A Wireless Sophia at the heart of the Telecom Valley

The ODBee association, launched at Garbejaire by four students who promote free networks, aims to democratize the wideband Internet access to students of Sophia.

Le Monde had recently told the experience launched in Seattle on "free networks" in the article "The post-Internet is on the way in Seattle". The French Riviera, where the Linux community is very active (see the website www.linux-azur.org), is at the leading edge of the new activity in the tradition of the free software. Thus the experience conducted from Garbejaire, at Sophia Antipolis by ODBee, an association law 1901, aims to democratize the broadband Internet access to students of Sophia Antipolis.The Internet through radio frequenciesOn their website, odbee.org, the four knights of free software, the president of the association Marc Lesdema, the vice-president Jean-Luc Orgiazzi as well as Olivier Charvé and Grégory Payen, explain their action and the solution they found. The students are too often cast to one side for the access to the domestic conveniences and then their expectations are not filled. For more than six months, four young people have been fighting in order to find a simple and cheap way to set up an Internet solution for all in the student residences of Sophia Antipolis. After a few failures due to technical problems and thanks to the persistence of technical teams of Stella-Net, a solution came up: the Internet through radio frequencies."Technically, their project is what follows. The aim is to fit out university residences, setting up radio relays in the corridors, relays which communicate with a laser design on the roof of the building, which is connected to other laser designs on the roof of other buildings, to come up to the Internet service provider. Every customer needs to have a radio network card. It means that there was a cost but obviously cheaper than the other broadband solutions which are currently on the market. In order to make the system works: you need a bit of equipment (a radio network card for each customer, a relay for every ten customers, a laser design for every building), and the Internet subscription.The experience of ODBee is worth to take into account. The association is registered in Grasse since January 12th 2001 and its head office is located at the Residence of Saint Exupéry, in Garbejaire. At the image of Seattle Wireless, a Sophia Wireless is launched at the heart of the "Telecom Valley"!