Athens Wireless Metropolitan Network

Started in 2002 in Athens Greece,Athens Wireless Metropolitan Network (AWMN)is agrassroots wireless community, taking advantage of new, state of the art wireless technologies, to connect people and services. The network comprises 1120 backbone nodes (as of Aug, 2010) and more than 2900client computers connect to it. More than 9,000 people have stated their intention to join AWMN in the near future. There is also an association-club namedawmn.

Cultural and Geographical Context

Although the network began inAthens, the capital of Greece, its activities are no longer limited to the single city. It covers a geographical area (110 km from North to South and 85 km from West to East) with the most southern point being Palaia Epidavros (Epidaurus) and the most northern point being the town of Nea Artaki on the island of Euboea. The wide expansion of the network allows isolated areas with poor technological and broadband infrastructure to connect with the Athenian network, providing these accesses to a plethora of services with high speeds. Also the islands of Aegina, Salamina and the regions surrounding Athens are connected to the network.

In anticipation of connecting to AWMN, small wireless 'islets' have been created in other cities and on other islands where AWMN has contributed with technical know-how and equipment. Recently the island of Euboea connected with more links with AWMN for redundancy purposes and the next stage will be to join the wireless 'islets' located in Lamia (city) and Volos. There are also plans to reach even more remote cities of Greece such as Patras.

For wireless 'islets' and communities that is impossible to connect wirelessly, a VPN pool has been provided. This year AWMN connected most of the Greek communities and managed to cross the Greek boarders. It has initiated a VPN connection with the newly foundedwlan ljubljana network in Ljubljana, Slovenia with the vision to connect all the wireless communities of Europe into one Network.

Read more from the source: Wikipedia

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Athens_Wireless_Metropolitan_Network

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athens_Wireless_Metropolitan_Network

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