I'm off to Vienna to attend a conference. Conference info is here. On Friday afternoon, I'll be leading a session in which I hope to get useful feedback on the "freemium" business model we're using for netBlazr.
Europe has a number of community wireless networks that have been very successful. The networks in Vienna, Berlin, Athens and Catalonia stand out in my mind. Of course, in the US we've had active legislation that's made it hard for governments to create community network. But the EU networks mentioned above are member-based. They may have benefitted from government funds at some point, but they formed independent of any government effort (at least as I currently understand things). The other issue I've observed in a number of US community networks is a reliance on grants that aren't renewed and/or on enthusiasts who eventually leave to go to grad school or otherwise move on. Something is different in the EU networks mentioned above. Hopefully I'll better understand this by Sunday. :)
As is my habit, I'll be taking notes in real time using Twitter (@brough). After the conference, I'll gather those notes into a single page for a blog post. This is primarily for my own benefit, as it's been an extremely useful way for me to take and save notes (assuming it's an event like the ISCWN where I want to keep notes!).
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