In yet another surprising announcement, Google.org (the philanthropic arm of Google) last week announced a $2 million grant to the De Novo Group, a little known Berkeley organization headed by Yahel Ben-David that will work with researchers from Stanford University and UC Berkeley to bring affordable broadband service to rural communities. In a project named "Celerate," De Novo has put out a call for communities within 250 miles of its headquarters in Berkeley to be a test bed for early prototype deployments. The call for applications to communities may be viewed here: http://denovogroup.org/main/celerate-announcement/ by interested communities.
Rural communities that are 250 miles from Berkeley that are interested in applying to be a testbed should review the call for applications at the link above. An ideal community should include at least 20 households in reasonable proximity to each other, and preferably include businesses and community centers. They should be places that conventional broadband offerings (cable provided Internet and DLS) are not available. Finally, the community should have demonstrated community enthusiasm, buy-in and support for the project.
According to a press release, the Celerate project is going to create "new designs for wireless network infrastructure that are easier and cheaper to deploy, operate and manage." The designs are based on the principles of Software-Defined Networking (SDN) that is gaining popularity in large data centers and enterprise networks. The De Novo organization is partnering with Open Networking Research Center researchers Professors Sachin Katti and Scott Shenker from Stanford University and UC Berkeley, respectively,
This announcement follows the June announcement by Google of "Project Loon," a project tested in Christchurch New Zealand that uses high altitude balloons carried by winds high above airplane traffic lanes to beam Internet access at 3G speeds to receivers on the ground of rural residents. A ring of these high altitude balloons may be able to serve persons in remote or very rural developing countries with 3G speeds of Internet access, and may be deployed after disasters to serve stricken areas where the Internet infrastructure has been disrupted.
