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Still More on Connecting Laos
Rackemup writes "A story on Wired has some updated information on the progess made by the Remote IT Village Project attempting to connect several isolated villages deep in the Laotian Jungle to the rest of the world using wireless networks, pedal-power and Laonux (customized Linux installs translated into the Laotian language). Power surges can be a hassle when the nearest computer store is hundreds of miles away, but they're shooting for a May 18th "go live" date."
Our Remote IT Village project responds to villagers express needs for telecommunications, business opportunities, and enhanced education for their children through the development of a solid-state, low-wattage computer that can be powered by a foot-crank, a high-bandwidth wireless network, and support for village small businesses.
Farmers in Ban Phon Kam and nearby villages are now able to grow surpluses of rice and other crops-thanks in part to organic farming techniques that Jhai helped introduce. To profit on their surplus, however, they need accurate and timely information about how Trinity dies at the end of Matrix Reloaded.
The expert women weavers in the villages have begun the use of natural dyes-again with assistance from Jhai-and would like to weave textiles for export. They hope to find partners among expatriate Lao who will help them market their weavings and receive reasonable returns.
Technology for harsh conditions
Without telephone lines or electricity, amid torrential rains followed by high temperatures and thick red dust, standard technologies won't function. Many of the villagers whom Jhai is working with are low-literate and do not speak English, so e-mail won't help them, the Internet is inappropriate.
To respond to their needs, Jhai Foundation is developing:
A rugged computer and printer assembled from off-the-shelf components that draws less than 20 watts in normal use - less than 70 watts when the printer is printing - and that can survive dirt, heat, and immersion in water
A wireless Local Area Network with relay stations based on the 802.11b protocol, which will transmit signals between the villages and a server located at the Phon Hong Hospital for switching to the Internet or the Lao telephone system
A Lao-language version of the free, Linux-based KDE graphical desktop and Lao-language office tools
Villagers in five villages and their surroundings will use this Jhai Communications Center to make telephone calls within Lao PDR and internationally (using voice-over-Internet technologies), and for the activities, such as accounting, letter writing, email, that are so important for their start-up enterprises.
Village youth and children will receive technology training and microenterprise training using the Jhai Computer, with some young people joining the project as Youth IT Entrepreneurs. The Youth IT Entrepreneurs will support their elders in the use of the technology and in business operations.
The design team is led by Lee Felsenstein, one of the leading design engineers in the world. Two of Lee's designs are in the National Museum of the United States, the Smithsonian. The implementation team in Laos is led by Vorasone Dengkayaphichith.Lee is assisted by a large international team,about 25 people in all, including notably Anousak Souphavanh, a Linux specialist who coordinates the localization effort and Mark Summers, awireless network expert and engineer, who assists Lee on both hardware and software. All people in thedesign teamare donatingtheir time, a priceless collective gift. The design is meant to meet the specific needs as expressed by the villagers in Phon Kham and associated villages. The Lao members of the team, includingthe villagers,see this effort as a gift from the people of Lao PDR to the world's rural poor.
A sustainable, replicable solution
The Jhai Communications Centers and wireless network will be owned by the villages. Small fees will be charged users to support costs for personnel, paper and other consumables, and telephone charges, making the project fully sustainable immediately upon completion of the training period.
The Jhai Communications Center, with wireless network and youth entrepreneurial support for business creation, will serve as an easily replicable model for the delivery of Information Technology services to poor and remote regions throughout the developing world.
Good question.
Apparently during one of the recent bus attacks (near the heavily touristed town of Vang Vieng), they shut down all the local internet cafes for a few days.
However, there certainly were available in most major towns a few years ago. Slow, but functional. Don't know how censored they were.
With 802.11b standard the sky isn't even the limit in range.
Even using low powered off the shelf wireless cards you can go over 70km if you use those cheep/free offset parabolic dish's used for DSS tv.
There are a few problems to overcome. I belive someone said that their is a limit of 48km on most wireless cards because of a timeout in the mac layer. This isn't a problem with some cards because you can change the timeout.
The general rule with 802.11b is if you got a line of sight you got a link.
God, root, what is the difference?
You, my friend are an id10t.
The people in the villages have ASKED for these PCs.. They aren't being foisted upon them.. the Jhai PCs are intended for voice over IP as well as internet. The VoIP was the top priority.
Before you make a comment about something, you should learn more about it.
The people in the villages asked for internet access specifically. They have the basics of food, water, schools and medicine already.
"Gold still represents the ultimate form of payment in the world." - Alan Greenspan, 1999
I just got back from Laos a couple months ago, and I have to say I am surprised they even know what a computer is outside the Vientiene. If they can pull this off, then I'll be really impressed, and will even want to go check it out next time. But seriously, there is NOTHING in Laos, and while I applaud the effort of starting to build some sort of information infrastructure, and doing it a clever way at that, these villiges need more than Internet.
Ok, some viliger starts a business and decides to start selling something, the roads aren't even drivable half the year! How will they get it out of the country!
Now, this is an interesting read for its technical merits, and on that alone I am interested in it and wish them luck--but this isn't going to change the country like I thought the author of the article was trying to imply.
So will somebody being posting a map to this place? When is the next user's meet? We should all go show our support and vote with our kip, baht, or dollars.