His Africa is high up in the mountains between Capanna Margherita on Mt. Cimone and Mt. Rosa. 295 air-wise kilometers apart are an unbridgeable distance for the traditional wirless systems to send out information.
Daniele Trinchero, who teaches about radiofrequency systems at Politecnico of Turin, thought about this challenge as an explorer advancing on a unknown land would do.  He has won: he is able to exchange files through that gap of about 300 kilometers and also managed to set up a videoconference.

With irony he tells about his miraculous wireless system that can overcome the known boundaries – 200 meters for Wi-Fi systems, and up to 40 kilometers for WiMax.  “Together with my young consultants we set off for an impossible challenge” he states.  While his passion for mountain landscapes pushed him to choose one of the highest European peaks, he was actually thinking about Africa and its problems in communication as well as its falling apart facilities.  To send an e-mail from El Cairo to Johannesburg through phone line of the poorest continent of the world is and will always be a technological enterprise recalling a bit Livingstone’s adventures.  On the contrary, to use Trinchero’s method is possible and it has more affordable costs.  Winning when the resources are unlimited is quite easy; at Politecnico it was decided to work bearing in mind the politically correct idea of the minimum cost.  “We have used the cheapest technology available on purpose”.  What does this mean?  “Some old and unused computers we recycled from our labs”.  They were reprogrammed with software that is less expensive than Windows – that is to say Linux.  “And we added the wireless cards that are normally used for domestic purposes, and some networks in open fields with changes on the communication protocols”.  The investment was minimum – 100 €, to which it was added up the third element, an antenna.  The result was a success.  Its appearance is not exactly as hi-tech as a commercial would require, but changing the aesthetic will not be hard, Trinchero admits.  And most importantly, everything works as it should: “the signal is stable”.  Files can therefore go back and forth on their invisible highway.  The network goes from Politecnico of Turin to Capanna Margherita, and from there it reaches Mt. Valluga, located in Austria at a distance of 225 kilometers, and Pian Cavallaro on Mt. Cimone at a distance of 295 kilometers.  This is indeed a record for a system of broadcasting devices controlled by open-source software, and that work with a very low input – even lower than that of a cellphone.
Now the broad-band is at the hut, and a webcam transmits images every 15 seconds to the monitors of the iXem lab at Politecnico.  The show is great indeed.

The low-rate system for the Third World
The system tested by Politecnico of Turin is easy and cheap.  It may work anywhere with very low frequencies – it is in fact enough to use a solar panel to make it work.  The characteristics of the project, which is thought mainly for the poorest areas of the Third World, can be found on the internet sites of Ixem Labs: http://ixem.polito.it/index_e.htm.

What it built of
From cable to wireless
With wireless systems computers do not send out information through cable anymore, but through thin air.  No more cables to place down or walls to go around; the user is free to connect when and where he wants, according to the global connection principle and as long as he is in an area that is covered – with a radium that does not exceed 200 meters.