[Cu-wireless] Major Grant Awarded to Community Wireless Network Project:

[Sascha Meinrath]

Please forward this far and wide (within the local community).  We'll be
sending out information nationally at the end of the week.  Also, for
anyone who can make it Wednesday morning, it would be great to have you at
the press conference.

--Sascha

*********************
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
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CONTACT
Contact Name: Sascha Meinrath
Company Name: Community Wireless Network
E-mail:       sascha at ucimc.org
Phone:        (217)278-3933
Website:      http://www.cuwireless.net


LOCAL COMMUNITY WIRELESS NETWORK PROJECT RECEIVES MAJOR GRANT FUNDING FROM
THE OPEN SOCIETY INSTITUTE TO BUILD THE WORLD'S MOST ADVANCED COMMUNITY
WIRELESS NETWORK.


The Champaign-Urbana Community Wireless Network (CWN) has been awarded a
significant grant from the Open Society Institute, funded by the Soros
Foundation, to develop wireless technology to be used around the globe,
with a focus on developing nations.  Urbana-Champaign will become the
testing ground for this technology.

The grant amount and details will be released at a press conference
scheduled for Wednesday morning at 9am at the Community Wireless Network's
offices:

115 West Main Street
Second Floor
Urbana, IL

The Community Wireless Network is building a high-speed communications
network that promises to support publishing and city-wide Internet radio
broadcast by citizens, a community-owned local telephone service, and
bandwidth sharing.  The network uses off-the-shelf wireless hardware to
spread a "web" of network connectivity across town.  The CWN uses
open-source software and open-architecture hardware created by the CWN
development team.  Using essentially the same "WiFi" equipment you may use
in your home or office, the CWN puts equipment on rooftops to connect
users with their neighbors to form a high-speed community network.

The three-part mission of CWN is:

1) to connect every local citizen to the Internet at low cost;
2) develop open-source hardware and software for use by wireless projects
around the globe; and,
3) build and support community-owned, not-for-profit broadband networks in
cities and towns throughout the world.

Since its inception, the CWN has grown to become a leading source of
information, software, and hardware for building community wireless
networks.  Over the past three years, CWN research and development has
yielded two proof-of-concept CWN prototypes in Urbana.  The current Open
Society Institute grant will allow the CWN development team to refine this
software and build a large-scale Community Wireless Network testbed that
can be used by the Champaign-Urbana community to bring affordable
broadband connectivity to all.

The Community Wireless Network is a program of the Urbana-Champaign
Independent Media Center Foundation (IMC), a federally-recognized
non-profit organization. The project has supported itself through
donations, foundational grants, and institutional support.  The Community
Wireless Network is composed of a consortium of researchers, programmers,
community activists, non-profit organizations, for-profit businesses, and
educational institutions.  OJC Technologies is the development home for
the Community Wireless Network and has generously agreed to donate office
space for the project.  The Acorn Active Media Foundation provides
infrastructure support for CWN.