Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: Could We Reconnect Eastern Libya?
GrumpyBagpuss writes "We all know that the internet is supposed to route around damage, but currently eastern Libya is off the net because all their connectivity goes through Tripoli. How difficult would it to be to reconnect eastern Libya via a microwave link to Crete? It's less than 200km away, on the Libyan end there are mountains up to 850m and on Crete they're higher than 2000m. People have achieved distances of over 300km with simple WiFi equipment, but would it be possible to increase the bandwidth to handle a whole, or at least half a country? How would you connect the link at both ends? What other problems would there be? How many Pringles cans would we need?"
... but I'd gladly give money for any effort in this direction.
Just remember to set up enough bandwidth, P2P users always hog the lines...
A war?
"Until the become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious"
While the Internet played a huge role in relatively developed Egypt, it might be worth pointing out that less than 7% of Libya's population has Internet access, and most of those people are in Tripoli.
While there are surely isolated pockets of connectivity in the Western parts of the country, the usage is minimal and may not actually have a great impact on this revolution.
Just a thought....
stop posting bullshit ask slashdot stories like this in cases where people don't even try to do their own research first.
But let me check in the garage. I might have one in there.
That's a nice question that brings warm fuzzies to my stomach thinking of all the people in Libya we could liberate by giving them internet, unfortunately only 5.1% of the population has internet.
sysadmins and parents of newborns get the same amount of sleep.
WiFi off-shore?!? This gives a new meaning to pirate radio!
Are the phones also cut over there?
High powered WiFi for down and telephone for up? 800 number for them to call to do page requests and then download via the mage off-shore WiFi - like the satellite ISPs do it.
It's turned into a civil war. It might be better shipping the rebels AK's, anti tank weapons, man portable SAMS and lots of ammunition. Sat phones would be nice for communications but I'm not sure twitter and facebook are really all that important anymore.
Why bother with microwave links, cables, mountains, etc. when you can drop a few hundred satellite modems with wifi. I guess they have satellite dishes already, all they need are a modem and an omnidirectional antenna in each neighborhood.
Ask the communication boys, like AlJazeera.
They KNOW how to move-in a (mobile) satellite uplink (+ downlink) station.
It's easy, really.
You don't even need junked-together tin can wi-fi. Assuming there is something in the air to talk to, you could probably just set up a satellite uplink/downlink and not need to worry about distance or anything. The technology for this is readily available and has been deployed all around the world.
The problem is that the government would probably not like this and is also probably very likely to find it and "deal with it" in the same way that they deal with any other communications channel they don't approve of.
Those Libyans are missing out on a whole load of new Lolcat pictures
Besides electronic jamming and getting shot? Such a link would be an automatic target of the existing regime. Merely pointing their existing military radar arrays at the Libyan internal antennas should be quite sufficient to blanket any high bandwidth signals. And since DEC went out of business, it's hard to find hardware capable of surviving a direct artillery hit.
My company installed the longest microwave link at the time at 108km. This required 15' dishes and used ceragon radios. So you would need two or three hops and some fairly tall towers.
Little known fact: Hitler was defeated by the internet in WW2.
Télécoms sans Frontières already deployed a team to the libyan-tunesian border.
http://www.tsfi.org/en/action/emergencies/147-tsf-deploye-a-la-frontiere-tunisielibye
Consider donating some money: http://www.tsfi.org/en/action/donateonline
You get what I'm saying? (i'm saying despite the fact that one has asps and the other has cottonmouths, your description of the people of Libya applies to Alabama too.)
In my opinion as of a long time network and internet engineer (+25 years). Satellite based Internet is fastest way if we just got them gear on ground.
http://www.satsig.net/ivsat-europe.htm
It's not that great for all use like voip or interactive shell use because of latency and jitter, but for file transfers uploading and downloading web browsing, email, twitter etc. it is OK.
Given that this is rapidly turning into a civil war by all accounts; installing a large microwave transmitter of any type will probably draw some unwanted attention from the Libyan military.
