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 AED>Technology Applications> Macedonia Becomes World’s First ‘Wireless’ Country
November 30,2005
Technology Applications: MacedoniaBecomes
 
World’s First ‘Wireless’ Country
 Working with the Government of Macedonia and the private sector,AED has helped transform Macedonia, once the least developed of theYugoslav republics, into the world’s first ‘wireless country’ of its size orlarger.Now a vast majority—95 percent—of the country’s population hasaccess to wireless, broadband Internet service.Through a grant from USAID, the AED projectMacedonia Connects worked with a local Internet service provider to connect every one ofthe country’s 460 primary and secondary schools to a wirelessnetwork. Two years ago most of these schools did not even haveworking telephones. Now each is outfitted with a computer lab, and thestudents are connected to the world.That network became the backbone for the national wireless system.Macedonia Connects also worked to extend the reach of the wirelessnetwork to rural communities scattered throughout the ruggedmountainous countryside."Our project team had the technical vision of how the network wecreated for the schools could be expanded to benefit the entirecountry," said Dennis Foote, vice president and director of theAEDCenter for Applied Technology."We were able to make it happenthrough support from USAID's 'Last Mile Initiative,' which AdministratorNatsios created to expand the access of the rural poor tocommunications."The public-private partnership involved in making this excitingadvancement possible includes members from the Government of theRepublic of Macedonia, the Macedonian Ministry of Education andScience, the U.S. Agency for International Development, the People’sRepublic of China, Microsoft, and Motorola. Microsoft providedvaluable software packages and licenses to the government ofMacedonia, and Motorola contributed necessary hardware.“This infrastructure will bring in investment and create jobs”, says JaniMakraduli, President of the Committee for Information Technology of
Glenn StMacedoniworks wschoolstlearningInterne
 
Macedoparticipconferenccountry'Intern
 
Page 1 of 2Macedonia Becomes World’s First ‘Wireless’ Country11/30/2005http://www.aed.org/TechnologyApplications/macedoniaconnects.cfm
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