Wireless Internet Cafe for Africa?

Anyone know how to set one up in a third world nation to help a village in
the bush get on the internet?

I work for a humanitarian group that wants to figure this out.

In article <CPaGf.79102$QW2.25869@dukeread08>, (E-Mail Removed) says...
> Anyone know how to set one up in a third world nation to help a village in
> the bush get on the internet?
>
> I work for a humanitarian group that wants to figure this out.

Not wishing to appear frivolous but you'll need:-

A connection to the internet
An access point
and most of all electricity.

The last one is crucial and given my trip to Africa, wasn't always
available.

Do you want to charge? If so then you can buy a hotspot in a box, there
are several such as that by Dlink, Phenet and other manufacturers.

If you don't want to charge then just dump an AP on the end of the
internet connection.

There are other issues from a contractural and responsibility point of
view but you need to crack the first three above first.

David.

Power can be provided by solar cells. I would think that the biggest
challenge is internet access. How far away is the nearest location that has
internet?

Mike Schumann

"David Taylor" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed) d.com...
> In article <CPaGf.79102$QW2.25869@dukeread08>, (E-Mail Removed) says...
>> Anyone know how to set one up in a third world nation to help a village
>> in
>> the bush get on the internet?
>>
>> I work for a humanitarian group that wants to figure this out.
>
> Not wishing to appear frivolous but you'll need:-
>
> A connection to the internet
> An access point
> and most of all electricity.
>
> The last one is crucial and given my trip to Africa, wasn't always
> available.
>
> Do you want to charge? If so then you can buy a hotspot in a box, there
> are several such as that by Dlink, Phenet and other manufacturers.
>
> If you don't want to charge then just dump an AP on the end of the
> internet connection.
>
> There are other issues from a contractural and responsibility point of
> view but you need to crack the first three above first.
>
> David.

"Mike Schumann" <mike-(E-Mail Removed)> hath wroth:

>Power can be provided by solar cells. I would think that the biggest
>challenge is internet access. How far away is the nearest location that has
>internet?
>Mike Schumann

Does a typical African village have a coffee shop?

Perhaps it would be helpful if I offer a 2nd hand horror story to show
what you'll be up against. This was setting up a radio site in
central America mostly for VoIP telephony but which included limited
Wi-Fi internet access.

The backhaul for the internet was provided via a satellite link. I'm
not sure who provider but it wasn't DirecWay or one of the consumer
satellite vendors. Satellite was a pain in the posterior because of
limited performance. It was also expensive at something like
$1000/month. However, attempts to do the same thing via terrestrial
wireless was impossible because the location had several mountain
ranges in between the village and the nearest central office. Copper
wire was laid but stolen within days of installation. Fiber was tried
but someone stole the repeaters. That left satellite.

In order to install the central wireless site, it was necessary to
protect the installation. A concrete blockhouse was built. Tower
installed. Everything surrounded by a barbed wire fence. Several
families from the village were bribed into moving next to the
blockhouse to protect it from vandals, thieves, and revolutionaries.
Apparently, that's common practice with radio installations.

Power was all solar with some very big expensive batteries. It also
ran some VHF/UHF radios so it could have been smaller if it only ran
the wireless. The major drain was the satellite system which burned a
continuous 80 watts and the tower lights at about 120 watts. See my
Excel solar calculator:
http://802.11junk.com/jeffl/rf-calc/...peater-206.xls
for a guess on your required battery size. Also, batteries were
expected to be replaced every 5-8 years. The system has been running
for about 5 years and the batteries are definitely going to need
replacement shortly.

The original wireless system was 2.4Ghz based, but that didn't work
well. The jungle was just too thick and too high for 2.4GHz to
penetrate. The 2.4GHz cast aluminum dish antennas also corroded
badly. The system was switched to 900MHz with plated and painted
yagi's, which worked much better. I'm not sure who the vendor was on
the original 2.4GHz system, but the 900MHz setup as from WaveRider:
http://www.waverider.com

In the past 5 years, literally everything has been replaced or
upgraded at least once. The new LMS4000 series client radios seem to
be holding up well, but the Sipura VoIP ATA adapters are constant
problems. Just about anything that fails should the battery voltage
be applied backwards has blown at least once. Because of insufficient
ventilation in the blockhouse, everything inside has at least one
layer of green slime.

