By Anne Wessell
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Daniele
D'Alba, Townet founder |
On a beautiful summer day the piazza of Cagli, Italy,
bustles with activity. The citizens come for many reasons: to conduct
business at city hall, to shop at the stores lining the square, or to
grab a bite to eat while catching up with friends at the cafes and restaurants
surrounding the square.
Soon they’ll be able to do something else: surf
the Internet. They will be able to open their laptops to check their e-mail
while sipping an espresso at Caffé D’Italia.
The company making wireless broadband Internet access
a reality is Townet. Founded in 2003, the tiny company based in nearby
Acqualagna is creating a wireless broadband Internet network connecting
rural towns scattered across the Italian landscape.
The task of linking rural towns to the Internet has
been hampered for years by their remoteness – most are nestled among
hills and mountains – and has not been considered profitable by
Telecom Italia, the near-monopoly that controls most of the Internet service
market in Italy, says Townet founder Daniele D’Alba. Townet now
offers Internet access to small, secluded towns that previously had no
way to connect to the World Wide Web.
According to Miniwatts Marketing Group, as of January
2007, 51.7 percent of the Italian population used the Internet, a dramatic
increase from 2000 when only 22.8 percent of the population was logged
on.
Townet
currently has nine employees and its annual sales have grown from around
100,000 euro in 2003 to 1 million euro today, D’Alba says. Many
factors have contributed to the success of Townet, most notably the company’s
focus on the rural regions of Italy. Townet’s work in these areas
is helping to close the digital divide, the gap between the people who
have access to the Internet and those who do not.
D’Alba, a Cagli native, attributes his success
to his focus on the out-of-the-way market. “Sometimes being in Rome
or Milan, the big cities, is an advantage. But, as in my case, sometimes
being in a rural zone with a difficult situation is its own advantage
because it makes you come up with a solution.
Lucio Guerra, technical advisor for the Comunita
Montana di Catria e Nerone, an alliance of Cagli and four other neighboring
municipalities, says that with Townet, “We are combating the digital
divide. They have such good products that we’ve been able to take
broadband Internet access to remote places that would never have been served
by Telecom, because it would not make commercial sense.”
Recently D’Alba and his company have made the University
of Urbino, 30 minutes north of Cagli, a wireless campus. Not only does
the Townet network allow students to access the Internet on campus, it
allows people in towns like Cagli to take advantage of the educational
services of the university through e-learning. According to D’Alba,
this wireless access is “great for people who can’t go to
Urbino; they can stay in Cagli and receive an education.”
In addition to educational opportunities, D’Alba
envisions that the growing Internet network will offer tourists free visitor
information. Visitors who log onto Townet’s network will have the
opportunity to view, free of charge, information about the towns linked
by the network. Tourists will be able to post their comments and suggestions
for others to view.
Townet has grown at the rate of 300 percent each year
since its founding in 2003. D’Alba’s personal goal is to make
his company successful in the global business market. As a result of the growth that Townet is experiencing, it will likely
build a new headquarters in Cagli, basing the administration and production
divisions in one location.
As
Internet access becomes more widely available in small towns like Cagli,
many citizens wonder what impact this access will have on the personal
interaction that is the hallmark of many small-town piazze.
While D’Alba
believes that face-to-face contact among people is important, he believes
that the Internet is a “good way to meet someone, to make a first
non-emotional contact.” These first contacts may lead to personal
meetings between people in the piazza and other areas of town.
D’Alba represents a new generation of entrepreneurs
helping to transform centuries-old towns like Cagli into thriving 21st
century communities with access to the rest of the world just a click
away.
Web Design by Allison Bockman
Photos by Claire Davis
Video by takako Sato
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