Slashdot Mirror
O3B Details Plan for Satellite-Based Bandwidth For Africa
slash-sa writes "O3B Networks has been quietly preparing itself over the last 12 months for the
moment last week when it announced that it was going to be offering cheap, low-latency satellite bandwidth that can cover any part of Africa by 2010. It has put in place early finance with Google, Liberty Global and HSBC. Here are more details from the entrepreneur behind the project, Greg Wyler."
This can not be competitive in any way. A fiber costs very little to roll out, and there is good capacity in ocean fibers terminating in many African coastal cities. The only problem with fibers on land is theft. Anything valuable is stolen.
More than 90% of the population lives close to the coast.
To spend millions to build a complicated space based network to cover the poorest of the poorest 10% seems like a very poor investment. (By complicated I just mean that the satellites need to hand a connection between satellites as they orbit over Africa, as well as down linking via multiple satellites, and traffic based dynamic antenna configuration and aiming.)
don't cut it off www.mgmbill.org
And then if they can just sort out the other annoying little things like lack of food, lack of clean water, lack of education, the prevailing tribal mentality that cause them to kill each other on a regular basis etc, then won't Africa be a great place.
The main reason was cheap labor needed halfway around the world.
Not trying to be racist, but it's funny :)
--Toll_Free
I agree with these comments, working in the same field with a twist.
In addition, you may find poor Ku coverage and issues with host nation agreements in Africa. X band seems to be 'of choice' there, since C band is so crowded.
I'm wondering who is going to be swapping out bucs and LNBs, fixing motors, etc. Hell, getting a good shot in is not unskilled labor.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.