We, at guifi.net, have an interest in the public consultation on the next generation public access (NGA) networks, and are pleased to share our concerns and suggestions

• About who we are and what we do
• Current issues of concern to propose solutions
  1. Enable wholesale availability to all at the FTTN
  2. Explicit recognition for open networks built by peer to peer agreements at the user loop
  3. Promote best practices / unlicensed spectrum
  4. Clarification of unlicensed spectrum regulations
• Closing considerations

At guifi.net we have been working during the last weeks to enable our platform for deploying open network projects worldwide and looking for opportunities for doing so.

Now, in cooperation with GAIA [1] ,  ITSMA [2] and other partners, we're starting a project in Bangalore (India) to deliver sustainable social enabled open networks in a rural area to fight digital divide and social exclusion.

The Jury from National Radio broadcast, Television, Internet and Telecommunications Awards declares the 2007 winners.;

The jury of the National National Radio broadcast, Television, Internet and Telecommunications Awards decided to galardonate in the Radio broadcast category, the broadcast radio RAC1; in the television category, the TV3 program La nit al Dia, driven by the journalist Mònica Terribas, in the Internet category, the web site of Icat FM, in the Telecommunications category, the Guifi.net Telecommunications network, and an honorific mention to the Journalist Francina Boris. The awards giving ceremony will take place next november 6ht, in the little room of Palau de la Música Catalana.

Some pictures about the SAX2007:

• Albir's Àlbum
• From Wesley & the freifunkers:
• Meetings & Events
• Eating & Socialzing
• Outdoors & Landscapes

We have a new assault within the battle for the net “neutrality” (in this case the one between the operators and the content providers). This duel of giants began when the big operators threatened influence in the Internet to be able to discriminate between the contents. Now Google response is a bid in the next auction of frequencies at 700MHz in the United States. Google is wanted to turn a new operator of telecommunications? According to them not necessarily, they want to buy the frequency as long as an access can be done “opened”, following the Internet principles.

After a frenetic week, SAX2007 & WSFII is over.

Globally, there was a lot more than a hundred participants from all over the world and distributed in many activities developed during the event and achieving if not exceeding all expectatives in terms in content and results.

During the next days/weeks we will try to compile all the outcome materials of the event, as well to continue the ongoing process of building open networks. By reusing and sharing the new experiences, ideas, and renewing out commitment to it that we will keep going forward.

Please use the tag SAX2007 in any outcome.

BIG THANK YOU TO ALL PARTICIPANTS FOR MAKING THIS A BIG AND EXCITING SUCCESS!

Today, July 10th, 2007, we had a fantastic 3 hour workshop with more than 20 participants from different european and us projects on open wireless hardware. The task was to distinguish how "Open Hardware" could be defined and to describe two kinds of accesspoints, a very simple one - a simple node - and a more complex one, which people in Catalunia call a super node.

The aim of these definitions shall be, that they can be given to various hardware manufacturers in the world, hoping that one or more of them are going to build these devices. We are all very positive that the various free wireless communities around the globe will make extensive use of these devices so that the manufacturers' efforts will pay off.

The definition of Open Hardware was defined to be a system that runs a free open source software (FOSS) based operating system with full FOSS driver support for all included components, plus a freely available complete documentation on the entire hardware and its design.

Back at home, now it's time to talk and provide feedback on what happened last weekend: The International Summit of Wireless Communities in Columbia, MD (IS4CWN).
First thing to mention has to be a big credit to Sasha Meinrath and all the team who organized the event (applause). Was near to the perfection (place, panelists, logistics, hotels, meeting rooms, organization, ...). I'm quite sure that on the event we are planning to host next July will be far from being well organized as this one, knowing our "latin enthusiasm"... will be quite more anarchic and spontaneous (which by the way doesn't have to be bad, simply distinct ).

Jordi and I arrived one day after than expected, after 30 hours of non-sleep travel, thanks to the D.on't E.ver L.eave T.he A.irport airlines (I didn't knew that when I  bought the ticked, just told me the meaning of those letters an Austrian colleague when we finally arrived at Loyola). It was just on time to get a shower, go to Loyola and hear the opening session, and then fall to sleep. Obviously we didn't socialized very much that night.

The big wireless network at the Catalonia region is going to cover soon the metropolitan area of Barcelona and encourages local governments for collaboration in building neutral networks.

guifi.net, a community based free and neutral network with no limits, has doubled the number of connections in just six months.

Catalonia, May 14^th, 2.007. Just after six months of the announcement of the 1.000 working nodes after three years of building civilian, free, open and neutral networks, guifi.net has doubled its size reaching the 2.000 milestone and having more than 2.700 kilometers (1.600 miles) of linear connections, with presence of working nodes in more than 96 municipalities in Catalonia. That means that more than 5.000 people are day to day using guifi.net for accessing broadband and demonstrates that the common, neutral and free networks are a real alternative to conventional operators also in the last mile.

REGISTER NOW!

How to get into the SAX2007 ... and where to sleep.

This year, the traditional meeting for the free civil networks in Catalonia (SAX) will be extended to new contents, will take a week and will be extended to new participants worldwide and therefore affiliated to the WSFII (World  Summit for Free Information Infrastructures). The registration will be free and everyone interested in developing non-proprietary networks is invited.

The main purpose of the SAX & WSFII event in Catalonia is to empower and develop at all levels the civilian, open and free infrastructures as an alternative to the classic proprietary/corporate owned or operated network models. Around this objective, we plan to have presence with panelists from all the actors involved, including local government, enterprises of any size, regulator authority, and of course, the geek community involved in the research and development activities and the users in general.

One of the things in the "todo's" was to start implementing the CNML (Community Networking Markup Language) in order to evolve into an architecture much more oriented to the Spontaneous Networking paradigm.
By having some spare time during this holidays, here we have a first real world draft. It collects the experience of a couple of years developing data models applied to free network provisioning.

The code uses simpleXML php functions and is oriented to ve very fast still while exporting thousands of nodes and their contents. The XML is very human readable.

What is expected by having this is a significant step forward in the way of developing free networks, by enabling a decentralized and spontaneous managing but still being able to consolidate information and networks interoperation.

Sebastián Galeano, promoter ofBadalonaWireless has worked on a new compact logo for the Wireless Commons License, with it you can add a link to the Wireless Commons License without taking too much space.

October 24th, 2.006

Contact: revista [@] guifi.net

PRESS RELEASE: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

GUIFI.NET, A FREE NETWORK IN CATALONIA REACHED THE THOUSANDS IN MANY METRICS: NODES, USERS, COVERAGE IN SQ. KMS, TERABYTES OF TRAFFIC, ...

CATALONIA, Oct. 20Th 2.006. guifi.net (http://guifi.net), a non-profit wireless free network made from individuals and several companies and local administration contributions, announces that at Catalonia, Spain, has reached the “several thousands”: 1.000 live nodes providing a stable High-Speed wifi access, with a coverage of about 1.000 square kilometers (about 386 sq. mi), providing access to several thousands of individuals, companies or organizations and reaching an estimated annual traffic within the network of about 1.000 Terabytes.

The State of Georgia, USA, has announced grant fundings of 3.421.225$ (about 3 millions euro) to six wireless communities who have applications for developing and running neutral networks. At the Frequently Asked Questions there are some relevant clarifications: Instead of promoting a single private or public operator, local and state government agencies agencies have a vision of being -“anchor tenants” to attract private-sector investment and ensure that the networks are financially feasible and services are affordably priced-, allowing as applicants any individuals or groups willing to setup a community.