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Ask Slashdot: Could We Reconnect Eastern Libya?

Posted by timothy on from the who-is-this-we-paleface? dept.

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?"

2 of 290 comments (clear)

  1. Is it worth it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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....

  2. Re:TSFI already deployed a team by Asic+Eng · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I thought this was quite interesting:

    "TSF's founders realized that, in addition to medical and food aid, there was a critical need for reliable emergency telecommunications services. Conflicts and emergencies often led to massive civilian displacement and separated families. And affected populations are often left with no communications infrastructure in place to find assistance and loved ones."

    Makes sense to me, I sent them EU50.