Mark Lediard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Here is a bandwidth sharing option I have been thinking about. I plan to > deploy this in Indonesia soon. The idea is to get a business, (perhaps a > bank?) that has some bandwidth in a district setting, to share its > bandwidth with a health center through a wireless access point placed > somewhere near the health facility. If a local business is willing to > share bandwidth with a health facility, the base costs of a router and > wireless access point to enable that are around 125 Euros. Security > software and routines exists to make sure that no one at the health > center can "hack" the host. Then, in pleasant and practical > public-private collaboration, the health entity that gets to connect > wirelessly via the on-all-the-time connection at no extra charge to the > host, can have free bandwidth to use for their ICT needs. > > This gives a local business an easy and low-cost way to act in a way > that is socially responsible. There may also be a way for the health > unit to recover some costs by charging some fees for offering VOIP > (Voice over internet protocol) services such as the use of SKYPE or > www.net2phone for contact. Think about how you might apply such a > voluntary Robin Hood scheme. It's technically feasible. I have done it > already on a small scale. In fact, this note comes to you via a wireless > setup...
Mark, interesting scheme. The most challenging part, I think, will be convincing the bank that sharing their bandwidth with a local health center will be a socially responsible thing to do, especially if they are aware that the health center will then turn around and use their new connected state to make money. I think even the banks will want to set up a monthly payment plan with the health center where the center pays for their bandwidth usage - even a nominal fee. Njideka Ugwuegbu Reuters Digital Vision Fellow Stanford University http://reuters.stanford.edu/ http://www.youthfortechnology.org ------------ This DOT-COM Discussion is funded by the dot-ORG USAID Cooperative Agreement, and hosted by GKD. http://www.dot-com-alliance.org provides more information. To post a message, send it to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To subscribe or unsubscribe, send a message to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. In the 1st line of the message type: subscribe gkd OR type: unsubscribe gkd For the GKD database, with past messages: http://www.GKDknowledge.org
