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Ghana's Digital Dilemma
Some random reader writes: "Here is a fascinating Technology Review article about information technology in the West African nation of Ghana. It's an illustration of how new technology relies on, and can be hampered by, old technology. It's also a testament to the ingenuity of the people there who are working to maintain and update the country's IT infrastructure. These folks are working with a terrible phone system and frequent power outages, but they still manage to succeed."
Sounds almost like how things were here in Belgium, phone-wise. Unless you could manage to get in with a serious business that can afford decent connections, you were stuck with dialup that frequently dropped out. Lines went down, took months to come back up, and "the broadband revolution" didn't take hold until about a year ago when phone service became deregulated and Belgacom wasn't the monopoly.
Sadly, there wasn't any "connivance" or corruption for the loss of phone service; more often than not, it's just sheer laziness and lack of work ethic. All hail free market powers! Huzzah for competition and allowance of innovation!
Now, if only the fiber-optic lines didn't lock up between Antwerp and Paris; this is killing business.
Never attribute to Hanlon that which can be adequately attributed to Heinlein.
I seem to remember an article in wired an while back sbout how china rolled out fiber to the entire country in the space of a few years.
The just decided that it would be a good thing so they went for it, as the goverment owns everything they just got the railway workers to all the fiber, and hired an Ex-Pat from the US to run the thing.
They now have villages with no schools or doctors but with massive IP connectivity, which they hope to use to solve the problems of no schools etc..
It certainly puts companies like BT with there rubbish ADSL role out to shame.
c.
it seems that the US is the only decent place to be on the net, here in the UK we are a country full of 56kers,
Speak for yourself. I live in Barcelona, Spain and companies are falling over themselves to offer broadband services here. I have fast DSL for about £24 a month, and it's never failed. In other European countries the situation is similar. Perhaps it's just the UK that's backward.
Funny. If you went back in time to the height of Thatcher's reign and told someone from the UK that in 15 years time Spain would have better telecomms and a better health service than the UK, people would have laughed.
Hahahaha-hahahahahah-ahahahahahahahahaha-hahahahah ahahaha-hahahahah-ahaha-hahahah-ahahah-ahahahahaha h-ahahahahahahahah-ahahahahahah-ahahahaha!
A HA HAHAHA-HAHAHAHAHAHAHA-HAHAHAHAHA-HAHAHA!
a hahah-ahahahahahahahah-ahahahahahahahah-hahahah-ah ahahahaha-hahahahahaha-hahahahahahaha-haha-hahahah ahah-ahah-ahahahahaha-hahahahaha!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
:D
HAHAHAHA-HAHAHAHAHAHA-HAHAHAHAHA-HAHAHAHA-HAHAH
...
BAAAAAAAAAAAA Haaaaaaaa-hahahahahahah-ahahahahahahahaha-hahahah
********BIG SIGH**********
Yeah, like they're gonna learn how to grow computers there!
Hahahahahaha....