engine.

"It's like a whole other web," AWMN user Joseph Bonicioli told the magazine. "It's our network, but it's also a playground."

 The AWMN began in 2002 in response to the poor Internet service provided by traditional telecommunications companies in Athens. However, the past few years have illustrated another use for these citizen-run meshes: preserving the democratic values of the Internet. Full story...

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