While on a study tour to Netherlands, I was taken in as an apprentice by Peter Kremer and his family with an objective of learning the insides of how his 9.1km WiFi link supplying Internet in the little town of baard, friesland works! From the insides of the old church building occupying the centre of baard, with squeaky stairs, he diligently climbs as he delivers his first lesson - a WiFi enthusiast must never be afraid of height! From the moment I met him while at a Wifi summer camp in Leiden; passion, enthusiasm and determination to spread the reach of the Internet via WiFi was much of what was reflected in whatever he did especially looking at the Wifi competitions at the camp. It’s definitely that passion and drive now taking him around to neighbouring towns and restaurants with the sole aim of making the Internet easily accessible and available for guests and tourists. His enthusiasm has got him voted for the best fonero of the month! It’s all posted here on the fon website
Now in his own words...
Top Fonero of the Month
Peter Kremer is a FONhero in our FON Support Community and is working to install FON Spots in the 29 villages that make up the Littenseradiel municipality in Friesland, the Netherlands.
“My goal is to install at least one FON Spot in every one of the 29 villages and in all of their recreational facilities. I believe a FON Spot is the perfect way to begin offering wireless internet connection to these areas. FON Spots are inexpensive, require low maintenance, and are user friendly. We also have an increase in tourism in the area, and I want to make it easy for our guests to get online this summer. Installing the first 10 FON Spots went a bit slowly, but now people are getting familiar with the system and we’re moving quite fast. Campsites, cafés, restaurants, hotels, gas stations, community centers and village harbours -- they are all on my list, and half of the work is already done.”
-- Peter Kremer
:-) John
Bringing Internet access to remote communities and making it inexpensive, accessible and easy to maintain is great. However to my mind I prefer really free wireless freifunk networks in contrast to data collecting companies like fon. I prefer not to be dependent on one company. My dream are wireless networks that act as a public space controlled by the public not by companies - just like a public street in contrast to a shopping mall. It is a question of liberty. Hope we can work together and achieve this goal together. The constant work of the freifunk community all over the world is a fantastic start for doing just that. Would be great to meet one time in person to discuss about that John.. All the best!
ReplyDelete@Mario,
ReplyDeleteI admire the work of Freifunk a lot, and would rather make a mesh network than the Fon thing I do now. But the wide open country I live in is not a suitable space for a mesh network. Further more I cope with a lack of young tweakers en hackers to do their share in the work. So for that I stick to the one village I live in. This network i keep alive for 4 years now. The work I do for Fon gives me the possibility to talk to people and influence the way they think about offering wifi to there guests. Usually we add a free system as well. Sorry to disappoint you Mario, but sometimes you have to go for second best to chance the world a bit.