The first regional workshop on capacity building in community wireless networking will take place between July 16 and 21 in the Huaral City of Peru. Organised by APC members, APC and partners, 29 people – ten of which are women – from Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Venezuela and Bolivia will meet with the objective of extending the community wireless connectivity model to the Andean zone. Their names have recently been announced.

“This is a technology that works, a proven technology, and what it needs is a bit more promotion,” said Ermanno Pietrosemoli just days after reaching a new wireless connection record of 382 kilometres. The president of Venezuelan APC member EsLaRed spoke with APCNews by conference call about this low-cost solution that is impacting the world’s rural communities.

With about 90 active volunteers over the years, Île Sans Fil now has managed to install some 130 hotspots all around town, using a nice piece of software. Wifidog is an open source solution designed primarily for wireless community groups, it is now in use in more than 36 locations, including at the municipality of Rosario (Argentina), the Tegucigalpa technical university (Honduras) or the Hull libraries (United Kingdom). Can Wifidog work in the developing world? Interview with the key figure of the group, Michael Lenczner.

Fifty-three percent of participants to wireless internet trainings in Africa have installed one or more wireless networks since the training. This is what a survey about the impact of the APC-led ‘Capacity Building for Community Wireless Connectivity in Africa’ project reveals.

The Djurslands International Institute of Rural Wireless Broadband (DIIRWB) is not joking about free information infrastructures. Its advocates study and plan projects, and then go out in the open field to help to start up wireless networks. But before antennas are glued to barns and receivers taped to posts, summer camp participants convened in rural Denmark for some fresh air. APCNews talked to one of them.

Most internet access relies on the availability of a reliable fixed telephone line and that can be a struggle to find in many parts of rural Africa. Wireless technology can by-pass the fixed-line problem. APC’s Anna Feldman has just returned from a wireless training workshop on Zanzibar where thirty five trainees learned how to set up their own connections and eventually – using antennas made out of recycled tin cans – were able to wirelessly connect an atol two kilometres across the sea from the workshop venue.