{"id":880,"date":"2019-02-25T20:49:52","date_gmt":"2019-02-25T08:49:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wispa.nz\/?p=880"},"modified":"2019-07-07T20:43:27","modified_gmt":"2019-07-07T08:43:27","slug":"at-wifi-connect-its-all-about-the-kids","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wispa.nz\/?p=880","title":{"rendered":"At Wifi Connect Its All About The Kids"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wifi Connect<\/a> – A WISP Profile by Ernie Newman<\/p>\n

Few businesses choose to service a disparate range of small, far-flung markets such as Wairoa, Tolaga Bay, Haast, Minginui and Murupara. But then, WiFi Connect is not a conventional business.<\/p>\n

\"WiFi
WiFi Connect founder Ivan Lomax outside Tolaga Bay school<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Along with sister WISPs Toko Net and Wairoa Wireless, supported by wholesaler Gisborne.net, and motivated by a passion for getting under-privileged kids aboard the digital era, founder Ivan Lomax relishes the tough challenge of bringing the most remote corners of the country online.<\/p>\n

Its not easy. Most WISPs focus on a natural region that they can easily service \u2013 usually with all customers within an hour or two\u2019s drive of the base.<\/p>\n

Born in the education sector, and specialising in low income communities, WiFi Connect\u2019s background is steeped in low decile schools and a desire to give their deprived rural kids a digitally-based education comparable with their city peers.<\/p>\n

\"Leon
Leon is most at home in a school server room<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ivan Lomax was Principal of Te Puia Springs School, an isolated rural community of around 350 people 100km north of Gisborne, when chance made him an early convert to digital education. Schools up the East Cape were plagued with poor ERO reports, so the Ministry of Education partnered with local runanga, Te Runanga o Ngati Porou and called in the 2020 Trust to see whether its Computers in Homes programme could help.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Ivan\u2019s home area of Tokomaru Bay got involved – the community wanted decent broadband so they could use the gifted computers. Seed money was contributed by the 2020 Trust, and WISP Gisborne.net provided connectivity.<\/p>\n

Soon after, the community trust that had been established to manage the Tokomaru Bay project collapsed. \u201cI ended up facing 12 Toko customers to whom I\u2019d promised Internet access,\u201d Ivan recalls. So he took them on and quickly expanded to 60 customers. Now Tokomaru Bay has a stand alone, low cost WISP with 300 customers wholesaling services from Gisborne.net.<\/p>\n

The Wairoa Story<\/h3>\n

At the same time 200km south in Wairoa, colleague Leon Syme was walking a similar path.<\/p>\n

\"Wairoa.net\u2019s
Wairoa.net\u2019s Leon Syme<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0\u201cI\u2019ve been a school technician since university,\u201d Leon recalls. \u201cI got a Masters in Business Administration, undergraduate degree in Arts, and spent a year in Japan.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cThen I taught myself about computers, starting on a Commodore 64. I became a technician and learning facilitator for several local schools. Ronald Brice (of Gisborne.net) had just established a couple of towers in Wairoa, and I became his man at the southern end of the network. So about 2008, working with Ivan, Ronald, and Laurence Zwimpfer of the 2020 Trust, we started out \u2013 then got funding from a remote schools broadband fund under Gisborne.net\u2019s name to expand the network even more.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fast forward to 2019. Wairoa Wireless in its own right is still small, but the combination of a friendly commercial relationship with Ivan and Ronald, and a day job as school technician, keep Leon fully occupied. Customers are mostly farmers and businesses. A few are way out at the back on the edge of Te Urewera country. Others are halfway down state highway 2 towards Napier, and in remote Putere south of Lake Waikaremoana. The Maungataniwha Forest kiwi restoration project, on a series of ridges between the Te Urewera National Park and the Whirinaki Conservation Forest, is a customer of Wairoa.net. Little chance of fibre there any time soon!<\/p>\n

\"Mikel
Mikel O\u2019Connell manages the Wairoa movie theatre. Wairoa.net\u2019s modem lives in the projection room, feeding back reports on screening to movie rights holders as well as supporting EFTPOS, free WiFi, and general administration.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

Leon describes Wairoa.net as a hobby that hangs off the \u201cserious businesses\u201d of WiFi Connect and Gisborne.net. \u201cIvan\u2019s the figurehead \u2013 I\u2019m the visionary who does the work,\u201d he quips.<\/p>\n

