[Computerbank] OT Wireless rural networks in Laos

[Clae]

Hi,

I'm forwarding this as I thought it might be of interest to some 
here.  If this is not appropriate material for the CB list, please 
let me know off list.

Thanks

Clae


><http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/internet/02/18/laos.onlinebybicycle.ap/index.ht
>ml>
>
>Pedaling onto the Information Superhighway
>Laos villagers to get online with bike-powered PCs
>
>Tuesday, February 18, 2003 Posted: 10:21 AM EST (1521 GMT)
>Tavee Pularmjit pedals a bike-powered generator intended to run a
>custom-built computer.
>
>BAN PHON KHAM, Laos (AP) -- Villagers in this remote jungle hamlet have
>lived for years without electricity or telephones, relying on occasional
>visitors and a sluggish postal system for news of the outside world.
>
>But soon many of its residents will be jumping on stationary bikes to pedal
>their way onto the Information Superhighway.
>
>Custom-built computers -- running on bicycle-powered generators -- will
>transport villagers from rice fields to chat rooms and Web sites worldwide.
>They'll be able to monitor rice and vegetable prices, sell handicrafts and
>e-mail relatives.
>
>The project, expected to launch as early as this spring, gets around the
>lack of phone lines through a clever application of the increasingly popular
>WiFi technology, which is used to wirelessly connect laptops, handhelds and
>other devices elsewhere.
>
>For the first time, villagers will also be able to make phone calls, using
>Internet-based voice technologies. And because much of the project is built
>around nonproprietary, or "open source," software, villagers will
>essentially own the system.
>
>The project is the brainchild of the Jhai Foundation, a San Francisco aid
>organization started by Vietnam War veteran Lee Thorn.
>
>While Thorn wants to build the local economy and help poor villagers enter
>the digital age, he also hopes to heal the wounds of a war he helped wage as
>a bomb loader for Navy warplanes that flew missions over Laos, where the
>United States was fighting communist insurgents and their North Vietnamese
>allies.
>
>The ingenious system -- not much different from a school science project --
>comprises five computers built with discarded microchips.
>
>They connect to the Internet with a radio network and are powered by hulking
>batteries attached to stationary bicycles imported from India. One minute of
>pedaling yields five minutes of power.
>'Low-tech solutions'
>Lee Thorn, right, founder of the Jhai Foundation, oversees a demonstration
>by Laotian schoolgirls of the bike-powered computer.
>Lee Thorn, right, founder of the Jhai Foundation, oversees a demonstration
>by Laotian schoolgirls of the bike-powered computer.
>
>"In a country where the population is isolated ... it becomes necessary to
>think about decidedly low-tech solutions," said Andy Carvin of the Benton
>Foundation, a nonprofit organization that studies global Internet access.
>
>Elsewhere, Carvin said, communities have turned to hand cranks and even cow
>manure where electricity is unavailable. He said the Lao project represents
>the latest of the "homegrown solutions."
>
>The first of the computers is being set up in a freshly painted classroom of
>the local schoolhouse, a single-story concrete building in a clearing in the
>center of the village. The others will go to neighboring villages.
>
>All five will use WiFi to send data wirelessly to a central radio
>transmitter and antenna dish at the school. From there, microwave signals
>will be zapped to a treetop antenna on a nearby mountain ridge and routed to
>a dial-up Internet account at a nearby hospital, which has two of the
>region's few phone lines.
>
>Though the bikes will power much of the system, the relay stations will have
>solar panels. WiFi offers pretty decent speeds, and the hospital's dial-up
>connection will likely be the primary bottleneck.
>
>"We're trying to make this as simple as possible so it can be replicated
>anywhere in the world," Thorn said, after firing off e-mail to the United
>States from his laptop perched on a 50-gallon oil drum.
>
>But Carvin said access is only the start.
>
>"Time will tell how successful this is going to be," he said. "Do they have
>the training program set up and enough content available in Lao as well as
>some of the tribal languages of the indigenous population?"
>
>Organizers say some of that is being addressed.
>
>Although English Web sites will remain in English, villagers will be able to
>send and receive messages in their native language. Software will also
>feature menus translated into Lao.
>
>Students in Phon Kham will be trained to use the system and teach older
>villagers.
>
>The network, designed and built for about $19,000 plus donated labor, will
>cost about $21 a month to operate, Thorn said.
>
>Central to the network is the Jhai PC, a plastic-encased computer smaller
>than a laptop and built to withstand the punishing heat and monsoon rains of
>the Lao countryside. The units were built by Lee Felsenstein, inventor of
>the world's first portable computer.
>
>Because the equipment was customized, last-minute technical glitches forced
>a delay in the project's launch, originally scheduled for this week.
>
>Settled in 1975 by refugees who fled U.S. bombing over Laos during the
>Vietnam War, Phon Kham has been a quiet haven for the likes of Pahn
>Vongsengthong, a 78-year-old retired rice farmer.
>
>Like many other villagers, Pahn has family scattered around the globe.
>
>"The first thing is that I miss my daughters," said Pahn, who lives in a
>simple thatch-roof farmhouse and has never used a computer. "Whenever I miss
>them, I will be able to walk down the road and talk to them" through a
>computer.
>
>Tavee Pulaimchit, 60, the village's chief, said the high-tech outpost will
>help residents compete for lucrative contracts from businesses elsewhere in
>Laos, one of the world's poorest countries.
>
>"This village is isolated from the bigger towns and cities," he said, "and
>we need to keep in contact with the markets there."
>

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