Evaluation of the Wireless Community Network: Transforming Vision into Action
(1/1/2004 – 12/31/2006)
The Center for Neighborhood Technology (CNT) established pilot projects in the Chicagoland area—in Chicago’s Pilsen and Lawndale neighborhoods, and in Elgin, a suburban community forty miles northwest of Chicago—and in a former coal mining town in Southern Illinois, West Frankfurt, to deliver very low-cost, high-speed broadband access to homes, small businesses, and community-based institutions. CNT envisions wireless networks as an individual and collective asset-building strategy. The network becomes a capacity-building tool for local service providers and community-based organizations to better serve their clients, and a tool for advancing the economic outcomes of entire communities by connecting them to the larger economy. CURL worked with CNT and its partner organizations to evaluate and document the process and outcome.
A report describes the process of creating and implementing a wireless network in four unique community settings and the impact of the wireless network upon the anchor/partner organization and community residents (end-users). In addition, the research data was used to help create a business model for sustaining the wireless network.
Research Team:
A. Sharma, CURL
L. Johnson, Graduate Fellow
D. Van Zytveld, CURL
N. Friedman, CNT
A. Araujo, Undergraduate Fellow
Community Partner :