Email Over High-Frequency Radio in West Africa

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!"

Comments

Future of networking

[shrikel]

It'll be nice when there are no wires ANYWHERE. The way trends are going now, in a couple of dozen years all communication between people and devices will be wireless.

If you think about it, much of the last 2 decades' innovations and progress have had the effect (deliberate or not) of making life (at least for those who could afford it) more open and footloose. The company I work for used to have a Chicago address, just because nobody would believe that a large, international, reputable organization would be based in Salt Lake City. Nowadays nobody even thinks about that sort of thing. Even now, with telecommuting technologies, it's not necessary to have all your employees come to the office every day. Maybe in the future, the term "headquarters" will be obsolete, because organizations can be so distributed.

Okay, it's a little off-topic, but the article makes me think about the steps we're taking, technologically, and where they're leading.

Re:It's sad really

[friscolr]

I think that this is fantastic and has lots and lots of world applications. But why do I get the sense that what these people really need isnt wireless email to their laptops.

Decent infrastructure has more benefits than you can imagine. My dad works for the World Food Program and that org has used many different technologies for communication throughout the world.

At his last post (Nicaragua) they used Toyota Land Cruisers to get around. Those vehicles were equipped with a multitude of antennas, including some to communicate in the UHF range. For more remote locations they used motorcycles to transport satellite phones where needed. Now he's heading up operations in Angola and i'm not sure what sorts of techs they use there, but i've heard talk of satellite phones and in the capital, Luanda, he uses a cel phone (talking to him from MI, USA is a pain, phone cuts out and is quite laggy).

While starving sucks, it sucks even more when you can't communicate with anyone that you are hungry. In the past it was necessary to physically visit every single location to see how situations were there. Now, with better communication devices, when something serious happens (hurricane, landslide, refugee influx, etc) it can be communicated much quicker, response times are faster, and more lives can be saved.