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Networking Technology At Work In Rural India

Posted by timothy on from the balancing-tradeoffs dept.

abhikhurana writes "Whenever a news item about a plan to offer aid to a poor community in a developing country to set up an Internet backbone or any similar story is posted on Slashdot, there is always a debate among the readers if there is any point in spending so much money on such activities when people in such communities don't have basic amenities like clean drinking water. So when I came acorss this story, I decided to post it to slashdot. It's about new software developed by Indian Institute of Technology, Chennai, which allows video conferencing on low-bandwidth connections, and the impact this technology is having on the small rural communities where it has been deployed."

3 of 179 comments (clear)

  1. Stanislaw Lem... by SharpFang · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ...wrote in one of his books about a banana republic where a program was introduced to help every family in the country to purchase and learn to use a helicopter, because it would come out way cheaper than building the network of roads through the jungle between scattered settlements.

    So true... Often modern technology is simply cheaper than the "simple" stuff. Think cellular phones in areas without standard phone networks...

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    45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
    1. Re:Stanislaw Lem... by El+Cubano · · Score: 3, Interesting

      So true... Often modern technology is simply cheaper than the "simple" stuff. Think cellular phones in areas without standard phone networks...

      Sometimes it has to do with cost. A friend of mine was in a rural part of Ecuador years ago when a US (I believe) phone company was contracted to lay a phone network. He told me that one day the workers would be there laying the cables, and they next day the cables were dug up and gone. Aparently the impoverished residents thought they could get some money for the copper in the wires, so they would "harvest" the cables. This supposedly prompted a more widespread deployment of cellular service.

  2. Better than food is... by ShieldW0lf · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Education

    Really, how many teachers are motivated to help the unfortunate, but not so motivated as to live in a poor village?

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    -1 Uncomfortable Truth