From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Nov 19 08:01:02 2007 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8A64616A46D for ; Mon, 19 Nov 2007 08:01:02 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from jonathan+freebsd-questions@hst.org.za) Received: from hermes.hst.org.za (onix.hst.org.za [209.203.2.133]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id AE1F413C457 for ; Mon, 19 Nov 2007 08:01:00 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from jonathan+freebsd-questions@hst.org.za) Received: from sysadmin.hst.org.za (sysadmin.int.dbn.hst.org.za [10.1.1.20]) (authenticated bits=0) by hermes.hst.org.za (8.13.8/8.13.8) with ESMTP id lAJ7wRr9072702 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=RC4-MD5 bits=128 verify=NO) for ; Mon, 19 Nov 2007 09:58:28 +0200 (SAST) (envelope-from jonathan+freebsd-questions@hst.org.za) From: Jonathan McKeown Organization: Health Systems Trust To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2007 10:07:26 +0200 User-Agent: KMail/1.7.2 References: In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Message-Id: <200711191007.27102.jonathan+freebsd-questions@hst.org.za> X-Spam-Score: -4.325 () ALL_TRUSTED,AWL,BAYES_00 X-Scanned-By: MIMEDefang 2.61 on 209.203.2.133 Subject: Re: One Laptop Per Child X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2007 08:01:02 -0000 [Ted Mittelstaedt's words, heavily edited for brevity. Ted, please shout if I haven't caught the sense of what you're saying] > Well, I know it's been a week since this came up but I'll toss in my > $0.02 here. I've been against this project since I heard about it. > Fortunately, it appears to be failing. > IMHO what these kids need are connections to the Internet and the > knowledge store on the Internet, not a laptop. What a laptop that > isn't networked to the Internet is going to do to help them I cannot > guess. > The idea of this project seems to have been to just dump a lot of > laptops into these kids hands and trust that the network fairies > will magically fly out and connect all of them to something they can > use. > The other problem of course is that laptops are more fragile than a > desktop that is fixed, and very subject to theft, much more than a > desktop. > I suppose they figure ... the kid will be able to come up with the > $10-$20 monthly equivalent to keep the internet connection to the > thing going? Assuming they even have a phone at all? As I understand it, the OLPC project has produced an extremely robust laptop which can be human-powered. A group of these laptops will automatically form a wireless mesh network and make use, collectively, of any Internet connectivity that's available to any one of them. In sub-Saharan Africa, that may well be through cellular data. (Satellite is available too, but a lot more expensive). Look at to see a social project by a cellular provider in South Africa which is putting telephone access within reach (both geographically and financially) of traditional rural communities. Note the statistic that Vodacom's cellular network covers 93% of South Africa's population. Note also that this is being done, not as a free handout, but by creating a (slightly subsidised) business opportunity for local people, which is being seized with both hands. People don't need to be handed everything on a plate. Now consider what a community can do when it can pool the cost of Internet connectivity - or what a force multiplier this is for government, non-governmental or even business intervention: this potentially reduces the problem of providing decent bandwidth to every farm and hut in rural Africa (or any other developing area) to a much simpler matter of wiring a few central points and letting the mesh networks take over the distribution. > It would have been better to try creating a project that would > produce a turnkey Internet network deployment that would be able to > be dropped into any school anywhere, even if such a school consisted > of a hut in the middle of a desert with a hole out back as the > bathroom, no electricity, no running water, no telephone lines > within 100 miles. As far as I can see, the only bit of this equation OLPC isn't achieving is providing the Internet connectivity - and to be honest, I think that bit has to depend on local circumstances anyway. I think it deserves to succeed. Jonathan (a sysadmin in urban South Africa)