But heck if someone has the guts to go into Libya and set up that end I'm sure someone out there would be willing to donate the other end just for some good PR.
why not portable cellphone and wifi telescopic antenna towers on trailers that are easily pulled by a pickup truck that can be set up within a few minutes, they can cross the border pull up to a mountaintop and be running in no time. and if they are cheap enough just set one up and abandon it to function until it gets blown up by the enemy, then deploy another one somewhere else, (no life lost) just a couple of thousand dollars in electronics and portable infrastructure for each, if they can be built cheap and disposable like that you can have fleets of them ready to deploy in hot war zones
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Running a cable to Egypt and programming the routers to use it would suffice. Wifi doesn't have the range or bandwidth for the job. This assumes the power grid works- even if Ghaddafi isn't targeting the power it might go out due to fires or lack of gas.
A satellite connection would likely be easiest, but likely wouldn't give you all the bandwidth you want. It would be fastest to deploy, and covers great distances easily. A solution with all the bandwidth you want is to put an underground cable across the Mediterranean from Eastern Libya to either Malta or Greece (or Italy). It costs a bit to lay a subterranean cable, and also takes a bit of time, but it would give you all the bandwidth you want. Wifi like other radio communications is affected by whether (try to watch terrestrial over the air digital tv, or satellite tv or receive any microwave signal during a heavy snowstorm, oops, signal gone), but even with good weather over the Mediterranean, you need a kicking signal, well aligned signals, and a direct line-of-sight signal. Wifi like other UHF signals, is line of sight, much like ray optics. Low frequency communications will refract on the ionisphere, and travel around the world. UHF signals and higher punch right through the ionisphere. They do not refract or 'skip' on the ionisphere, and do not travel around the world. A 2200 foot tower can send a signal (given the current radius of the earth) about 55 miles. If the earth had a larger diameter, a signal could go farther, so good luck with that, although two 2200 foot high towers 110 miles apart might be able to signal to each other. So your choices are submarine cable (usually optical fiber) or satellite.
As mentioned its civil war, and there would need to be a lot of coordination and equipment. The curvature of the earth comes into effect when transmitting 300km. This requires repeaters, not to mention you can't just transmit through a mountain. You have to go over (or around) the mountains. There would probably need to be a few satellites involved.
Invincible? Perhaps a satellite phone might work, but those cell towers even come with ladders built in ;)
It's not just about letting forces communicate and/or let evidence of atrocities leak out.
It's about connecting these people with expectations from government. All that youtubing and facebooking and tweeting gets the word out about how governments of strong successful nations function.
It's the one big thing that *might* prevent these revolutions going down the same shithole most others, from Cuba to Iran to Lebanon to Libya 40 years ago - have gone. Straight into the hands of a just marginally different oppressive, violent and/or otherwise dysfunctional regime.
Continue letting people in there, even a marginal percentage of them, talk with the outside, communicate, let them know where the right paths and the wrong paths from where they are lead, allow them to sidestep the mistakes other emerging nations made and they might stand a chance. Send them weapons and they'll just end up with another four decades and two generations of backwards third world gunk that some irresponsible party instated with these weapons. Guns just don't solve everything.
As a sideinote, Iran is serving a positive purpose, in a grim kind of way:
http://www.despair.com/mis24x30prin.html
-
Get some BIG spools of optic fibre, a plough, and some telco-grade routers. Then just run dozens of cables across the border into the edge towns. Then run the local routers (that all lead to Tripoli and their central telecoms hub) backwards.
Failing that, there's an old Interop saying: "Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station-wagon full of tapes on the freeway."
Jeremy Lee | Orinoco
It's turned into a civil war. It might be better shipping the rebels AK's, anti tank weapons, man portable SAMS and lots of ammunition. Sat phones would be nice for communications but I'm not sure twitter and facebook are really all that important anymore.