Anyway, it goes on and on like that. Don't ask me about the joy of
troubleshooting with broken English, non-technical, and no replacement
parts. Fortunately, I'm #4 on the call list so I don't have to deal
with too many horrors.

You might wanna ask the same question on the ISP-Wireless mailing
list, where there are some people that have done systems in Africa.
http://isp-wireless.com

--
Jeff Liebermann (E-Mail Removed)
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

"Bob Fox" wrote in message ...
> Anyone know how to set one up in a third world nation to help a village in
> the bush get on the internet?
>
> I work for a humanitarian group that wants to figure this out.

That sounds like an awesome project, National Geographic Channel type stuff.

My experience with tactical comms, however, is leaving me to believe that
you aren't going to be able to this /cheaply/ though.

How far away from the village is there an area of populace and resource?
I'm inclined to believe that your best bet to bring internet in will likely
be using commercial equipment (i.e., Harris Corporation) for a
point-to-point microwave link between the village and a populace. Start
working on proposals now because you will certaintly need government subsidy
or corporate sponsors. I imagine there probably aren't any existing tall
structures in this village and vegetation will also come into play, so will
likely need to mast these radios as well.

"Bob Fox" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:CPaGf.79102$QW2.25869@dukeread08...
> Anyone know how to set one up in a third world nation to help a village in
> the bush get on the internet?
>
> I work for a humanitarian group that wants to figure this out.

Some work has been done in this area.

I'm an active humanitarian and computer scientist, but I consider this to
often be "in the field, in New York" work.
By that, I mean that people think that it can be done anywhere in the world,
when it can't. It's a tempting thing to do because it avoids the cost of
putting an engineer on the ground.
The fact that we're discussing it in this newsgroup is an indication that
this is the case, as is the fact that you refer it the country only as "a
third world nation". The right solution will depend a lot of geographic
location.
I would strongly urge you to avoid this. The best story I remember along
these lines was this:
After the tsunami, a certain 'humanitarian' organisation (who shall remain
nameless) decided that they needed to build an IDP camp in a certain area of
Sri Lanka. They got somebody in, who sat in the capital, selected the site,
and designed the camp.

They hired local contractors who built it, at a cost of (I guess, looking at
the photos) about a million dollars. Somebody from another organisation went
to have a look. The camp was badly designed, in common ways (poor design of
the buildings, buildings far too close together, lack of facilities etc),
but these issues are unfortunately pretty normal. The visitor then walked
down the road, found a small village and asked the people why nobody was
already living on this seemingly excellent land. Answer: it's on a flood
plain.
The camp is now 12 feet underwater. Nobody ever lived in it.

Learn from this mistake: VISIT THE SITE AND LOOK AROUND. Only then can you
think about the best way to deal with the problem.

I will, however, give a few general tips. I can give you more tips if you
tell me where in the world we're talking about. To start with you need to
consider four areas:

1. Technical.
2. Legal.
3. Anthropological.
4. Education.
5. Maintenance.

Don't forgot about the last four.

Technical.
Why are we having this discussion in alt.internet.wireless? Have you
discounted wired? The cost of laying wires is usually very low in these
places, and fiber may well be feasible. If you live with high latency links
(because you're only providing email, etc) then a guy on a bike carrying
some storage device to another village may be a "link" in the case of a
particularly small or hard-to-network village.
People often think of solar power as being sensible in this situation, but
it's very expensive; a petrol generator often makes far more sense, and
people could use it for other things too.

Legal.
Are people legally allowed to access the internet at all? I guess you
checked that, right? :-)
Is access to certain information not allowed, and would you get in trouble
for not censoring it? Political stuff? Pornography? Child Pornography?
What are the laws regarding radio transmissions?

Anthropological.
Will people accept it? (It should be asked because it's easy to ask, but I
can't think of anywhere that would answer: no)
How are they likely to use it?
Where should the computers providing access be physically located?
Does a "cafe" make sense socially? How do people normally gather socially?
Where do people normally location communal tools?
Are you going to annoy anybody (the guy who currently is employed to deal
with all the communications, passing messages, mail, etc)? Do you care?

