[GNUz] The Future of Community Wireless

[Don Gould]

Rik Tindall wrote:

> There's also the point of FOSS serving, offering valuable but free 
> content - effectively sharing scarce bandwidth by redistributing 
> downloads. 


Interesting point there... many Au isp plans offer access to good floss 
without counting towards your data cap.  Telstra's BigPond are actually 
one of the better players in this area.

> A potential alternative to broadband for the low-waged of the *nix 
> community, at least. 

Actually the low-waged of any community are a very important target for 
community networks.

I personally have seen the positive impact of internet on the low-waged 
to educate and push them into better employment.

Internet also builds community.  IRC and other chat tools are a critical 
tool for mothers at home to survive the bordom and keep their skills up.

These values are being discounted.

> Wealthier/M$ users would never see the same value in it tho. Hence 
> real community development - rather than of a market - is central to 
> the project.
>
Now we're talking about education.  This is why I stepped up to look 
after the Oxford group.  There are reasons why wealtherier/M$ users 
should be attracted to community networking. 

* Fostors more activitiy in the IT space - good, as we have more and 
more people wanting to work in this space.
* Fosters product and service education in your local community.  
Nothing beats the internet as a tool for researching a product and 
service.  $1000 gives you half a business card in next years yellow 
pages.  What would you get for $1000 on the net (answer: full cms driven 
system, shopping cart, forums, secure https site, hosted for 3 years).
* Fosters inovation and thinking

I suggest that the comments being made in the first post are as much FUD 
as anyting else.

Cheers Don