Agreed. The more I read "Ask Slashdot" the more I realize how out of touch with reality some posters are. It's gone beyond "how do I do my job" to "OMG! I can't access facebook!!!!111!". Seriously, no one in Libya cares about facebook, or twitter or even BBC. They are rising up and fighting and dying for their rights and freedoms. This is something that western world is very keep to throw away for perception of security...
Contrary to popular mythology, the pen is not mightier than the sword. Or more accurately the pen is only mightier when those with the swords are not sufficiently motivated to use them. That point was not reached in Egypt, but it has progressed past that point in Libya. They need swords not pens. Hence the govt's repeated attacks on arms depots.
"Should we" is the better question. They are a sovereign nation and wishes should be respected. How you would you feel about a bunch of outsiders pushing their agenda on your fellow citizens, which is exactly what this entails if you boil it down to the basics?
'Internet' isn't a basic human right.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Damn those outsiders! What with their pushing Internet upon us! Infidels! Heretics! Idolaters!
IP OVER AVIAN CARRIER IS GREAT!
we did a custom 802.11 system on an aircraft which we up-converted a 'standard" 802.11B wireless system to X-band and put a 70 W power amplifier on it - we achieved 150 Km BUT we needed a custom modification to the 802.11 protocol because the propagation delay violates the 802.11B timing spec (at least for 11 Mbps) so a simple extended WiFi setup is probably not going to work at 200 Km - you might be able to use a packet-shaper like might be used on a satellite link (like a Packeteer SkyX) which solves this problem another way - but its not a trivial task to setup a two way microwave link without the right equipment and do it in a covert manner
WTF, Al Gore was alive during the 40s?!
How can I immediately view all comments in a story, without clicking on 'more comments' 'more comments' 'more comment' *sigh* 'more comments' or futzing around with whatever that slider's supposed to do? I'm sure there's a button to click somewhere in this new fangled unintuitive slashdot interface, but I can't seem to find it.
Don't under estimate the bandwidth of physically shipping something like a DVD-R, USB stick, or microSD card in or out of libya. You could traffic these items into and out of the war torn state of your choice. They could contain photos, video, messages etc. Gigabytes of content could sail past any borders. It may take a day or two to reach somewhere with unrestricted internet. But when your hauling dozens of gigabytes it still makes good bandwidth. It just doesn't leave a single point of failure like a large and obvious dish on top of a mountain.
We all know a mertic asston of pirated content moves in schools, offices and around the world this way, all anonymous and untraceable, it undoubtedly dwarfs p2p piracy.
In my mind this is far more practical that daisy chaining wok-fi to get bandwidth into the country which gives obvious targets with which to interfere. Something like a microSD card could be stiched into the clothing of a refugee.
So I'm partly serious when I say you could set up homing pigeon internet - strap microSD cards to their feet. Except of course, they would literally drop packets.
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
It's a craphole of a country full of ignorant twats who cheered when the Lockerbie bomber was released .. let them suffer and burn!
So you're saying America can singlehandedly save this country by dumping garbage on them?
There is no -1 Disagree.
INTEL sat 11N provides coverage to the area. A 1.2 M dish provides 3.6M downlink 384k uplink the modem is the size of book. If they wanted it, they would already have it.
It's probably too late for a new network in Libya.
Sooner or later the US government will weaken and fall as the economy tanks. I expect hyperinflation brought on by mid-east instability wreaking havoc on oil prices.
I recommend everyone get setup with amateur radio license and gear ASAP.
Solar panels or other off-grid power source will be worth major bonus points.
The technology isn't the problem... the problem is the supporters of the current government with weapons that would take out the dishes.
But, one of the problems for the media has been getting news out of Libya. Having a functioning net connection helps a lot in that even if most don't have access to it. You're not limited to satellite phones and portable sat terminals which are expensive and often slow.
Firing a weapon isn't brain surgery, it doesn't take years of practice to do it right. Just give them the gun, tell them where to point the end the bullets come out of and how to put more in, then let 'em go.
There is more to being a soldier than knowing how to fire a gun.
There is something to be said for the rigor of the old-school adventure game or hard-core tactical simulation. When you make a mistake it is "Game Over."
