CrookedRiverGuy wrote:I've heard rumours that the municipalities(?) offer free internet to the people in the villages, in an attempt to attract the younger generation. Is this only a rumour? And if it's true; who does it apply to - only those who settled there?
Yes it is true. The Ministry of Communications and works anounced in 2009 that all villages in Cyprus without broadband internet access would be covered by satellite internet access. The service is free and available to the "people of those villages". The way it works is there is a satellite internet receiver installed in the village that then transmits this signal back out as ordinary wifi. The idea is exactly as you say, to provide the younger generation an incentive to stay in the village more since they currently feel less "connected" than their bigger town/city counterparts.
Since then they have been installing them all over the place.
What you need to do is to get a wifi adapter and see what you can pick up, the services all are named HS-MCW-villagename-xx where xx is a number since in some villages, there is more than one transmittor.
Downside, it can be very slow, since it is satellite the lag times can be terrible. Also since it is satellite based it is unusable at certain times of the day, try using it for an hour before and after sunset for example and it will be impossible.
However whens its good, and conditions are right, its fine. Like I'm using it right now. However don't count on big file downloads and video streaming or skype, the constant drop-outs make it too unreliable for that. However if you live in a village with no broadband like I do, its a godsend.
Like all things governmental in cyprus, its a very good idea, but very poorly implemented. For instance they don't bother to tell anyone about it. There is nothing on any government web-site telling people about it, where it is available, how fast it should be, or how to connect to it.
Who is it for?, the only information I've ever found says "open and free to the people of these villages". This puts me in an odd situation since I live between a couple of transmittors, and (depending on time of day/weather) the nearer service is less reliable and slower than one that is further away. So should I be using the faster one or should I stick with the slower one (which I assume I'm officially supposed to use) . Not sure. As I understand they are all paid for by the MCW, not the villages, so I guess it doesn't matter.
Anyone else got any experience or any source of official information on this, please post.