The Minginui Story<\/h3>\n

With WiFi Connect and Wairoa.net well established, a call came from Chris Eketone who Ivan and Ronald had worked with many years earlier on the \u201cTuhoe on Line\u201d project. \u201cTuhoe want to know you as a person before doing business,\u201d says Ivan. That led to a project in the township of Minginui, midway between Murupara and Ruatahuna, then famous for endemic multi-generational unemployment, damp homes, and real poverty.<\/p>\n

The local school Te Kura o Te Whaiti-nui-a-Toi, was an early recipient of Fibre to the School. So supported by the school\u2019s Board, the group arranged to build 3 towers to connect the remote valleys where the student lived. The broadband is not free to households, but there is a low cost service with high data allowances. Students now access broadband Internet 24\/7 like their Auckland peers.<\/p>\n

But the impact goes far wider than just online learning and homework. After decades with zero employment growth, a serious number of jobs has been created as a direct result of connectivity \u2013 80 at a native plant nursery, and eight at a dairy farm among them.<\/p>\n

The school curriculum has also developed with programmes around local fauna and the natural environment.<\/p>\n

Chris Eketone recently told the Education Gazette \u201cLike us, with the right support and determination the world is your oyster \u2013 its transforming our childrens\u2019 learning opportunities and the benefits are spreading across the community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Haast, and the West Coast<\/h3>\n

While the Computers in Homes programme was at its peak, it had the West Coast REAP (Rural Enterprise Assistance Project) as a strong partner. Discussions among a range of parties, including WiFi Connect, resulted in building a 45km, 5 tower network. It ran from Fox Glacier south to Bruce Bay, linked to an existing WiFi Connect presence in Hokitika, enabling locals to migrate off satellite and use the Internet much more affordably. It was a very collaborative project \u2013 WiFi Connect provided travel, intellectual property and time, the Te Runanga o Ngati Makaawhio provided marae accommodation and helicopter support, and InternetNZ provided funding.<\/p>\n

That led to a successful major bid to build the RBI2 (Rural Broadband Initiative) project in South Westland, a project that will keep Ivan and team very busy the next two years.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not all. There are Wifi Connect services in Ruatoki, Murupara, Kawerau, Te Urewera and other places at various stages of development.<\/p>\n

The Man in the Centre of This<\/h3>\n

Its an idyllic mid summer morning when I meet Ivan Lomax by the iconic Tolaga Bay wharf to see WiFi Connect\u2019s heartland for myself. Mount Titirangi \u2013 one of a confusing number of similarly-named places \u2013 dominates the landscape just to the south. It looks alluring as a site for a WISP tower and it proves to be just that as we drive the near vertical slope in a trusty 4wd. There\u2019s no room for error \u2013 a slight mis-judgement would have us back at the highway in a nanosecond – but a magnificent view of Cooks Cove where Cook moored in 1769 is a welcome distraction from the precipitous slope.<\/p>\n

\"Spectacular
Spectacular views, including Cooks Cove, from the summit of Mount Titirangi near Tolaga Bay<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The summit of Titirangi is home to an impressive array of wireless sites with antennas that reflect the distances to the next hilltop in the chain. But unlike most WISPs who can go to their highest site and see most of their coverage area, only a tiny fraction of the far flung WiFi Connect network is visible from here.<\/p>\n

\u201cIs fragmentation an issue,\u201d I ask Ivan.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot at all. The good thing is we only go where we are asked to go. So we already have key people on the ground. We get sub-contractors locally. We hire keen people who were unemployed,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur core clientele is low-income \u2013 but we need some high-income customers to pay the bills. The logistics are challenging \u2013 in some places there is not even a courier service.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not into flashy marketing \u2013 it will happen but we\u2019re not quite ready. And we\u2019re lucky that both Leon and I have other income streams so we can afford to do this.<\/p>\n

The scattered but needy customer base WiFi Connect services must count itself lucky too. The lives of many needy young New Zealanders are being transformed by the extraordinary work of WiFi Connect to close the digital divide, drawing on the willingness of visionaries in isolated communities to help themselves.<\/p>\n

An unconventional business indeed!<\/p>\n

Wifi Connect<\/a><\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wifi Connect – A WISP Profile by Ernie Newman Few businesses choose to service a disparate range of small, far-flung markets such as Wairoa, Tolaga Bay, Haast, Minginui and Murupara. But then, WiFi Connect is not a conventional business. Along with sister WISPs Toko Net and Wairoa Wireless, supported by wholesaler Gisborne.net, and motivated by … <\/p>\n

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