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Google Invests In Broadband For Poorer Countries
Chris Wilson writes "According to the Financial Times, Google has announced their support for a new initiative called O3B to 'bring internet access to 3bn people in Africa and other emerging markets by launching at least 16 satellites to bring its services to the unconnected' by 2010. Coverage is available from Yahoo and the Wall Street Journal as well. 'The $750m project to connect mobile masts in a swath of countries within 45 degrees of the equator to fast broadband networks ... could bring the cost of bandwidth in such markets down by 95 per cent.' This will probably be the largest single investment in network infrastructure for developing countries in history. Google clearly wishes to use this project to enable broadband Internet access in developing regions, but many other things must be in place before that can happen, including fixed power infrastructure, PCs or OLPCs, technical support and skills, and useful content and services for areas with lower literacy."
Google's going to bring these people broadband at 95% of their current price
Ehmm... TFA talks about "bring the cost of bandwidth in such markets down by 95 per cent". Doesn't that mean: take 95% off, leave 5% (1/20 th) of previous cost?
Useful for streaming and downloading large files perhaps, but probably a bit of a PITA if you want to do something like online gaming or some quick web browsing, because satellites=high latency. Not saying it's a bad thing though, it's a good start :)
Someone above made a comment about this just being about advertising and google's business - well sure it will benefit them in the long run, but in the short term they're not going to make much advertising money from countries who can't even afford the infrastructure in the first place. I think this is most definitely a Good thing to do, whatever the motives. People who are always trying to make out like Google are actually evil need to get a grip. Businesses exist to make a profit, but Google also is conducting business in such a way as to benefit computer users in general. Think of the large limits on GMail inboxes forcing Hotmail to provide a similar service (my inbox space jumped from 200MB to 2GB), and Google Docs creating competition for Office, etc. I still think Google is a very 'good' company as companies go.
which is totally what she said
and they could actuarially revolutionize life in the developing world.
Take all the data from the satellite, crunch it through Precision Agriculture systems to generate recommendations for crop care (and even crop selection), and then distribute the results over the broadband network, along with things like video tutorials for farming techniques.
Boing Boing has a post on the basics of precision agriculture here: http://www.boingboing.net/2008/09/09/agroveillance-using.html
http://vinay.howtolivewiki.com/blog/hexayurt/supercomputer-applications-for-the-developing-world-375
Was an approach to doing this based on repurposing military imagery.
Really could change the world in a big way, food security for all.
Hexayurt - open source refugee shelter,
Let's hope they don't play bait and switch with this like they did with Meraki.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
the big problem in the 3rd world is a lack of access to information about consequences... when a population thinks you cure HIV by having sex with a virgin...
Suddenly I am reminded of the slogan of an awful website reading "The internet makes you stupid".
Case in point: I have a few family members who recently have begun using the internet. With all of this wealth of information at their fingertips, they have chosen to disregard it and use it as a medium to forward each other jokes usually involving half naked women that somehow ended up in powerpoint presentations.
What surprises me is that I'll often be asked simple technical questions like "The clock on my laptop is showing the wrong time, how can I fix this?". While I'm happy to help them with this, the question "Why didn't you look that up on the internet?" remains unanswered up until this day.
Of course, you're wrong. Besides the fact that there are plenty of people who can read and afford computers, you make no mention of the #1 driver for economic and improvement: business!
/will/ profit.
Why plop down a warehouse or plant in a nation with no dependable way of communicating with it? Access to the Internet will attract business, which will create jobs and bring an influx of money.
Further, PCs aren't the only things that can benefit humanity with access to the Internet. You're thinking inside the box. Developing nations have solved many problems without our confined 1st World ideas. I don't believe you need to sit an Tanzanian in front of Wikipedia to call the Inet an African success story. Creative uses will come from uncommon and unexpected corners, just as they always have. This is just one more tool, and one from which Google
PS - Once you're in the position to call $3 billion dollar shots like these, I don't call you an accountant anymore. You're management.
Targeted ads man! You don't advertise designer clothes to those people, you advertise bacon and water and stuff.
...
... guns
They could use it, sure.
However, countries in Africa could really use a 4 billion dollar investment into Concentrated solar power.
4 billion is all that it would take to make the necessary power for the entire continent out of sun power, mirrors, and liquid salt and some high power lines.
Once you get past the corruption anyways.
I'm just back home after three weeks in Lusaka, Zambia, where our vsat link running at 128kbps up, 384kbps down is costing us just over $2,000USD per month. Yes, geo sync sat latency is a pain, but we'd take affordable bandwidth whatever way we can get it. Against this kind of price gauging, people are still making it work (http://link.net.zm/?q=node/230), but there like everywhere else, early adoption is costly (http://link.net.zm/?q=node/217).
The good thing about satellites is that you need an advanced technological society to bugger it up - LEO is out of the reach of most machete weilding militia. Not so with fibre, copper or cable infrastructure (or Nigerian oil pipeline) where any angry man with a sharp implement can wreak havoc - and any poor man so equipped can improve the chances of feeding his family in the short term by flogging lengths of liberated telecommunications cable for it's scrap value in the local market.
Return on Investment
MS hands out free copies of Windows to schools, get the kids use to Windows at an early age so when they grow up they buy legit copies.
Google puts a satelite in orbit to give broadband access to a new market, who do you think gets the ad revenue when hundres of millions of people gain access to the internet courtesy of Google?
My litmus test is this, if you replace Google with Microsoft in the story, how does it sound?
"Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."