OT: politics and Wi-Fi Help needed, please

[F. Mortes]

Hi, everyone!

I need some help from the list and please forgive this off-topic 
posting.

I live in a small village next to a National Park, here in Catalonia. 
Because of the nature of our location, zoning and planning schemes 
forbid any kind of industrial activity. Over the last 20 years, more 
and more families have moved into our village, attracted by the peace 
and quiet and the beauty of the area.

Problem: because there are few businesses in the area, our Council does 
not raise much money from taxation. If we do not attract more 'clean' 
professional-types who move or set up their offices in the village 
(surgeries, legal firms, architects, catering compannies, etc), in the 
future we will not be able to provide reasonably good public services 
for everyone.

Broad band access to the internet would very much be an incentive for 
such businesses to move to our village. Currently, DSL providers offer 
very poor services in our area because we are too far from the nearest 
'node' (or whatever the term is). Wi-Fi looks like an option. The 
trouble is that this is still in its infancy here and nobody seems to 
know very much about it. I've been asked to attend a meeting tonight 
between our mayor and a young, local start-up Wi-Fi provider, simply 
because I've heard the word "Wi-Fi" mentioned before, not because I 
know much about it!

Question:

What sort of questions should we ask them? For example, I seem to have 
heard that different standards (identified by a string of numbers and 
letters) exist. Should we be concerned about this? We are worried that 
we might make a mistake we would regret.
Could anyone point me to a web page, like, "Wi-Fi for dummies"?


Thank you very much!

Francesc