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Low-income housing goes wireless. |
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Monday, February 24, 2003 Posted: 12:03 PM EST
(1703 GMT) |
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BOSTON,
Massachusetts (AP) -- The technician sat
by the apartment window with a laptop on his knees,
configuring the computer to pick up the Internet
signal from a rooftop antenna a half a block away.
"
How's the signal?" asked the apartment's resident,
Nakia Keizer, watching from a sofa.
"
Not bad," said Kevin Bowen, the technician.
Not bad at all, considering this wireless "hotspot" was
intended not for cafe-hoppers and Internet surfers
with money to burn but for urban poor who only a
few years before had been fighting roof leaks and
overflowing sewers.
Camfield Estates, a rebuilt 102-unit public housing
development, has trimmed bushes and groomed grounds.
What also sets it apart from other low-income complexes
lies hidden behind its walls, atop its roof and in
the airwaves.
For the past two years, Camfield has been the site
of a project aiming to span the "digital divide" between
impoverished Americans and those with easy access
to technology.
Called the Creating Community Connections Project,
it has given residents free computers to connect
to the Internet using high-speed cable lines wired
into every home.
Residents gather at a community computer room to
take free classes on everything from how to plug
in a mouse to setting up Web sites. |
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The project, mostly paid for with a $200,000 grant
from the Kellogg Foundation and supported by companies
like Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft as well as public
and nonprofit entities, is now taking another step.
Now that Camfield's Internet provider has ended its
two-year commitment to offer discounted cable modem
access, the project's organizers will soon give residents
the option of replacing their wired Internet access
with a wireless connection.
The high-speed WiFi system transmits and receives
data from four barely visible antennas atop the development's
main building.
Residents can buy wireless cards for their desktops
or laptops. The cards, which can cost up to $100
retail, will be given away to the elderly and sold
for $60 to others.
After that, residents will be able to log on -- for
free -- from anywhere within Camfield.
'It changes lives'
While wireless zones are popping up around the country
in airports, coffee shops and universities, technology
experts say it's unusual for such a network to explicitly
serve the poor.
"
It's something that's going to be replicated elsewhere,
but this is, I think, the first example of a project
like this emerging out of the community, rather than
being required by a grant," said Anthony Townsend,
a New York University professor and a co-founder
of NYCwireless, an advocacy group.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology doctorate students
Richard O'Bryant and Randall Pinkett asked the Camfield
tenants if they wanted to host the project. The son
of a well-known school committee president in Boston,
O'Bryant was motivated by a desire to provide poor
communities equal access to technology.
"
The federal government wants to make low-income communities
more self-sufficient," O'Bryant said. "They
set up empowerment zones, they set up family self-sufficiency
programs, but there really isn't a component there
that relates to technology." |
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After school one day, the Camfield computer room
-- a community computer center that is also open
to others in the neighborhood -- boiled with exuberant
schoolchildren playing games and surfing the Internet.
Garfield Williams, 25, who teaches in the center,
said the project has kept kids out of trouble, connected
infirm residents with medical information and boosted
computer skills.
A resident poll found that virtually all participants
used the computers to read news, learn about health
and housing, or to shop online. Several said they
were training to become Web designers, programmers
and network administrators.
Keizer, 24, said the experiment has been a boon for
him. A Camfield resident since his teen years, he's
found that much of what he does -- whether staying
in touch with family, doing research for his graduate
degree in education, or e-mailing his professors
at Tufts University -- is easier with the technology
at his fingertips.
"
It's central to what goes on in the world today," he
said. "It changes lives, I feel like. It has
for me."
U.S. Department of Commerce data from 2001 indicated
that 78.9 percent of people in families making $75,000
or more had Internet access, compared to 25 percent
of people from households earning less than $15,000
a year.
While the federal government says the divide is narrowing,
consumer and public interest advocates say it remains
a problem.
Amanda Lenhart of the Pew Internet & American
Life Project, a nonprofit research group, said high-speed
access often remains out of reach for the poor, and
low-cost wireless Internet access could be a remedy,
she said.
"
Many people point to issues of democracy and public
participation and dialogue, and having access to
what the Internet brings is really important," she
said. |
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