OJC engineers partner with Soros Foundation to create the most advanced community wireless technology in the world

The Champaign-Urbana Community Wireless Network (CUWiN) has been awarded a $200,000 grant from the Open Society Institute, funded by the Soros Foundation, to develop wireless technology to be used around the globe, with a focus on developing nations. The result will be the most advanced community wireless technology in the world.

OJC Technologies is the development home for the Community Wireless Network. OJC engineers Dave Young, Bryan Cribbs, and Zach Miller are the lead developers on the project.

CUWiN is building a high-speed communications network that promises to support publishing and city-wide Internet radio broadcast by citizens, a community-owned local telephone service, and bandwidth sharing. The network uses off-the-shelf wireless hardware to spread a "web" of network connectivity across town.

The CUWiN uses open-source software and open-architecture hardware created by the CUWiN development team. Using essentially the same "WiFi" equipment you may use in your home or office, the CUWiN puts equipment on rooftops to connect users with their neighbors to form a high-speed community network.

The three-part mission of CUWiN is:

1) to connect every local citizen to the Internet at low cost;
2) develop open-source hardware and software for use by wireless projects around the globe; and,
3) build and support community-owned, not-for-profit broadband networks in cities and towns throughout the world.

Since its inception, the CUWiN has grown to become a leading source of information, software, and hardware for building community wireless networks. Over the past three years, CUWiN research and development has yielded two proof-of-concept CUWiN prototypes in Urbana. The current Open Society Institute grant will allow the CUWiN development team to refine this software and build a large-scale Community Wireless Network testbed that can be used by the Champaign-Urbana community to bring affordable broadband connectivity to all.

The Community Wireless Network is a program of the Urbana-Champaign Independent Media Center Foundation (IMC), a federally-recognized non-profit organization. The Acorn Active Media Foundation provides infrastructure support for CUWiN.

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