March 02, 2005

Houston TFA-Wireless

(Excerpted from TFA-Wireless home page.)

TFA-Wireless is a high speed wireless Internet service that is part of the Technology For All (TFA) social enterprise strategy to use technology as a tool to empower low-income and under resourced communities.

The initial service area for TFA-Wireless covers approximately two square miles of the Pecan Park neighborhood in Houston’s East End. The service area is bordered by Griggs Road on the northwest, Lawndale Street and State Highway 225 on the northeast, Loop 610 on the southeast and I-45 South to the southwest.

Any resident of Pecan Park with a Houston Public Library Power Card who attends an orientation class at the library or at TFA-Houston's community technology center at Mission Milby Community Development Corporation, 2220 Broadway may be eligible to receive free or reduced-rate Internet services from TFA-Wireless.

TFA-Wireless has established a sustainable business model that allows it to provide free service of 128 Kb/sec to qualified residents with Houston Public Library cards. Higher bandwidth services up to 1 Mb/sec are available for a monthly charge that is significantly less than alternate solutions.

The TFA-Wireless network is a collaborative project designed and built by Rice University faculty and students in the Rice Network Group, a research group within the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. The lead scientist on the project is Professor Ed Knightly, Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Associate Professor of Computer Science. Joseph Camp, a Rice University MS/Ph.D. student, is providing direct guidance for the project and assisted in writing a journal article on the project that has been submitted for publication.

Resources

Contacts

Dr. Will Reed
President/CEO Technology For All
Houston, TX
Will.Reed(at)techforall.org
Phone: (713) 454-6400

Posted by chip at March 2, 2005 09:24 PM