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Mauritius Aims To Be First Wireless Nation
hattan writes "This tropical island off the east coast of Africa is best-known for its white-sand beaches, its designer clothing outlets and its spicy curries.
But tiny Mauritius is about to stake a new claim to fame. By year's end, or soon afterward, it is expected to become the world's first nation with coast-to-coast wireless Internet." From the article: "An undersea broadband fiber-optic cable, completed three years ago, gives the island fast and reliable phone and Internet links with the rest of Africa and with Europe, India and Malaysia. Many of the country's 1.2 million people--a mix of French, Indian, Chinese and African descendants--are bilingual or trilingual, speaking French, English and either Chinese or Hindi. The country is democratic, peaceful and stable."
I'm sure its IT industry is limited by its size but not because it's "dirt poor" because it's not.
Your pizza just the way you ought to have it.
The African continent is one of those areas that is perpetually in the dark, both literally and figuratively. It appears as a large black mass in the World At Night map, and it has been a long time since it was a source of mankind-advancing knowledge (at least since the Library of Alexander in Egypt was destroyed).
In addition, its history of being conquered and carved up by Western empires has left it nearly incapable of functioning as a cohesive continent of nationstates. Rather, it languishes in tribal warfare made all the worse by the relatively recent influx of Islam which has torn the northern countries of Chad and Sudan to shreds.
But separated from the mainland, Maritius is amazing in its ability to remain relatively free of the strife that plagues the rest of the Dark Continent. Catering to foreign tourists who want to get away from the normal tourist hotspots, Maritius has been much more stable and forwardly progressing than its neighbors. It is really no surprise that it would be the first African nation to attempt something as ambitious as this project.
That it is the first in the world is absolutely amazing.
Ah, the knee jerk reactions start. let's check some facts BTW
Size of Mauritius : around 1,865 km
Population : about1.2 Million
in contrast, size of LA: 1200 square kilometers
what, you say it's easy to actually network a tiny country. noooo, let's put some spin on it.... oh, BTW, let's put the catch words competition, innovation blah blah. this should get modded insightful
There are cities that have that much wireless capacity just from their coffee shops! Add in the hotels, and the all-too-prevelant open APs, and you see that that's nothing to brag on.
They also have a tiny tax base. It's impressive in that I don't think we've ever seen a single US city that is 100% wireless. This is a major milestone, regardless of size.
That has, after all, worked so well in Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, North Korea, Haiti, Panama, Kosovo, Iran, and India.
As a matter of fact, it has worked in India, and quite well too - since the day they have gotten independence from the British in 1947, at least.
In a country of 1.2 billion people, majority Hindus, they've a Muslim President, a Sikh Prime Minister and a Catholic Caucasian female ruling party president. In fact, it's worked better than it does for the US, where except for two Presidents, every other one has been a Caucasian Protestant male.
Not to mention that India has a free market economy which has been growing by leaps and bounds. And it's quite unsettling that you would compare India (which is quite a broad-minded secular democracy with a growing economy) with countries like Afghanistan, North Korea and Iran - you, sir, just proved that you're as ignorant an idiot as the parent poster you were abusing.
Bah.