Venice Connected: Wi-Fi and broadband for Venice, Mestre and islands.
You will able to send emails and documents, download files and work on your laptop comfortably seated in a bar while drinking the umpteenth cup of coffee. While walking along a street, you will be informed on your mobile phone of the opening of a new exhibition nearby, an ongoing artistic performance or a nice lounge bar right round the corner that serves a special aperitif. In Venice, complete connection will become a daily reality, not in ten or even twenty years, but very soon.
The Venice Connected project was presented at the Telecom Future Centre on the 30th of October. The participants, who talked about future scenarios of this project, were Michele Vianello, Deputy Mayor and councillor for Automation, Stefano Pileri, General Director of Telecom Italia Technology, and Stefano Venturi, CEO and Corporate Vice President of Cisco System.
Venis S.p.a, the public utility for telecommunications and network technologies, has been working since 2005 to create an infrastructure able to connect Venice, Mestre and the islands through optical fibre and Wi-Fi. This will be ready at the beginning of 2009 thanks also to connections with nets already available in this area.
Tests have already started, like during Carnival 2007, when the Wi-Fi connection was available in San Marco Square at the height of people’s flow or during the unfortunate Heineken Jammin’ Festival at San Giuliano’s Park in Mestre and the Venice Film Festival at the Lido. At present, the optical fibre net is the property of the Municipality, but, once completed, it will be liberalized and available also for private companies.
The project can count on the partnership of two leading figures in the telecommunications field: Cisco System, one of the most important companies in the field of networking and related technologies, and Telecom Italia that will provide net services (Web access and VoIP).
The most important goal of Venice Connected is the reduction of Digital Divide: young people, for example, will have the possibility to use more dynamically the net to download files and create new contents, thanks to free access or to access at a very low price.
Another crucial goal of this project is finding an answer to the problems of a complex area like Venice: thanks to the net it will be possible to reduce the time for reaching faraway areas of the city and, above all, to connect the islands, aiming this way to the enhancement of public services (transportation, health and education).
Venice Connected will represent a very important result for a city like Venice where 270,000 residents have to live with 20 million tourists. This project has many goals like connecting citizens with institutions, easing city services, and, above all, improving the quality of life, whether the beneficiaries are Venetians, tourists or commuters.
Another aim is the creation of quality tourism by offering innovative services enhanced by the influence of new technologies, like with the Venice iMob service (www.actv.it), already available, that will be combined with others tailored only for residents. Users of the various services will be identified precisely through specific codes in order to propose to them personalized contents: personalized tourist guides thanks to the mobile positioning system, booking and online ticket selling and website with contents available also from mobile phones. And who knows…the possibility of reading this blog from your mobile while walking along the calli of Venice.
