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Mauritius Aims To Be First Wireless Nation

Posted by Zonk on from the coast-to-coast dept.

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."

3 of 333 comments (clear)

  1. It's a very historic place. by CyricZ · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Remember, the Vatican is a very historic place. There is monumentery there that cannot be disturbed by the placing of wireless transponders.

    Besides, such systems would have very little use in the Vatican. Canon law states that all documentation from the Vatican must be in written form, on paper, and stamped with the holy seal of whichever bishop, priest, archbishop, cardinal, Pope, etc., is responsible for the document. You can't apply a holy seal to an electronic document.

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    Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
  2. Sealand is NOT a country by SuperBanana · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Sealand is not a country; not a single UN member recognizes it, and despite what some quack claims on his ISP homepage, it just plain isn't. It is a small island that the British decided it wasn't worth it to "reclaim" by force.

    If they invaded to kill, they'd slaughter a bunch of idiots. If they invaded "nicely", a couple of British soliders would most likely be killed. Either way, a potenial PR disaster.

    Honestly, the UK just doesn't give a shit about the island- not enough to drop a bomb on the place and blow it to smithereens, or anything else. They could have cut the island off long ago and starved everyone out, but even that wasn't worth it.

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    Please help metamoderate.
  3. Re:Ambitious Maritius by burts · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Let me tell you a little bit about Mauritius. My background: I am mauritian and currently working towards a master's degree in EE in South Africa and i have /. for breakfast... The internet revolution has started here, in a sense. The price of a decent ADSL(128/64) line has dropped drastically during the last few years (abt USD 29 / month). It used to be *much* higher. Now they are introducing wireless internet soon. Things like video-on-demand, internet tv are all being planned here. These are all very nice but educating the public should also be happening hand in hand - and this area of things sucks big time. I would also like to mention that people have no idea as to what is F/OSS! There are very few businesses that use Linux here. People don't even know about FreeBSD (and i suddenly feel alone). I don't need to mention what is the favourite pirated OS in this place. i am sure you can all guess. But what is really annoying is the politics that exists in the government system. It really makes you think twice before trying to get a job here. Meritocracy is not very prevalent. i could go on and on... Curiously it only seems to happen when the General Elections are close!