I guess it would be quite cheap that the US navy upgrades some ship to be in front of the coast with strongly directed Antennas to pick up/transmit Wireless (WiMAX, if you like to have an polular standard) signals or provides a directed radio links which can provide infrastructure for mobile cell towers. Probably something like strongly directed GSM network cell would also be possible.
Electronic Warefare Troops can probably do similar things with analog radio since a long time.
However that wold make the participating as much as if they would drop weapons.
Beyond the actual communications assistance, I think the effect on morale would be incalculable.
As always, all IMO. Insert "I think" everywhere grammatically possible.
If I understand correctly, most protocols allow just about any device to be configured as a node in a peer-to-peer web. WiFi, cell phone ranges, whatever. Would it make sense to build lots and lots of nodes, repeaters if you will, out of old devices like WinCE or Palm OS PDAs with slightly bigger antennae glued on and then wrap them in double-sided tape with big frickin' batteries? Then glue them up anywhere and everywhere so the possessor can't get arrested. Best case scenario: glue one to the underside of a government vehicle like a public bus and just walk away. Or, say, a corporate-owned boat that periodically docks outside Libyan borders.
Connectivity would give a whole new meaning to "spotty" but it would be hella fault-tolerant and an unholy bitch for the regime to track and shut down.
Bonus points for doing a version that works like those flashlights that charge when shaken. Any vehicle on a road in that part of the world should be able to keep batteries charged indefinitely with no trouble at all.
I've spent a lot of time doing communications in remote areas of the world. Your biggest challenge in this case is going to be the other end. You can blast what you want from outside the country, but until you get something actually inside the country to blast back to you, you are pretty much screwed.
Having said that, in a pinch a Pringle can might be enough to get something going, or if you are a fan of the movies, someone who sneaks into the country with a bunch of microwave equipment on their backs. The best approach would be a nice 20 mile space diversity link with 50 ft towers on either end. Let me know how that works out.
The real question is: how long is it going to be before some government police person sees the tower or mast and decides that it might be a good target?
I'm pretty sure that there weren't many computers used by the winning sides in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan (Soviet expulsion) and various popular uprisings.
Not that you don't have a valid point but you might be in danger of overstating your case
How many Pringles cans would we need?
I don't have any idea, but let me know when you figure it out and I'll help eat the Pringles (just doing my part for world peace)
Or how about to Greece? There's a submarine cable already contracted to connect Libya to Greece. If the contractors already got paid, maybe they should install it.
Towers seem complex and risky to me. If wind isn't too bad, wouldn't it be more viable to put up antennae on balloons? I know that this has been used before where there have been earthquakes. Iirc, this was used in Mexico not too many years back and I've heard that the Zapatistas got that tech pretty well optimized for military-resistant application.
He traveled back in time.
WiMax (802.16)
If you've got line of sight, 2 powerful enough transmitters, and 2 highly directional antennas, it is theoretically possible to do this with microwave transceivers. Laser is theoretically possible too, but it would be even more susceptible to interference from weather. But, wouldn't a single link to the 'net be a pretty attractive target for Gaddafi's jets?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
OK so here is my Idea we use a set of UAV's equipped with GSM band transceivers ans satellite uplinks, have the UAV's station keep over the most populated area's bouncing their signals from the GSM up to Satellites. this tech all currently exists and is possible using current mil-tech! and while expensive very feasible! well that is my Idea whats yours!
there are 10 types of people in this world, those who read binary and those who don't. which are you!
Was that a rhetorical question?
Anyways, Google says he was killed by a Hindu terrorist group:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Mohandas_Karamchand_Gandhi
http://pratyushgarg.instablogs.com/entry/why-gandhi-was-assassinated/
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
I have done a lot of work with African communication, the main problems faced with doing the long haul links is power, A lot of countries battle to maintain a stable power supply. Running a site in the bush on generator is now practical plus depending on the location of the hops it becomes very hard to put down any equipment.
Just keep in mind most of Northern Africa has very heavy and think bush, sometimes in passable.
