Brazilian professor debuts solar wi-fi project

A professor at the University of Sao Paulo is piloting a project that uses the sun to power self-contained wi-fi units, in hopes of ultimately delivering free wireless internet to poor communities lacking proper power plugs and internet infrastructures. Professor Marcelo Zuffo, the Interactive Electronics Coordinator of the University of Sao Paulo, is testing his creation by attaching prototypes—each of which consists of a solar panel, a motorcycle battery and a circuit—to lampposts around campus.

Zuffo’s solar project depends on a mesh internet, a network comprised of the individual wi-fi units, which relay information among themselves to connect to a larger internet network. While the project is still in its nascent stages—Zuffo says that currently the units provide “two days of full internet coverage”—the professor is shooting for expanded coverage (to ten days) and more miniaturized units. While Zuffo’s original motivation was to provide schools with internet access, solar wi-fi has a number of other potential applications, such as low-income neighborhoods, parks and perhaps even a boulevard of cafes and shops. Could we feasibly take advantage of this technology?

As history tells us, Zuffo isn’t the only person to have thought that solar wi-fi was a good idea. An ill-fated solar wi-fi project in St. Louis Park, a small city in Minnesota, can give us a point of comparison and hopefully teach us what not to do, should we wish to adopt solar wi-fi ourselves (assuming, of course, that Zuffo’s project succeeds).

The St. Louis Park project, which used over $1 million worth of equipment, was given the axe earlier this year after it appeared that the wi-fi network was not functioning well. System tests and inspections from city officials concluded that Arinc, the solar project’s contractor, had used the “wrong materials” and set the solar wi-fi poles up in the “wrong locations,” from where the solar panels could not receive the amount of sunlight necessary to give the batteries juice. Locals had also apparently complained about the poles themselves, as they were worried about the unsightly objects decreasing the value of their real estate.

However, the above case seems to be more of an issue of a contracting company messing up a good idea with bad execution. If a company managed to produce unobtrusively small solar wi-fi units and attached them to preexisting lampposts, could we embrace solar-powered internet then?