Guifi Net
= attempt to create an alternative autonomous internet infrastructure, mostly based in the Catalan region of Spain
URL =
Interview
Roger Baig Viñas:
1) how is Guifi related to the internet: is it complementary or alternative, and if the latter, why do we need it?
guifi.net can be seen as both things at the same time. On one hand it can be considered as a complement to the Internet because guifi.net network can be used to extend the "network of networks" coverage, and on the other hand it is an alternative to it: guifi.net users don't need to connect to the Internet, i. e. to use an ISP, any more for their digital communications among them, therefore, the so common and artificial picture of to neighbors connecting both of them to their ISP to exchange a file will not take place again among them.
Ramon Roca adds:
Guifi "is absolutely complementary. Actually we do see as an extension of it up to the end user by enabling a self-service access. Regarding to the commercial ISP, wants to become an alternative, although because of how is currently regulated, there might be a neet to setup gateways to the internet. We do need it if we want the internet to reach the end users but without the need of having to do through a commercial ISP as an alternative."
2) what is the status of Guifi.net, and where would you like to be in 2-3 years
To date, November 2008, guifi.net has about 5500 working nodes, most of them linked each other. Geographically the main activity is centered in Catalonia, escencially because the project was born there, but everyone is encouraged to expand the network coverage contributing with his link.
Inside Catalonia the coverage is not homogeneous: while in Osona, the rural area where it, was born more than the 90% is already covered there are other rural areas where the activity is just starting and in the main cities it is very low.
A gratifying picture within two or three years time would be to have extended Osona's degree and density of coverage around Catalonia and to have been able to cross its borderlines, both, by setting links across them and by exporting the guifi.net's platform to other regions of the world."
3) are you part of an international movement, and how are you related to other techno-social movements such as the free software movement, the wireless commons movement, etc...
Yes, although I miss a stronger international organization to lead the movement, we try to participate in all existing ones, like WSFII, Freenetworks, etc. Within the international wireless communities movements we are quit well known. All our code is freely distributed under the GPL license and we reuse others' free software
Discussion
Penny Travlou:
"On my recent visit to Barcelona in the context of the Confine project, Guifi.net founder Ramon Roca took me to Gurb, the village he comes from. There, in 2003 Guifi.net was started when Ramon realized that he would never get good bandwidth at a fair price in this remote area in sight of the foothills of the Pyrenees. Ramon, who is an IT professional but keeps his working life and activities with Guifi.net separated, found that he could get broadband by using WiFi to connect to a public building in the outskirts of a nearby small town, Vic. Since then, Guifi.net has grown to become the largest Wifi community network in Europe, with currently more than 25.000 nodes. It is not entirely correct anymore to call it a wireless community network since a growing number of nodes is created by fiber-optic cable. Since Ramon and his collaborators have found out how relatively easy it is to work with fiber he is on a new mission, to get fiber to the curb to as many houses as possible.
Visiting Gurb and talking to Ramon for nearly a full day has revitalized my fascination for wireless (and wired) community networks. I have written a book on wireless community networks in 2003, in German, under the title Freie Netze (Free Networks). The choice of title back then had deliberately emphasised the analogy between Free Networks and Free Software. The title had been inspired by two very different influences. On one hand there had been Volker Grassmuck's early book Freie Software (http://freie-software.bpb.de/Grassmuck.pdf). Volker's magisterial work provided deep insight into the history and politics of Free Software and stood out for me as an example how a book on wirelesss community networks should be written. The other inspiration had been provided by a sweeping lecture in Vienna in June 2003 by Eben Moglen, lawyer of the Free Software foundation and legal brain behind the licensing model of Free Software, the General Public Licence (GPL). Moglen's thunderous and captivating speech had presented the combination of Free Software, Free Hardware and Free Networks like a kind of holy trinity of the everything-free-and-open movement. Moglen's conclusion was that while Free Software was already an accomplished fact, and free hardware was the hardest bit, free networks were a viable possibility, yet there was still a long way to go to attain critical mass.
My book had come maybe a few years too early. When it appeared, some of the most important wireless community networks of today, such as Freifunk, Berlin, Funkfeuer, Austria, or Guif.net, were either inexistent or existed still in embryonic form only. The model of wireless community networks on which my book had been based had been created by Consume.net in the UK. Consume.net was the outcome of an improvised workshop in December 1999 in Clink Street, near London's creative net art hub Backspace. I will describe the history of Consume in more detail below, but one key aspect of that initiative was that it was launched by non-techies. James Stevens, founder of Backspace, and Julian Priest, artist-designer-entrepreneur, provided the impetus for DIY wireless networking by sketching plans for a “model 1” of WLAN based community networking on a napkin during a tempestuous train journey in late summer 1999. Their “Model 1” - a name chosen for its association with Henry Ford's first mass produced car, the Ford Model 1 or Thin Lizzy – was a techno-social network utopia." (http://www.thenextlayer.org/node/1231)