Satellite communication is just to expensive, and who would pay for it.
The main reason would also be who would pay for the installation of these comms?
What stops sabotage of the link and or hops?
No one over there uses the Internet much. Currently cell phones and more archaic means of communication are being used by the revolutionists. Let them have their win and establish their networking infrastructure as they please in the aftermath. They already have enough bullshit to deal with without "hikers" being shot up for trying to install communication hardware on mountaintops to aid the "enemy", as if that would happen anyway. /. are a bunch of lurkers, not activists. Same goes for the foreign governments with their cries of outrage as they stand by and do jack shit.
Buy your next Linux PC at eightvirtues.com
At the speed the revolution is moving for the moment, particularly from the east, I think internal comms is more important than external internet access. And, from the film foreign correspondents have broadcast, it looks like the cell network is still up. So, prolly good to go for now.
For the sake of argument, a 200km link is theoretically possible, based on the 125mi link record established during the 2005 Defcon Wi-fi shootout. They were using 10 and 12' satt dishes, and barely managed simple ssh console connections using unamplified wi-fi. With the heights quoted, I'm going to make a wild-ass guess that there isn't going to be sufficient fresnel clearance to prevent significant reflective signal fade over the Med between Cyrenica and Crete. But, with a few watts amplification, who knows?
Luke, help me take this mask off
By your logic, the nazi's liberated Europe as well. If you add MORE oppression you are NOT a liberator. Two wrongs do not make a right.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
That is why a well trained army makes mincemeat out of civilians. So why hasn't the Libyan elite forces make mincemeat out of the rebels? Simple, they are not well trained.
Libya is a country ruled by a leader who knows very well that if an officer gets control over an effective fighting force he can use them to grab power. See his own rise to power. So he has spend a LOT of effort in making sure that the army itself is weak and divided. Even the so called Elite forces are just relatively small units so that any uprising amongst part of them can be squashed by other forces.
War is a lot harder then it looks if you don't just want to get bogged down in ordinary street fighting or slugging matches. It requires an understanding of strategy, tactics and the communication and discipline to be able to direct your troops. Both sides lack it. The kind of fighting you propose is the one practiced in Africa, the one with massive civilian casualties and random butchering. You know the type, that drags on for decades.
There currently is a sort of stalemate. The government forces have the heavy firepower but are to ill trained to use it effectively and perhaps even not willing to go all out, it is their own people after all. They also use mercernary forces which sounds effective but a mercenary wants to collect his pay and black african mercenaries (color matters because Libya's leader has played a very good game of divide and conquer, why do you think there are so many immigrants in a country with record unemployment. And one of his threaths to the west is to open up the gates to Africans wanting to come to Europe, a very powerful threath indeed considering the rise of rightwingers in Europe) are best used against unarmed civilians not armed rebels backed by some military forces.
really, this notion that an AK47 is some kind of wonder weapon belongs in the world of the A-team where pray-and-spray works. In real life, you can carry maybe 3-4 clips and at full-auto you are out of ammo before you can say "man this thing has a kickback". Hitting a moving person who is shooting back is anything but easy. Especially if you are not going to be able to count on your squad covering your back. Why do think armies spend so much time training soldiers? So that when the order is given to do something, everyone does it, knowing everyone else is doing it. Civilians? Scatter at the first sign of trouble and will always be looking for someone else to go in front.
Anyway, supplying the rebels with weapons is interfering and interfering in the Middle East is a minefield. They also got weapons a plenty. Just watch them. All the kids carrying guns. Not ammo mind you, that isn't macho. Just a gun with a single clip... African style civil war. What fun.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Indeed, firing a gun is not that hard. But doing anything effective with it, IS bloody hard. Why do you think soldiers get trained? It isn't about firing the gun. I have been trained decades ago when I still could touch my toes... or even see them and most of the time was NOT spent firing guns.
