Being connected is priceless. Setting up an internet link can be surprisingly cheap. To help telecommunication experts in India train local students, ICTP researchers at the Radiocommunication section of the ICTP Aeronomy and Radiopropagation Laboratory held a training session in January and donated their signature Wireless Training Kit.

The kit is designed to help teachers and academia to train students and perform research in wireless networking. It includes wireless devices, software, lecture notes, laboratory exercises, teacher's guides and video-lectures. Its ultimate aim is to help communities more easily participate in global and local projects.

About thirty students from all the major states of India have now been taught how to use the kit, writes Bharat Chaudhari, dean of the International Institute of Information Technology in Pune. The students are experimenting with indoor and outdoor networks and with extending the coverage.

"The students are excited and they have started using devices in the kit independently," Chaudhari writes in an email. "This unique kit is one of our most important assets."

ARPL's Carlo Fonda and Marco Zennaro donating an early sample of the wireless training kit to Prof. Bharat Chaudhari of the Indian Institute of Information Technology in Pune, India.