2006 21
Free WiFi Routers Make it Big in Italy
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in Fon with No Comments
Only a few days ago we mentioned that we had free routers to give away to people in the EU who were facing busy streets. In the past I had metioned that Italians did not seem to be interested in becoming foneros. Now that situation seems to have been completely reversed. In my flickr post you can see how many requests we got from Italy.
You can see the different locations here. But while Italians were the majority we also got requests from Germany, France and other countries. We will be sending those routers in 2 weeks as soon as we get the next deliveries from Linksys who are somewhat delayed.
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b100w11 on March 27, 2006 ·
In Italy we have just 1 big problem – the Pisanu Law
http://www.filibertoputzu.it/la_legge_definitiva_con_le_misure_antiterrorismo_(legge_1552005)_sc_3379.htm
(in legal Italian – awfull)
Which basicaly requires that everyone who gives access to the Internet has to 1) request a licence, 2) make a copy of a personal ID of the user and 3) log the traffic. The law is passed as an antiterrorism tool, in fact it’s probably a favour to the italian Isps. The law will be probably active untill December 2007. Right now it is illegal to FON, but as always in Italy nobody really enforces this law – so there are some Fon point.
WHat to do… Maybe after tel elections in April something will change, but that of course is no sure. FON will probably have to try to talk to the big players in the italian IT market like Telecom, Wind etc… Maybe they will have enough power to cancel this ridiculous law, which reminds me of some obscure dictatorship countries…