A wonderful article by Reuters' Rodrigo Martinez looks at the arrival of Wi-Fi in Salamanca, Chile, with a population of 12,500.

In september of last year, Salamanca became the Chile first town with free Wi-Fi. According to Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, the project's aim lies in "cutting the gap between rich and poor, between the capital and the regions, between the large and small cities."

"Amid the dry, brown hills surrounding this unassuming farming town, 10 telecommunications antennae have been erected, providing Internet coverage for 88 percent of its people," Martinez writes. "The project was partly financed by the owners of a local copper mine, Los Pelambres, which provided $56,000 for the antennae. The mine is one of Chile's biggest and is a major source of employment for the area."

"Our challenge is to make the Internet a basic service of the present century," Bachelet said during the launch last September. "Some people think that access to this type of technology is for affluent people only. Nothing could be further from the truth."