Far more time was in fact spend on cleaning them. To ensure that when you intend to fire, it does fire. Oh and on discipline so that it only fires when your officer intends you to fire it. And that when you need to, you still got ammo left and not wasted it shooting a 300meter ranged weapon at an enemy a kilometer away. Ammo is always in supply in the movies. In real life combat units have a very small supply with them that is gone in seconds if you do not obey strict fire discipline.
Just play any shooting game and see how much ammo you use. Now calculate the weight. Knees buckling yet? Look at the pictures on the news. How many do you see carrying a weapon vs an ammo crate? Or even carrying a couple of clips with their new weapon?
So what happens if they encounter an enemy? They shoot their single clip and then have to go look for more. It is the chaotic fighting of a African civil war that works best against unarmed civilians. Not a trained soldier backed up by armored vehicles.
Luckily both sides are equally bad at fighting although a long bloody civil war is hardly lucky.
The claymore shows which way to point it? How helpfull. Oh okay, so now you just need to inform EVERYONE else on your side where you deployed it, not accidently have put it on your escape route. Not have a kid walk on it. Put it somewhere the enemy can't just evade it.
Your description of the AK47 is not just stupid, are you actually that silly to think that the bad guys are not going to try to stop you? Do you think a weapon on full automatic is easy to control, what is its effective range?
Really, real war is not a computer game or even a shooting range. Your targets are not there for your enjoyment, they want to kill you. Mostly for being so stupid.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Some hams, technologists, tweeters and bloggers and I are working on a project to build a sustainable network out of existing digital wireless technologies. There are some really cool digital modes that can be run on HF and VHF/UHF radio. Hopefully these types of stories will help drive people to experiment and develop backup plans for email Twitter and other low bandwidth communications over radio. We rely so much on these technologies in our daily lives but we don't have any control over the networks they run on. Check out radiofreenet.org for our nascent community's site and a little more info on the project and building an open alternative for digital free speech for use in a crisis like this.
The more the Western folks are jumping with joy thinking that the Middle East will turn democratic the more silly they have become.
I mean, who is to say the ones toppling those dictators will turn out to be better?
Before you open your mouth, look at Iran.
The Iranians threw out that despicable corrupted king, didn't they?
Look at how "progressive" and "democratic" Iran has become.
I think that has been the point of some of Saif Islam Gaddhafi's speechs.
Like you, he wants the world to turn away so his dad can murder his people more comfortably in private.
Accusing someone of what... political murder, genocide, war crimes...?
For suggesting that current Libyan leadership has actual enemies outside the Libyan borders, some of them being heads of state in "western democracies"?
Or for suggesting that some of them would like for their "sphere of influence" to include Libya?
Go find a veteran anywhere and ask him about the "war being civil". Then ask him about his buddies who were in that war with him.
"Civilized war" is bullshit made up by various European lords and generals in order to save their asses on the battlefield - while their men were getting slaughtered by hundreds by their "civilized" opponents.
Didn't really work that well when they were occupying foreign "third world" countries and peoples.
That is why they were mostly referred to as -an savages.
http://ronja.twibright.com/
http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Mit-WLAN-durch-die-Anden-120357.html
http://www.olsr.org/, Freifunk
The best the First World can do militarily[*] is a no-fly zone, that is, grounding the dictator's main military advantage. Shipping lots of arms can only serve to escalate the war. And who knows, in whose hands those weapons would fall? Remember what happened in Afghanistan when the US was trying to root out the Soviet-sponsored regime? That succeeded marvelously and also gave birth to the Taliban.
I suspect your suggestion comes the the so-called "right to bear arms" that many in the US hold so dear. This doesn't work in all situations, but probably only in those countries or locales where you have a strong middle class. If you're poor and hungry, you tend to think of a gun not just as an instrument for self-defense and national liberation but as a tool to get the necessities you want (food, sex, etc.).
[*]Food and medical aid is probably still the best option.
A new republic arising and seeking a fuller participation of its people in its governance.
