3Com helps bring broadband Internet access to wine and champagne region of Penedes, Spain

Local governments have long struggled with the challenge of bringing Internet access to remote homes and businesses, resulting in an information society of `haves` and `have nots`.

3Com Corporation, a leading provider of networking solutions, together with the Catalan company AWACat (AWA Group), which specialises in WiFi telecommunications services, have helped the Pened'es region of Spain to address its digital divide by providing wireless Internet access to every business and residence in the area.

3Com wireless connectivity products unobtrusively canvas the Penedes rugged terrain to easily offer the region`s 200 enterprises, mainly wine and champagne manufacturers, as well as its citizens access to the World Wide Web.

"The largest barrier to deploying high-speed Internet access in the Pened'es region is the geographical complexity of the landscape and the dissemination of businesses and people," said Javier Abad, account manager, 3Com Iberia. "Traditional telecommunications technologies, such as fibre optics or point-to-point connections, are excessively expensive, and implementing these technologies would take several years. 3Com`s wireless solution is a unique option to help cost-effectively and quickly solve this dilemma while providing Internet access and IP telephony across the region."

"Our wireless high-speed connectivity service is the best solution to provide broadband access infrastructure for areas which, due to their geographical situation or poor projected profitability margins, the big carriers are hesitant to deploy services," said Angel Gallardo, CEO, AWA. "One of the reasons we selected 3Com as our networking provider was the support they offered to us as well as the end-user. We have been working with 3Com for several years and the results have been consistently excellent because the company offers new solutions that make it possible to solve any kind of technological problem. At 3Com and AWA, we think that wireless technologies can offer new and amazing possibilities and our mission, as with this project, is to make these possibilities a reality."

Work started on the first phase of the project in October 2002, and includes 24 3Com Wireless LAN Building to Building Bridges, with data travelling distances up to 24km at 11Mbps. The solution also includes ten 3Com 11Mbps Wireless LAN Access Point 8000s; a completely secure solution that includes RADIUS central server authentication, IEEE 802.1x support, along with 40-bit WEP and 128-bit, and dynamic session key encryption.

Once the core wireless infrastructure is in place, the next step will be to install 3Com`s NBX IP telephony solution. The benefits of combining 3Com`s wireless and networked telephony systems have been proven time and time again in customer sites around the world. IT managers can expect significant cost savings by routing voice traffic over data networks, while wireless access to the Web and corporate networks frees users from the confines of the office.