Wireless for Rural Development
Tomas Krag
wire.less.dk
Agenda
- Framing the goals
- Examples of Rural Networks
- Prerequisites
- New business models for a new technology
Framing the Goals
The Optimistic View
- This is not about the race to Gigabit
- This is about: Access to Knowledge for Everyone
Innovation in Wireless
- Innovation is Driven by need
- Prediction:
As the need increases, innovation will come from new places
Jhai PC
http://www.jhai.org/jhai_remoteIT.htm
SchoolNet Namibia
http://www.schoolnet.na/projects/wireless/index.html
DakNet Cambodia
http://www.medialabasia.org/mlaShow.php?typeId=4&subTypeId=16
http://www.firstmilesolutions.com/demo.htm
Djurslands net in Rural Denmark
Dharamsala Mesh
http://www.tibtech.org/
Prerequisites
- A suitable policy environment
- Awareness / Imagination
- Local Ownership!
- Defined Communication Needs
- Basic Technology Skills
- Access to Generic Hardware
- Free Software and Open Spectrum
New Business Models for New Technologies
- Wireless is a telecommunications revolution
- Forget these terms
- Mission Critical
- Multiple Redundancy
- Quality of Service
New Business Models of Wireless (cont'd)
- Gradual Deployment
- Consumer Grade Hardware
- Ease-of-use
- Distributed Ownership
- Distributed maintenance
- Distributed costs
- Incentive to maintain networks
New Business Models of Wireless (cont'd)
- Public-Private Partnerships
- Private Sector and Community Partnerships
Unlicensed Spectrum
Unlicensed Spectrum is Food for Wireless Innovation