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UN Recommends WiFi for Poor Countries
amerinese writes "UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan is now advocating that third-world countries be given funds to implement WiFi technology and 'leapfrog into the future.'"
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Remember AlohaNet? It is all back to square one...
As an italian I understand why Italy is severely technologically underdeveloped compared to the US.
:-(
To protect big Telco monopolies and cellphone companies that have invested billions in UMTS licenses, Italy has made laws that make it illegal to use wi-fi for implementing long distance links or to let private persons or small firms becoming a Wireless ISP.
You can become a WISP or do long distance wi-fi between your firm's sites but you need to ask for permission (and there is no assurance that the'll grant it to you) and possibly pay a yearly fee.
When I see communities like Seattle Wireless I'm sad because such things will never be possible in Italy (without a change of the law).
Italy is composed of many rural areas where there will no DSL for years because of the italian telcos unwilling to upgrade switches and equipement because the low return of investment.
Imagine many small towns of a few hundred people where only 5-10% will subscribe. It is economically unviable for the telcos to bring DSL in those places.
With wi-fi and small WISP it would be much easier, use a long distance wi-fi link, a a T1-like leased line or satellite and then give connectivity locally through wi-fi (point to multi-point: omni antenna at the distribution point and yagi/parabolic that the subscriber's home).
There are a couple of small towns where pilot projects where implemented but the actual regulation hinders small businesses of becoming WISPs.
sad sad
any prediction for Italy ?
Should we just ignore the reglations and start to build community networks ?
Just like in the filesharing case: you cannot put millions of citizen in jail.
The 2.4ghz spectrum is unregulated and we want to fully use it (like in the US).
Thoughts ?
I've seen a few "what about food before internet?" posts so thought I'd stick my oar in.
I have a friend involved with a project to provide internet access (WiFi because of the lack of existing infrastructure) and cheap, reliable computers to impoverished rural areas of Asia. My first question was the same as above - is being wired more important than food and other issues?
No, but one can help the other. Currently rural farmers can usually sell their produce to one buyer in the area because of the distances involved and lack of other communications. This gives the buyer a monopoly and they therefore set the prices. The hope is that with an improved communication system farmers can deal with several buyers which gives them a a much better negotiating position. They can also start collaborating on technique.
Add to this the ability to improve health and hygiene education (disease is a major problem in these areas) and you have a situation where technology can facilitate real improvements in the quality of peoples lives.
Now of course this article just looks like some kind of corporate magic trick:-
However leveraging interest / funds / hardware from this to support programmes such as the one above could have a big and worthwhile effect.
Okay, so you say give them food first, then WiFi or other technology. You are wrong.
First; in many places most people aren't dying of hunger in their status quo. It's a flood, draught, war or whatever that makes people die in numbers. So, get them food all the time? No. Get them food when disaster strikes? Yes.
Second: in many places, the poor people are the ones who have no (profitable) profession. In today's world people can farm food much too efficiently to need everybody on the fields. What do the rest do? Drive rikshaws, play (or are) disabled, make themselves (or their kids) disabled, sell themselves (or others), or beg. There's a huge workforce with no skills in the poor countries. And, even if they had the skills, they usually don't have markets.
Now, tourism is a big player in any poor-and-warm country. To be successful, local guides et cetera will have to speak good english (education!), market their services abroad, do things so that western (or eastern) tourists will want to pay to them. In tourism and other professions innovation will also come in handy.
So, they need education to succeed. How can WLAN help that? Connectivity. In some places they have e-mail but no telephone, or the telephone is a crappy radio something, and the post office doesn't always work reliably or fast. People want to talk to each other. Second; with a somewhat fast WiFi connection, the good teachers (which are few) can teach students going to other schools. Third, the internet is a vast resource of learning material, especially when there aren't many (or good) books. Imagine volunteers teaching from their western living rooms. Or, far-away places reaching potential tourists over the internet. Or, even, people organizing their work or selling their products over the internet.
WiFi is cheaper than cable. I think I paid $2 or something (tourist price) for a 1-litre aluminium can that I turned into an antenna once.. a connector and a piece of rod made it into a nice antenna capable of over 1km. It is used between two villages 1.2km apart in Nepal, in a place where the shortest path (on the ground) between the villages is maybe 5km. WiFi tech is also being used there, to bridge distances of over 40km, with volunteer-made amplifiers.
There was a story about the place I'm talking about here. Also, I've been to the place =).
So, consider the cost and determination needed to ship useful amounts of food against the cost of helping education etc etc. One day, even the third world can count on electric communication nationwide, and that will benefit them a lot.
I'm particularly interested in the remarks by Patrick Gelsinger, chief
technology officer of Intel, quote "focused on the catalyzing role
lenient regulatory statutes have played in spurring growth in nations
with advanced wireless infrastructures"
Patrick said, [quote from infoworld article]I think he's absolutely right that a lot of nations governments are
basically not well-educated about Open Spectrum. They see spectrum
still as something that they get cash from licensing. How do we
convince them that they can benefit even more from adopting open
spectrum policy?
His remark "unregulated, unlicensed spectrum" though is bad. Open
Spectrum is NOT unregulated. It is REGULATED to be OPEN. That includes
the very important aspect of power-level restriction and the rule "thou
shalt accept interference from other sources".
Also, I'm very concerned when I hear from government people in the
developing world that the 2.4 GHz band is not Open Spectrum but 'ISM'
which is an old USA-ism. The original ISM didn't allow any telephony to
be done. But that's ancient history. Unfortunately the old language
seems to have somehow propagated itself into the minds of some people
so that they think that ISM and Open Spectrum are the same.
simon
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