Freerunner competition winners announced from Salford to the Isle of Coll
London, December 17, 2009: Freerunner, the free public WiFi network today announced the winners of its community competition. 46 communities across the UK will receive free WiFi for a minimum of three years regardless of the current connectivity in the area. Freerunner is using a combination of traditional broadband, satellite and 3G technology to connect underserved or remote communities that desperately need access to the internet.
Freerunner launched the competition in September 2009 and received over 500 entries from charities to mosques, scout groups to community centres. Entries were judged by Freerunner’s Board members and winners were selected based on how much of an impact the prize would make.
“The Freerunner mission is to give everyone free access to fast WiFi whether you are in a coffee shop in the West End of London or a community centre in the suburbs of Newcastle,” says Owen Geddes, CEO of Freerunner. “We wanted to start with those most in need so we put the call out and the response was pretty overwhelming. It is incredible to think that a small piece of relatively low cost technology is going to fundamentally change nearly 50 communities across the UK.
Government and corporate sponsors are essential to rolling out free internet access to communities and we are very excited to have our first corporate partner - broadband supplier, BE. BE will be providing a broadband connection to those that don’t have any connection at all, completely free of charge as part of this project.”
"We’re proud to be part of the Freerunner mission and agree that WiFi should be more widely available,” says Tom Williams, Head of Operations at BE Broadband. "Freerunner’s attitude reminds me of what BE did for broadband when we created the first UK ADSL 2+ network. Our members are more likely to hang out in independent shops and cafes, so we’re proud to hook up Freerunner communities with fast and unlimited broadband. "
Ian Johnson, Project Leader for the Black Country Learning Academy says, “Many people in our area have never been online and know little about IT. Freerunner’s WiFi means we can set up new internet enabled computers allowing us to run more literacy, numeracy, IT and UK-Online courses, improving the employment prospects of people across the region”.
For a full list of all the winners, please visit www.freerunr.com/community. For more information, there is also a blog, www.freerunr.com/blog following the installations and detailing how WiFi is going to change the winning communities.
About Freerunner
Freerunner (www.freerunr.com) was launched on 20th May 2009 by a team of industry experts led by founder and CEO, Owen Geddes. The aim is to provide free wireless broadband access to consumers in both commercial and public locations. The vision is to readdress the balance between big brand venues and those areas that are currently significantly underserved. Freerunner has received initial funding from NorthStar Equity and the North East will be the first to benefit from the roll-out.
About BE
BE (www.bethere.co.uk) is the UK’s first ISP provider of ADSL2+ technology, with real world speeds up to 24 meg download and up to 2.5 meg upload. BE’s mission is simple: to provide its members with the best Internet service, with the best products, at the best possible price.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010 at 2:55PM