First Free Wireless Link Between Europe And Africa

Paul Bawon writes "A company called PSAND have just installed a wireless link between Tarifa in Spain and Tangiers in Morocco, thus linking the African and European continents together with a free wireless link. The link went across the Straits of Gibraltar with a total distance of 32 km over the sea. Images can be found here and notes from the work can be found here."

Comments

Nice.

[jb.hl.com]

The Internet is one thing that could benefit education in poor African countries a great deal, allowing free access to information. This is just one more step in fully linking up Africa.

Re:Nice.

[955301]

Except that this is to Morocco, not the "poor African countries". It's more symbolic than anything else. Morocco is about as culturally backwards as any other Islamic dominated country bucking outside influence (not just Western, but all). Women are regarded as cattle, the religious brainwashing begins at 5am via loudspeaker while your sleeping.

Wake me when there is a Satellite feed directly to the "poor African countries" of which you speak. Which, btw, are ON THE OTHER SIDE OF A VERY BIG DESERT! I hope before someone spends time & money on that though, they spend some sinking wells into the ground so the people have water to drink while surfing the net.

I'll bet this ends up being a dead end path, servicing only Morocco. And "Morocco gets a free Internet connection" ain't that big of a deal.

I have always believed that the bedrock...

[Dagny Taggert]

of a successful democracy is the free flow of information without government interference. I hope this is a good start for the continent. After all, there is no more free medium for the dissemination of information than the web. After all, why is China so scared of unfiltered access?

Re:I have always believed that the bedrock...

[tcdk]

The bedrock of a successful democracy is people who has had a decent meal recently. When they have had it, they may start to wonder about making a better and maybe more democratic future for themselves...

Linking up africa will not solve their problems...

This is brilliant

[CdBee]

Forget all the predictable comments about satellite links being cheaper, the bandwidth being a bit low for a trans-continental link, etc, this proves one thing:

No matter how repressive a government becomes in its monitoring or control of internet technology, geeks the world over can use this project as a reference work: Don't like your internet strained by official censors? Just beam a link over the border to an open proxy.

People like us can use this technology to open repressed populations up to communication.

Re:This is brilliant

[user no. 590291]

I don't know that that would be such a good idea. A radiating microwave transceiver with enough power to cross an ocean would be an easy target for a direction finding van, or missile if a repressive government were so inclined.

Re:Cool...

[Anonymous Coward]

A small correction: I think that the images are of the apparatus used for the wireless connection, not images of the medium itself. For wireless, the medium would probably be air, and I do not think that an image of air would be that interesting:) LOL

PS. I cannot get to the images right now. I think that the links are broken, because the browser is blocking when I click on the "Images can be found here" link, so I could not confirm that the images really show the apparatus.

Internet + Power = Information

[ElDuderino44137]

Hey There,

My friend is in the Peace Corps in West Africa.

I think they need more basic services first.
Like power.

I recently sent her a solar powered lantern...
because she has no good way to read when the sun goes down.
Previously having used candles.

Cheers,
-- The Dude

Re:Is this a joke?

[CvD]

Its not a joke... I wish.

Besides, does anybody still call it the Dark Continent? A colonial era colloquialism.

Re:OT: Free Gmail Invites

[bairy]

I know will be offtopic but

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