Wireless Community Summit Tackles Digital Divide

jens writes "More than 150 participants (including Matt Westervelt, Seattle Wireless) from 30 countries will discuss on how to overcome the digital divide building wireless community networks. The freifunk.net summer convention 2004 takes place from 3rd to 10th September in Djursland, Denmark. The convention's location is well chosen -- DjurslandS.net (in Danish) itself is probably the most ambitious wireless community network of the world. About 200 volunteers installed more than 100 masts on the remote area's 32 000 sq mi. Using the wireless standards 802.11a/b/g about 1'500 households enjoy a symmetric 1-2 MBit internet connection via WI-FI (the WI-FI network has 8 direct uplinks to the danish backbone and several DSL fallbacks). The wireless4development track organized by wire.less.dk will show other projects how to follow the DjurslandS.net example. The convention starts off with a 3 day program including VoIP, development for the meshcube and antenna building and finishes off with a 5 day hands-on workshop."

Comments

For us..

[MisanthropicProgram]

non-switching technology folks:WTF did you say!?

Digital Divide != Squalor

[sockonafish]

"Digital divide" describes a situation in which one class has access to computers, and another does not. Really, its not that bad.

I'm not slamming the efforts of the guys in the story, but I am angry that I've seen the President talk more about the digital divide than say, the situation in the Sudan. There's another divide there - those who are victims of genocide, and those whore are not.

There are too many people who have an infatuation with computers and want them to be ubiquitous. This kind of thing is an example, as is computerized voting.

Re:Digital Divide != Squalor

[rm007]

Even without comparing the digital divide with bigger issues, it seems to me that there are problems with the whole concept itself. The idea of a digital divided appears to have an underlying assumption that poor people - regardless of where they live - are poor because they do not have access to information in general and the Internet in particular. While this is unquestionably a symptom of poverty - I am not sure that this is the biggest structural hurdle that has to be overcome in order to provide equal opportunity for all. It sounds great but what will it actually do for most people?

Re:symmetric?

[stratjakt]

The way I read it, 1500 people in the community share that 1-2mbit pipe to the internet. Unless that pipe goes down, then everyone uses the DSL as fallbacks (ie; all sharing 256k up)

Sorry, but given how craptastically unreliable I've found wifi to be, that sounds like a pretty crap connection to the 'net. Terrible ping times (from a gaming perspective), unreliable bandwidth.

Thats why companies will still pay the big bucks for a T-1. We may only have 150k up, but we can count on it any time night or day.

Re:Switch Theory

[GuardianAngus]

With enough knowledge of wireless technologies to be dangerous, I am willing to state that the technical implementation of such a system would be relatively easy. The legal environment and treatment of RF emissions in just one country, however, would be enough to prevent such a solution from being implemented wide scale.

By the way, the digital divide is a social problem - it is unlikely to be solved simply by applying technology.

Ambitious, impressive and socially irrelevant!

[syrinje]

32,000 sq. km, 100 masts, 1500 households.

Thats one mast for every 15 households. Given that it is Denmark, estimate that as one mast every 35 people. And miles and miles of wasted electromagnetic waves "wasting their sweetness on the desert air" (in winter, it IS a desert!)

The technology isnt new, its not art, the scale isnt mind boggling and it doesnt address the digital divide at all. OTOH, a Wi-Fi project that covers 15000 households is much more "useful" and newsworthy.

The only thing that redeems the newsworthiness of this article is the hope that the 150 participants from 30 countries intend to apply what they learn at this convention to actually try and bridge the digital divide. In any case, the skeptic in me suspects that the convention is about getting people to come and applaud a project that at best is technology for technology's sake.

The biggest divide

[Brandybuck]

The biggest divide in the wireless community is support for non-Windows operating systems. A coworker and I have been trying to get wireless working on our laptops for several weeks now. We've been trying Linux 2.4, Linux 2.6 and FreeBSD 5.2. It's been extremely difficult because the cards supported by native Open Source drivers are considered horribly obsolete in the marketplace.

Will the future be Windows and Ndis wrappers only? How free will our software be when all of our hardware is held hostage by Windows-binary-only drivers?

Re: No Communication == Squalor

[j1m 5n0w]

The idea of a digital divided appears to have an underlying assumption that poor people - regardless of where they live - are poor because they do not have access to information in general and the Internet in particular.

Lack of internet access may sound like a small thing where we have ubiquitous phone service, but in parts of the world where it's the only means of communication, the difference between having and not having internet connectivity is enormous.

Imagine a hypothetical country where group A is at war against group B. Suppose A and B work out their issues through negatiation, and the war is over. A small village belonging to group A in the middle of nowhere doesn't get the message, and attacks and kills some people from group B. The war starts up again over the misunderstanding, which could have been prevented through reliable communication.

Also, lack of communication infrastructure is one thing that keeps poor countries from becoming not poor, and good communication may help resolve some of the other problems (tyranical governments, corruption, etc...).

-jim

Re:Digital Divide, and priorities

[j1m 5n0w]

I think it's all well and good that people are looking at these problems, but shouldn't there be more attention directed to more pressing problems. Those problems include 1) food and clean water, 2) accessible housing, 3) medical care and prevention of illness, and 4) dealing with oppressive governments which exist at the expense of their citizens, and not for their benefit.

These problems won't be solved without good communication, which (in places where communication is lacking, such as parts of the third world) can be provided by ubiquitous networking.

-jim