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Email Over High-Frequency Radio in West Africa

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the connections dept.

Guillaume Filion writes "LinuxJournal has a fascinating article about Radio Email in West Africa over HF links. 'Deep inside the warm green interior of Guinea, centered in the frontal lobe of West Africa, field personnel in the widely scattered village-towns of Dabola, Kissidougou and Nzerekore now enjoy access to regular internet e-mail, directly from their desktops. Here we have bridged the digital divide, and there isn't a telephone line or satellite dish in sight.' Talk about Wireless Fidelity!"

2 of 192 comments (clear)

  1. How they would benefit... by Demon-Xanth · · Score: 5, Insightful

    A doctor could email a hospital of some symptoms in the field and get a reply of what the illness and proper care for it is. Although the individuals wouldn't get a benefit directly there would be an indirect benefit.

    --
    If you think education is expensive, you should try ignorance -- Derek Bok, president of Harvard
  2. Why so slow? What about contention? by gpinzone · · Score: 4, Insightful

    How does this system organize the data streams? What if two people miles apart transmit their message at the same time on the same frequency? How does it handle contention issues? They have an awful lot of bandwidth to transmit so the messages should be pretty "bursty" and fast unless they're downloading entire web pages and such.