When I think of high tech countries, I will admit that Macedonia is definitely not at the top of the list that comes to mind. Yet, with an ambitious plan, and a large scale roll out of wireless technology, this could all change. If this comes to pass, Macedonia will have the largest wireless network anywhere, and would be a blue print for others.
Predrag Cemerikic, CEO of On.Net, said in a statement that "Macedonia is known for its mountainous terrain, deep basins, and large valleys – none of which is conducive to deploying a wireless network. When On.Net was entrusted with building a network that would overcome these challenges, we did our due diligence and tested virtually every wireless mesh networking system on the market." Strix was considered the "the highest performance mesh system and is the easiest to deploy" by the ISP.
Irani says there around 40 municipalities in Macedonia that will have Strix mesh installed, all interconnected by fiber or wireless optics. When it's all done in about ten to twelve months, he says 90% of the residents of the country will be able to go online. While there will be dead spots, he says it's no different than cellular networks where the least densely populated areas have few or no signals. In the dense areas, On.Net may offer customer premises units (CPEs) to business customers who want a more regulated access up-time.
While it's certainly one of the most ambitious, if not the most ambitious, Wi-Fi projects ever -- compare it to Wireless Philadelphia, which will cover only 140 square miles — the question remains of who will use it if only one-fifth of the population has laptops. However, if nothing else, Macedonia education officials said in a BBC report last week that they think the network could help bring together multi-ethnic schools where now, different ethnicities have not only different curriculum's, but even different staff, but all in the same building.
I'll definitely have to bring my laptop on my next trip to Macedonia!
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