created: Sun, 07/06/2009 - 23:45 — lluis.dalmau

- updated: 21/12/2016 - 6:07pm

What is guifi· net ?

guifi·net is a bottom-up, citizenship-driven technological, social and economic project with the objective of creating a free, open and neutral telecommunications network based on a commons model. The development of this common-pool infrastructure eases the access to quality, fair-priced telecommunications in general and broadband Internet connections in particular, for everybody. Moreover, it generates a model for collaborative economic activity based on proximity and sustainability.

The technological project

guifi·net started in 2004 as a telecommunications technological project in the Osona county (Catalonia, Spain) to solve the broadband Internet access difficulties in rural areas, given the lack of traditional operators to provide services there. By means of radio links built with commodity WiFi routers, the neighbours deployed their own network to interconnect different locations (the so-called nodes) such as houses, offices, farms, public buildings, etc. to be able to access telecommunications and the Internet wherever they needed: at home, at work, in the library, etc.

As of December 2016, guifi·net accounts for more than 32.500 operating nodes, most of them in Catalonia, but also many others in the Valencian Community, the Balearic Islands, Madrid, Andalusia, Asturias, the Basque Country... Nowadays, hundreds of homes and offices access the Internet by means of guifi·net's fiber optics connections and thousands do so via radio links. It is estimated that more than 50,000 people are serviced through the commons-based network.

Since 2008 guifi·net is, through the guifi·net Foundation, a telecommunications operator registered at the Telecommunications Operators Register run by the Spanish National Market and Competence Comission, participates as an AS (Autonomous System) in the Internet and exchanges traffic at up to 30 Gbps in CATNIX, the Internet Exchange Point (IX) of Catalonia.

You can read more about the technological project by clicking here.

The social project

The growth of the commons-based network infrastructure has been possible thanks to the developent, in parallel, of guifi·net as a social project in the telecommunications field. Considering the access to telecommunications and to the Internet as a Human Right, guifi·net has the objective of making possible that all the citizens can exercise it and in the most favourable conditions, by means of affordable connectivity at a fair price, without discrimination, whether in urban or in rural areas, making emphasis in easing the participation of those disadvantadged collectives, with less resources or less opportunities to access information technologies, telecommunications and the Internet.

guifi·net is the whole community participating in any way in the network, including volunteers who do it on their own or through users associations and cooperatives, free-lance or self-employed workers and enterprises that perform professional network deployments and maintenance tasks and offer commercial services over it, users that hire a telecommunications service through guifi·net, the different public administration levels (local, regional, national ane European) that foster the deployments of commons-based network to provision their citizens, private and public organizations such as universities, research institutes, etc.

You can read more about the social project by clicking here . The economic project The guifi·net project puts in practice, in the telecommunications sector, a disruptive economic model based on the commons model and the collaborative economy, by means of the deployment of a common-pool network infrastructure and a fair and sustainable economic exploitation. Currently, more than 20 companies operate their services professionally on top of the commons network and, moreover, they do it simultaneously and in coordination with the individuals, volunteers and other organizations participating. This is possible thanks to the development of governance rules that define the terms and conditions in which businesses can obtain economic profit out of the exploitation of the guifi.net network. You can read more about the economic project by clicking here. Transforming the telecommunications sector

guifi·net is an open and inclusive project in which everybody can take part. Below there is a set of links to other pages where you can find more details about the project, usage experiences, data and information about how to participate in the biggest free, open and neutral network worldwide. We are waiting for you!