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
I do know some major SIGINT players are aiding Kadaffi, who might have broken the standard ciphers, so I created a Cipher for them. I cannot do much more than this, for personal reasons (job, life etc ). We should educate them not to divulge too many secrets over the radio and the telephone. Tell them about GPRS datacom and crypto.... The cipher: alquarizmi.wordpress.com I suggest to use this cipher in addition to AES, 3DES, RC4 etc.
I build and design these links all day.
The infrastructure is not the problem. I wouldn't use WiFi, but other OFDM-based radios that might cost a little more and work a little better.
The problem is you make yourself a great big target with a "bomb me here" arrow pointed on your head. The same link used for communications points right back at you to determine location for a air attack.
No thanks.
China does have an efficient civilian and military leadership. They demonstrated what they can do and that they have the guts to kill thousands to preserve their rule. A bit less crude than kadaffi, but still as brutal as necessary. They certainly control finance, which USG apparently is not capable of.
Making it REALLY cheap is a benefit. Ad-hoc is good enough to get things started here.
First, there needs to be a method of getting internet access to the country. There are some crappy options, but good enough to get things started. For example, you can get 2-way satellite access using cheap hardware with 4096 down and 1024 up. That's probably going to cost about $2000 + $2500 a month per uplink and it's money that probably will be thrown away quite quickly as the military will target it. But, let's assume that it's possible to get a few of these up and running and keep them running for a month or two before they're destroyed.
Next, you need a way to distribute the signal. This requires first of all, good performance and second of all good camouflage. For a backbone, the goal is to distribute the signal. This can be done using a configuration of multiple cantennas on top of a wooden post (let's say a few meters high). At the base, there would be a PC with USB adapters for each cantenna running vyatta or a similar router. Using a ARM or ATOM based PC, it should be possible to get the total system power cost to approximately 30 watts or less. With an old car battery or two, there should be enough power to run the devices overnight. The days there are pretty much 12h light, 12 hour dark nearly all year round. So, there would need to be enough solar cells to gather enough power to charge the batteries and operate the system during day time. Finally, the method of signal distribution is in question.
One option is to just use WLAN and leave it up to the users to get close enough to get access. Villiages can use cantennas with wireless repeaters to get the signal closer to their areas. The second is the use of hacked microcells that function as points of presence without the complex billing system. Either way, it has to be using technology which is readily available as opposed to new equipment.
The stations will need to be ordered in a grid of some type, like a large web. OSPF will have to function flawlessly to account for links which failed due to power loss or links that failed due to being destroyed by the government. Problem is, when these stations are found, it will take very little time for the next ones to be found as well. After all, the cantennas would be pointing in the direction of the next station in line.
Using the hackup above, it should be possible to build a base station for $500 or less using commodity equipment. The biggest cost being the solar panels. Someone who knows what they're doing will need to be driving around installing these things quite quickly and monitoring breakages in the network to go out and install new towers regularly to keep things running. So long as the government wants to take the network down, people need to actively be rebuilding, putting up at least 1.5 new links for every link the government removes. Whoever is doing this will very likely be targeted. After all, the easiest way to stop the network from healing itself is to kill off the people building it.
Altogether, I'd say that to get it running up and running, there's probably $100,000 to get started. Figure another $100,000 a month for healing and satellite payments then another $50-$100,000 for growth. This is strictly equipment cost, it does not include the cost of getting the equipment smuggled into Libya, only the cost of building it. The UN, US or any other organization (hell even red cross) could easily spill this kind of money to make this happen without feeling it. What's best is, by establishing this network and teaching the people in Libya how to maintain it, it makes it possible for the people to "westernize" more. This type of a tools is probably more valuable than guns in changing the region. When things eventually stabilize down there (I heard it happened once around 3,750 years ago when Ramses II was Pharaoh, it could happen again for a few weeks), the network would be in place. Then it can be built up and turned into something more professional and even profitable.
How many Pringles cans would we need?
42
There. A little more on topic for you? Yeah, I was going for funny. It does take all the fun out of it to have to explain it.
I bet the local TLD administration is in Tripoli, so they could direct all DNSs to loyalist sites (or goatse, at their will).