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OPLAN - open public local access network Print E-mail
Sunday, 16 April 2006
An open public local access networks - OPLAN - is precisely what it says it is. That simple proposition scarcely does justice to what this digital infrastructure can achieve, or the scope of the potential economic, social and creative benefit that OPLANs can unleash. Quite simply, they can make all old-style notions of "telecoms" redundant.

The OPLAN Foundation website offers interesting background documentation and commentary on OPLAN's, including a list of "distinctive defining characteristics of OPLANs that link them all together, and differentiate them from today's telecommunications networks:

  • they only serve a local geographic community or location, ranging from a street or business park through a rural community to an entire city
  • they provide "open access" and are for use by any party located within the community - they serve both the public and private sectors, corporate and residential citizens, service and content creators as well as consumers
  • they are owned and controlled totally independently of any service or content that runs over them
  • they are structured, financed and owned so as to serve the common good; the value and benefit of the technology remains with the users
  • they are not owned by a PTO/ licensed telecommunications operator
  • they deploy modern digital technology and offer true broadband (symmetrical) connectivity

http://www.oplan.org/