High-speed Internet access to the Amazon
The project was billed as part of an Intel Corporation "World Ahead Program", in which it would spend more than a billion US dollars to accelerate Internet and computer access in developing countries. Intel predicted that the "digital transformation" of Parintins would improve health care and education for the approximately 114,000 residents of the town on an island in the Amazon River.
"We’ve been blessed with this project," Parintins Mayor Frank Bi Garcia said in a release. "We’re really isolated and don’t have the conditions to receive the Internet with cables."
"Access to wireless Internet is a great pleasure for us. This project will prepare this generation for the future."
Intel said it worked with the Brazilian government, business and education officials to make wireless Internet nodes at a healthcare center, public schools, a community center and a university.
"Technology has expanded what is possible in Parintins," Intel Chairman Craig Barrett said at a dedication ceremony in the Amazon rain forest. "It is now a place where wireless broadband links to the Internet bring the expertise of specialists, sophisticated medical imaging and the worlds libraries to a community reachable only by airplane or boat."
Intel said it planned to extend wireless Internet access to "millions of citizens" in Latin America and to train more than a million technology teachers there.
Santa Clara, California, based Intel planned similar projects for isolated communities in Africa, Asia and the Middle East where electricity and telecommunications were unreliable.
Intel recently announced major layoffs in a drive to reduce costs and improve efficiency in the face of competition from California rival Advanced Micro Devices.
INet-Bridge
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