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In the first place the technical side is causing trouble. 15 Bælum households have been designated as digital test families. They have been connected to the broadband, and now they are to test some of all the new IT technologies: Web camera, internet-telephony, wireless network etc.
- We received an offer from the TDC Internet, which we accepted. However, on august 1. the they switched to new standard routers. This has caused problems as the new routers seemed afflicted by a wrong configuration. One of the test families managed to try seven routers before they located the error to the ADSL modem. But now the connections are working smoothly for all families in the project reports Emil Jensen, project manager. His own family is a test family, too, and their router – one of the old models – is running without any hassle.
- And it seems that the new type of router has got some blockings that make it impossible to experiments with web conferences, IP telephony et cetera.
The TDC, the Internet provider, who is making part in the project along with the municipality of Skørping Kommune and the VUC, the local evening school - has promised to look into the problem.
A Place to Be at Last
A significant part of the IT Village Package was to establish a place to accommodate training for the citizens of Bælum, a place where they could meet and support and help each other out – and where the citizens can establish a kind of workstation for distance work away from their home. Already from the beginning over a year ago the task group had designated the old railway station of Bælum as the most convenient place for such an IT Center. However, the municipal day-care center used the building for a depot.
- We find that the municipality has been a long time on their way in relocating the depot, but now we are busy painting and redecorating the premises. For a start we will install eight machines in here, and we hope to welcome the first users by the middle of October. So we can have an official opening by November 1, explains Emil Jensen. |
All family members of the Jensen's in Østergade, Bælum are using the new ADSL internet connection. For example Malthe and Nikolaj, the sons, are playing Counterstrike against other players 'out there' – to the extent where Dad, Emil Jensen, now and again feels the need to introduce a time limit…
Complete Package Deal
Currently several IT Village projects are running independently under the umbrella of Digital North Jutland.
- The idea behind our project is to prepare a complete turnkey "package" for other rural communities to use if they want to become IT villages.
Photo: Jesper Dall, P.P. |
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A Place to Be at Last
A significant part of the IT Village Package was to establish a place to accommodate training for the citizens of Bælum, a place where they could meet and support and help each other out – and where the citizens can establish a kind of workstation for distance work away from their home. Already from the beginning over a year ago the task group had designated the old railway station of Bælum as the most convenient place for such an IT Center. However, the municipal day-care center used the building for a depot.
- We find that the municipality has been a long time on their way in relocating the depot, but now we are busy painting and redecorating the premises. For a start we will install eight machines in here, and we hope to welcome the first users by the middle of October. So we can have an official opening by November 1, explains Emil Jensen. All family members of the Jensen's in Østergade, Bælum are using the new ADSL internet connection. For example Malthe and Nikolaj, the sons, are playing Counterstrike against other players 'out there' – to the extent where Dad, Emil Jensen, now and again feels the need to introduce a time limit…
Hence the name, the "IT Village Package", Emil Jensen points out, hoping that other villages can benefit from the experience – positive as well as negative – made in Bælum.
The projectet consists of three main elements:
- The broadband connectivity and the capability of connecting most families possible. As mentioned, experiments are to be carried out with the wealth of potentials offered by the Internet technology.
- The IT Station where citizens can meet and share experience and learn from each other.
- A Village Portal for the citizens to share information, for the school to place images from the feature week, etc. The idea is to make the Portal as dynamic and active as possible. The citizens, associations and institutions etc. are to contribute to the Portal.
From Home Page to Portal
- The vision is also to run the Portal via a central web server which in turn is to function as a kind of external harddisk to the users. And we hope that the technology will enable us to establish an internal network connecting users here in Bælum – a kind of town intranet, explains Emil Jensen.
But for now we have only got the old home page. For it turns out to be more complicated than first assumed to create an interactive portal user-friendly enough to allow all citizens to place their content on the portal.
However, the prospect seems to be getting brighter. On the internet the task group found the so-called Content Management Systems, or CMS, as freeware/shareware. Currently they are being put to the test to see if they will solve the problem in a functional and simple way. And if they find a proper program, the technicians are considering to localize the user interface into Danish, which in turn will be for the benefit of other village communities that may want to follow.
A Call for Projects
Currently the village of Bælum counts 15 digital test families equipped with each their ADSL connection with a minimum transfer rate of 512 KB/sec. And once the TDC Internet has solved the remaining problems, the families living closest to the central server may get 2 Megabit connectivity which among other things is a prerequisite for IP telephony. Or to watch a movie via the Internet.
- Any enterprises that are developing new web-based technology for people on an ordinary user level have the opportunity of testing their product on our test families, declares Emil Jensen, encouraging interested companies to take contact.
Meanwhile a committee has been established consisting of four test families to come up with good suggestions for education and training, lectures and projects to make the new technology attractve – and relevant – to all members of the family.
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