Education.
How will you ensure that people will actually be able to use it?
Is information on the internet generally avaliable in a language that they
speak/read?
Can they speak/read the language of the operating system (bear in mind that
variations in the language can be very large - you may best off taking a
screenshot and asking people)?
Is an appropriate alphabet supported?

Maintenance.
What happens when things go wrong?
Who pays for it?
Can replacement hardware be sent?
How can people inform you that it's broken if their only major method of
communication is now broken?
Could you train a local to fix the stuff?
Physical problems: water proofing, etc.

I hope this provides some information (or at least raises some of the right
questions), but I didn't have an awful lot to go on. If you provide me with
more information, I may be of more help.

Alun Harford

On Thu, 9 Feb 2006 01:06:03 -0000, "Alun Harford"
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>The camp is now 12 feet underwater. Nobody ever lived in it.

Oops.

>Learn from this mistake: VISIT THE SITE AND LOOK AROUND. Only then can you
>think about the best way to deal with the problem.

Good advice. One minor addition. Make sure that the local government
hasn't sold monopoly business franchises to someone. I ran into that
one in India. Only the unerfunded and seriously incompetent local
monopoly holder could provide internet access. Nobody noticed because
they weren't doing anything useful. Some high level strings were
pulled to end that impediment, but it could turn into something
serious and should not be ignored.

I don't travel anywhere but do advise on such projects. While
officially, I'm only involved in the technical aspects, the ability to
make spectacular mistakes seems to be epidemic. In particular,
maintenance is often performed by someone who's primary mode of repair
is to pound on it with a hammer.

In many parts of the world, getting one's hands dirty is considered
beneath the dignity of the upper classes (and sometimes the educated
classes). One US group (name withheld) found it best to prototype the
system in the US and invite the tribal chief or war lord for a visit
to the US for a week to see how it works. The chief never shows up
because he's always afraid that there's going to be a revolt back home
in his absence, but someone (usually a local skool teacher) can
usually be found. The trip to the US (including the requisite
Disneyland diversion) is generally more useful because changes can
easily be made in the US.

Light reading and clues (how it's done in India, not Africa).
Note that it's not free, but just very cheap.

Microsoft takes Internet kiosks to rural India
Program offers localized content and applications
http://ww6.infoworld.com/products/pr...skiosks_1.html

Women lead rural India's internet rush
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/3871529.stm

Bringing IT to Rural India One Village at a Time
http://www.cio.com/archive/030105/tl_divide.html

--
# Jeff Liebermann 150 Felker St #D Santa Cruz CA 95060
# 831-336-2558 (E-Mail Removed)
# http://802.11junk.com (E-Mail Removed)
# http://www.LearnByDestroying.com AE6KS

> Power can be provided by solar cells. I would think that the biggest

Power helps if the customers have it too otherwise it could be a bit of
a pointeless exercise. I'm not just talking about the coffee shop here
but the whole village.

David.

In article <(E-Mail Removed) m>, David Taylor <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>> Power can be provided by solar cells. I would think that the biggest
>
>Power helps if the customers have it too otherwise it could be a bit of
>a pointeless exercise. I'm not just talking about the coffee shop here
>but the whole village.
>
>David.

Gasoline or diesel generation is probably cheapest way to go. Solar for any
real power is very expensive and in poor/impoverished countries, subject to
growing legs and walking off. Not that a generator can't grow legs, but it
can more easily be secured.

fundamentalism, fundamentally wrong.

"David Taylor" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed) d.com...
| > Power can be provided by solar cells. I would think that the biggest
|
| Power helps if the customers have it too otherwise it could be a bit of
| a pointeless exercise. I'm not just talking about the coffee shop here
| but the whole village.
|
| David.

I have assisted in only one of these projects and then only on the edges.
Solar worked and was not too expensive as most state side designers assume
24/7 where as the village needed the thing to work only for a few hours a
day and not every day. In the event there was a need the local one eyed (in
the land of the blind the one eyed man is king) technical type was available
to flip the switch.