A Room with a View -- And a Connection

di Christa L. Coleman 01.01.2002 00:00

ALTERNATIVE WORKPLACES. A sleepy Italian village becomes the travel spot for people who just can't leave their work behind.

A high-powered telemodernization project, spearheaded by Internet consulting company Teleura, has equipped the village with an advanced telecommunications infrastructure. "We wanted to give people the option of living and working somewhere other than the big cities," says Teleura co-founder Stefania Belloni.

"Ah -- this is the life." You've probably had this thought while soaking up sun and scenery on vacation. You might have even contemplated staying. People do it, you know -- a two-week sail on the Caribbean turns into early retirement; a trip to the French country side turns type-A business person into an out-of-the-box thinker and telecommuter.

The scenario becomes even more realistic if your company is forward thinking and understands the benefits of letting employees work out of the office. Traffic-free, dressed-down, low-interruption workdays are a recipe for productivity. So, does it matter whe-ther if you're telecommuting from the next town or telecommuting from a mountaintop in Tibet?

Here's where reality hits: How will you get a connection? The downside to getting away from it all is you're usually leaving modern technology behind.

Or, are you?

It's the goal of one thirteenth-century Italian village to show that a remote location doesn't have to leave you technologically stranded. In an attempt to give "medieval" a modern spin (or is it the other way around?), Colletta di Castelbianco is a real-world cybervillage. Located in the mountains of northwestern Italy, it's a haven for any traveler with a laptop; and, if you choose to make the small castle town your permanent residence, you can have your cake and eat it, too.

Land surveyor Alessandro Pampirio and a couple of his colleagues discovered the abandoned village on a Sunday afternoon walk in 1991. A restoration project guided by Giancarlo De Carlo brought the abandoned village back to its original state. And, a high-powered telemodernization project, spearheaded by Internet consulting company Teleura, has equipped the village with an advanced telecommunications infrastructure. "We wanted to give people the option of living and working somewhere other than the big cities," says Teleura co-founder Stefania Belloni.

You'll see little evidence of wires or cables. Even the antenna for the radiophones is camouflaged to blend in with the gray stone. A 10-mile network of fiber optics and copper installed by Telecom Italia runs beneath the village and delivers connectivity on par with most major European cities. The town's 60 apartments sport high-speed, always-on Internet; satellite TV; ISDN; a state-of-the-art digital e-mail and phone system; and video conferencing capabilities. The town even has its own Web site (http://www.colletta.it). No word on whether Wi-Fi is in the works, but the project is still evolving.

La dolce vita

So, regardless of whether a thirteenth-century Italian village is your cup of tea, you have to admit it's setting a good precedent. As the workplace becomes increasingly unwired, many of us will have fewer reasons to be in the office full-time. Some of us will opt for the comforts of home; some of us will want to hit the road; and, some of us may choose to do a little of both and look for options like Colletta di Castelbianco.

[Mobile Business Advisor Magazine, 2002]

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