Public parks, train and bus stations, libraries and civic centers are part of the places where the Connected Public Spaces project, developed by the Telecommunications Superintendence (SUTEL); has installed free Wireless Internet Zones (Zii), so that citizens can connect and use the services available on the network. One of the objectives of the project is to reduce the existing digital divide throughout the country.
By working with SUTEL, students and researchers from around the world can connect to these spaces with eduroam, a wireless access service aimed at the world education and research community, present in more than 100 Territories around the world. This is possible thanks to an agreement signed between the Rectors of the public universities that make up CONARE, the Ministry of Science, Technology and Telecommunications, SUTEL and Fonatel.
With this development, Costa Rica becomes the only country to have a nationwide coverage of an academic network, massively deployed wirelessly in public spaces.
“This agreement allows, for example, that students from rural areas who need to connect to institutional systems that work only within university networks, can approach parks or libraries and connect directly to eduroam, without the need to move to a headquarters or campus of the universities, ”says Alonso Castro Mattei, director of the Information Technology Center of the University of Costa Rica.
