Green Wifi To Launch Solar WiFi In India

Green Wifi, a non-profit organisation aiming to bring internet access to schools in developing countries via cheap, solar-powered wi-fi networks, plans to start its first full-scale pilot project in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh at the end of the summer, reports News.com. Green Wifi will be implementing the project for a Canadian aid organisation that has requested wi-fi in 3 schools (one of which has a cable connection) in this north Indian state whose the electricity supply is unreliable.

The concept behind Green Wifi’s technology is installing a battery-powered router — charged by a solar panel — in each node in its wi-fi network. The nodes are mounted on rooftops and the network’s wi-fi signals are transferred over a grid using the 802.11b/g wireless network standard.

Green Wifi has received seed money for the project from Nicholas Negroponte’s One Laptop Per Child initiative (OLPC), which aims to construct a $100 laptop running free/open source software to be distributed to children in developing countries. OLPC reportedly showed immediate interest in the wi-fi initiative.

Read the original News.com article or an Indian perspective on the GigOM broadband weblog.