[wsfii-discuss] Economic Sustainability of Community Wireless

[Vickram Crishna]

For some areas* it is very important to combine the
installation of data networking with very local radio
(FM) that costs peanuts in hardware terms to
establish. 

In fact, the technology is completely rudimentary, and
it is in learning ways and means to use such local
radio effectively that the sharing of experiences from
different parts of the world has meaning. 

I had much earlier suggested the inclusion of a
workshop on this topic at winneba, but I personally
have no access to funding to come there and share what
I know. I believe Geekcorps had done a lot of this in
Mali, and maybe Ian or someone else can take it up in
Winneba. 

(*I use the term because while Aaron's use of the word
'retro' in reference to fiscal barter systems is
redolent of academic life coffee sessions, nonetheless
the social impact of a cash system is what we live
with, and can easily see its bitter fallout and aspire
for a better way; similarly the use of 'nations' or
'countries' only reflects artefacts that are neither
historical nor implicit necessities, but what we
currently live with).

--- jeff buderer <jeff at onevillagefoundation.org>
wrote:

> Aaron,
> 
> Yes you are correct when you think about it at the
> most basic level yes
> costs are low.
> 
> However I guess some of us were coming from the idea
> of creating
> multipurpose community/telecenters to complement the
> wireless networks.
> 
> This includes considering ways to promote local as
> well as global
> sources of income to sustain those facilities.
> 
> The idea is that we are not just talking about
> wireless but a whole
> suite ecosystem of ICT community development
> services to promote
> sustainability - cultural ecological as well as
> economic. 
> 
> And so that process of unleashing human potential
> using ICT as augmenter
> of that process in a nutshell is what oneVillage
> Initiative
> http://www.onevillagefoundation.org/ovf/method.html
> aspires to achieve.
> 
> Jeff
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: wsfii-discuss-bounces at lists.okfn.org
> [mailto:wsfii-discuss-bounces at lists.okfn.org] On
> Behalf Of Aaron Kaplan
> Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2007 7:59 AM
> To: Discuss list on the World Summit on Free
> Information Infrastructure
> Subject: Re: [wsfii-discuss] Economic Sustainability
> of Community
> Wireless
> 
> 
> 
> Hi people,
> 
> sorry, all this talk about living without money is a
> bit... well.. retro
> 
> Anyay, without having read all of the mails of this
> long thread  
> before, I want to simply
> point you to our sustanability answer for the Vienna
> funkfeuer.at  
> network:
> 
> http://housing.funkfeuer.at
> 
> It works very well, people put their servers into
> our housing / co- 
> location cellar , they have a benefit from it (good
> inet connection)  
> and the wireless community network (funkfeuer) gets
> bandwidth.
> It is neither a corporation / nor a company but
> simply a way to make  
> our freenet sustainable for years to come.
> 
> voila!
> 
> best regards,
> aaron.
> 
> 
> On Apr 25, 2007, at 2:22 PM, marco wrote:
> 
> > hi thomas
> >
> >
> > Thomas M. wrote:
> >>
> >> reading all these texts on business model,
> economic sustainability,
> >> ... I started thinking about what is the
> economical model, in my way
> >> of understanding it is model of society based
> primarily on money, And
> >> I thought isnit a way to have an alternative kind
> of society based on
> >> others values than money?
> > I do agree so far but want to add that the living
> without money,
> > virtual, paper or coins, is an ideal, a good one
> certainly. our  
> > society
> > is so deeply structured by markets (and markets
> base and  
> > commodities as
> > money is this special commodity for exchange) that
> we cannot just
> > switch, even if all people would have this idea
> spontaniously. u have
> > been implicating it - i just wanted to expilcate
> ...
> >
> > the frontline is set by economical power today. to
> work out something
> > means to get independend from profitmaximisation
> and shareholders.
> > people, currently bare of resources and means of
> production, have  
> > to get
> > economical power in a structured way, having
> short/longterm strategies
> > to work at. the democratisation of economy is the
> core of what i  
> > believe
> > have to be done. and this means a fight against
> previleges,  
> > exploitation
> > and oppression at all levels of society ... good
> intentions are not
> > sufficient. we need networking, strategies and
> structuring on that  
> > behalf!
> > have anybody seen the documentary "The
> Corporation"?
> >
> > http://www.thecorporation.com/
> >
> > grts, marco, berlin
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > wsfii-discuss mailing list
> > wsfii-discuss at lists.okfn.org
> >
> http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/wsfii-discuss
> >
> 
> ---
> there's no place like 127.0.0.1
> 
> 
> 
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> 
> 
> 
> 
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> 


Vickram


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