San Benedetto in Alpe, March 30, 2011. Meeting in Portico, at 8:30 organized by the City Hall for further discussion on bringing fast internet to our businesses, students, educators, and homes.

The news, at the end of the day, is that we will probably not have fast internet for another one to one and a half years, according to the Vice Mayor . We need to finalize the process of deciding what solution to adopt, and which vendor to use for the selected solution. After the time this process will take, possibly two months or more, another three months will be needed for the vendor to finish the provision of internet to the installations and to our offices and homes.

But, between those two phases there is one very important phase where the infrastructure will have to be built, with Antennas, transmitters, electrical and access installations. That process alone, according to the vice Mayor, after the decision and before the implementation, will take anywhere from one to maybe one and a half years, between bureaucracy and construction.

The meeting began with an introduction by Mayor Mirko Betti, who, after his introduction left the meeting to attend another meeting that was scheduled for the same time as ours. After Mr. Betti's departure we heard from a representative from the Technical Office of the City Hall who explained the several different solutions which Telecom Italia cannot do, or refuses to do for financial reasons, therefore we shall not have ADSL. Afterwards we heard from a salesman from Mynetway.com, the 3-year-old company that has brought wireless internet to Rocca. After about one hour of explaining the technical aspects of what is needed it was obvious that wireless is the only feasible way to go.

However, the cost of professional internet will be high. Few people are aware of the technical fact that upload speed is as important as download speed, because our computers constantly communicate back-and-forth with the web servers they are in contact with, both uploading and downloading commands. A download speed of over 2 Mb is useless if the upload is less than 1 Mb, or at the very least 512K. With Mynetway.com's plan, an upload speed of 1 Mb will cost over 70 Euros a month. The lower plans of around 30 Euros a month carry only a 256K upload speed, which is not going to prove sufficient for most businesses and educators.

But that is what we can have, so that is what we will have, seeing that no one in our community is able to attract and create better options and better deals.

What is sad is that, in the words of the Vice Mayor, we now will have to wait for the bureaucracy to take its course of one or more years before a vendor can even start their work.

Let us hope that our City Hall will succeed in organizing the installation of the four antenas that are needed, and their electrification, in less than one to one and a half years.

Dimitris Sivyllis
email: dimitris@thinkworks.com