[wsfii-discuss] Economic Sustainability of Community Wireless

Sat Apr 28 11:57:50 UTC 2007

hi all

thx for the late discussion....

 ... its just a few days ago that I came to a point in my reflection,
which made me think: "Why Internet?" Certainly its the window to the
world, but i also remembered a conversation I had last year with an
assistant director in the Ministry of Communication (MoC), Ghana. He
said, they are creating information pakets to be available in the
Community Ressource Centers (CRC) they are running (currently about 50
in the whole country). these pakets are designed to empower rural people
in different aspects, such has health, agriculture, accounting and more
... the people dont have to get the info to a certain time but can
always have it, as they have access to the PC-pools of the CRC ... I was
trying to convince him of a collaboration with wirelessghana.com that
time. he was interested but made some critical points on this focus on
internetaccess, as he saw the danger of bringing a destructive
commercial culture/attitude into a social background where theres not
even a small chance to partiticipate in the wealth we meet in the WWW.

so. it sounds a little like "political reaction" or rightwing or
something, but I think a concept where internetaccess doesnt play the
first role dont have to be retarding automatically. especially when
radio stations are involved, who are allready a VERY important part of
the ghanaian society. in the last 10 years they have become THE motor of
the democratisation in Ghana. and their number increased multi
exponentially. I know a little about that because I have been
researching for a TV documentary on specifically that topic last year.

grts, marco

Vickram Crishna wrote:
> Actually the 'I' part of the 'wisp' is the unnecessary
> part. Not that it has no purpose, but that the cost of
> providing internet connectivity may be infructuous, as
> Ian points out.
>
> On the other hand, the wireless data network can help
> significantly change the total cost of the FM
> establishment, by enabling FM tx points within a short
> range (a few km) be set up at each node to work either
> maually or through centrally managed control. Nodes
> need not be heavy enough to be used in a manned mode
> (ie, they need not include mouse, keyboard, monitor or
> hard disks).
>
> Distributing the FM tx like this will massively reduce
> the FM component. Having the intelligent nodes gives
> the opportunity to set up more than one learning
> center, and of course once internet connectivity costs
> can be met or a suitably economical manner of
> connecting (there are several models of punctuated
> connectivity) is established, then the utility of the
> entire setup exponentially increases. Better not to
> get too fixated on internet connectivity as an
> objective. Even local datanets (country- or
> region-wide nets) will likely pay off in terms of
> extending capabilities of local people.
>
> This is of course theoretical, but I do think there is
> tremendous scope for testing various configurations. 
>
> --- Ian Howard <ihoward at netdotworking.com> wrote:
>
>   
>> - a need for information (this is their product so
>> it is very, very
>> important)
>> - they tend to be well located and are often focal
>> points of communities
>> ...
>> Unfortunately, I have seen the
>> case where an
>> internet project at a radio station can bankrupt the
>> radio station.
>> Putting a WISP at an FM radio is not an economic
>> solution as a WISP is
>> not likely to generate much money and is risky.
>>     
>
>
> Vickram
>
>
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