netsukuku/doc/articles/Ntk_civic_net

== Netsukuku and the civic networks ==

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Cities and Institutions are showing a growing interest in e-government
projects finilised in providing on line services to the citizens through
Internet.
For example are disposable:

	- school related activities (enrolments, cultural and educational
	  programs),
	- news, local radio and televisions
	- guides for expositions and events, cultural and tourist information
	- discussion forums, social and cultural activities

However, the diffusion and access to the Net isn't still disposable for
everyone: DSL facilities aren't available in many cities and the ISPs impose
expensive rates/costs to grant connectivity.  
The creation of civic nets, in which the users can have free access to web
sites and to the on line e-services, surfing freely and without any cost web
sites dedicated to institutional, educational, tourist, commercial and social
activities, which need a constant and direct dialogue with the people, is
today made possible by NETSUKUKU Open Source software.
His first aim is the implementation of a global mesh network, completely
independent from Internet, in which the single PCs, communicating each other
through radio frequencies, become automatically the nodes/access points of the
net and in such way give  their contribution to make it alive and, at the same
time, to expand it, exactly as in a fractal scheme.

The NETSUKUKU routing system allows: 

- every user to go not only through the Net of their city but also through
  those located in all the other cities which, once they are inter-connected,
  create a kind of global Network, parallel to Internet, which can
  indefinitely  expand, completely without the support of ISPs;
  
- till a maximum of 256 hostnames to be recorded and supported by each PC
  (i.e. node of the Net).
  
On the Netsukuku Net everybody wishing to offer digital contents/information,
will be able to share them simply from his or her PC. The more of actors
represented in the system is high in number, the more will be granted
dialogue, circulation of different ideas, democratic process and the full
right of citizenship inside the society of information.

Last but not least, inside Netsukuku Net users will have the chance to get
through the Internet free of cost: in fact any node can share with the
Netsukuku Net his connectivity to Internet and get from other users the
bandwidth they didn't use in any the moment.

=== How to realize a wireless Netsukuku Net ===

Netsukuku is an architecture of flexible net and will create autonomously an
efficient wireless mesh network among PCs equipped with radio connection
devices.  The simplest way to create/join the Netsukuku Net is to install a
common wi-fi card inside your own PC and launch the Netsukuku program, freely
downloadable from Internet. The flux of data will reach the wished
destination, going through the same nodes (PCs or Access Points in which
Netsukuku as been installed inside), interconnected among them.  Obviously a
larger diffusion of the Netsukuku dedicated network can be achieved by the
wi-fi coverage of wide urban and rural areas: in the market there are many and
different solutions of wireless devices, all valid and cheap (routers, access
points, omni directional antennas).  

For more information or any request of assistance Netsukuku community is
available on the net at the following site: 
http://netsukuku.freaknet.org