Miles
31-05-2003, 06:57 AM
Three years ago, Shirley Hughes lived a life of dreary routine, collecting welfare checks, bringing up two children as a single mother, passing her evenings in front of the television.
Today, she teaches her neighbors how to use computers at a local college while studying for a teaching certificate. At home, she skips "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" in favor of the Internet, which she surfs avidly, downloading patterns for patchwork quilts, her favorite hobby.
Ms. Hughes's computer is connected to the Internet "24/7," as she puts it, through a technology known as Wi-Fi. For her, it has been a virtual passport out of the decaying industrial landscape of East Manchester, a place only now recovering from the end of history's last great commercial revolution.
Wi-Fi, or wireless fidelity, has generated a lot of excitement here and in the United States as a way to offer high-speed Internet access in airports, cafes, bars and restaurants — anywhere one finds a surfeit of laptop-toting customers and a scarcity of telephone jacks.
In Manchester, the once-grimy Victorian city famous as the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, Wi-Fi is being used, for the first time ever on this scale, as a way to bridge the digital divide.
"We wanted to give people access to the latest technology," said Sean McGonigle, a local official who led the effort to build a network in Manchester. "In our wildest dreams, we didn't envisage the impact it would have."
Ms. Hughes, 40, marvels at the changes in her life. "If not for this, I'd still be cleaning house," she said.
Unlike the latest third-generation, or 3G, cellular telephone technology, where European providers are ahead of their American counterparts, Europe trails the United States in the development of Wi-Fi. But there have been a raft of projects begun here in recent weeks, suggesting that Europe has caught the bug.
Read More (http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/31/technology/31WIFI.html?ex=1055044800&en=608e4ab11b57d949&ei=5035&partner=MARKE****CH)
Today, she teaches her neighbors how to use computers at a local college while studying for a teaching certificate. At home, she skips "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" in favor of the Internet, which she surfs avidly, downloading patterns for patchwork quilts, her favorite hobby.
Ms. Hughes's computer is connected to the Internet "24/7," as she puts it, through a technology known as Wi-Fi. For her, it has been a virtual passport out of the decaying industrial landscape of East Manchester, a place only now recovering from the end of history's last great commercial revolution.
Wi-Fi, or wireless fidelity, has generated a lot of excitement here and in the United States as a way to offer high-speed Internet access in airports, cafes, bars and restaurants — anywhere one finds a surfeit of laptop-toting customers and a scarcity of telephone jacks.
In Manchester, the once-grimy Victorian city famous as the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, Wi-Fi is being used, for the first time ever on this scale, as a way to bridge the digital divide.
"We wanted to give people access to the latest technology," said Sean McGonigle, a local official who led the effort to build a network in Manchester. "In our wildest dreams, we didn't envisage the impact it would have."
Ms. Hughes, 40, marvels at the changes in her life. "If not for this, I'd still be cleaning house," she said.
Unlike the latest third-generation, or 3G, cellular telephone technology, where European providers are ahead of their American counterparts, Europe trails the United States in the development of Wi-Fi. But there have been a raft of projects begun here in recent weeks, suggesting that Europe has caught the bug.
Read More (http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/31/technology/31WIFI.html?ex=1055044800&en=608e4ab11b57d949&ei=5035&partner=MARKE****CH)