Re: [GKD-DOTCOM] How Much Bandwidth is Necessary?

[Ben Parker]

> 1. Are high-bandwidth connections necessary, or even important, to
> making a real impact on development? Or are the costs and problems
> inherent in establishing such connectivity too high -- and unsustainable
> -- for underserved areas?

1. High bandwidth: I think enough to do Yahoo! mail or Hotmail is needed
for a public service. Even slow web is really essential I think. I am
speaking as someone who helped to run a large FIDOnet e-mail only node
in Ethiopia in the early nineties and I regret that a lot of really
clever and efficient stuff (Zmodem compression, least-cost routing etc)
has been thrown out as we standardise on TCP/IP. But that's how it is
these days.


> 2. Are there cases that demonstrate the value of low-bandwidth (e.g.,
> store-and-forward email, packet radio) solutions to provide critical
> information access to under-served communities? How successful have they
> been?

2. I work in southern Sudan and there are many low bandwidth solutions
in place, but they are not for public use. These include data (e-mail)
over Mini-M phone, PTC-II HF radio, Codan HF modems, data over Thuraya,
even BGAN or M4 satellite toys and others. All are painful either in
cost or speed.  But if you need it bad enough, and you have the money,
you can do e-mail anywhere. None of these are used in a telecentre
context.


> 3. Can information distribution centers (e.g., public access
> telecenters) offer a viable economic solution to a community's
> information needs, by, in effect, sharing a single high-bandwidth
> connection among many users, and thus spreading the cost?

3. Telecentres: yes, of course they are all about sharing a connection.
Breaking even on the $400-500 per month for a 64K VSAT bill is the
challenge. The other major challenge we face in two remote telecentres
UNICEF supports in southern Sudan (at least two days from the nearest
telephone) is the generators. These need lots of fuel and oil and are
prone to breakdown. Regular desktops are much too greedy for solar power
as far as I understand, but I would be interested if anyone can share
experiences on solar-powered VSAT?


> 4. Are there new protocols that make more efficient use of the bandwidth
> that is available? For example, what role can the newer wireless
> technologies (e.g. Wi-Fi, MESH networks) play in bringing sufficient
> connectivity to underserved communities? Are the costs and maintenance
> demands of these technologies sustainable?

4. Wireless: yes, it's potentially a good revenue stream for the
telecentres. In theory, they can offer a "business class" service to
fixed locations beyond the telecentre and charge a healthy monthly
subscription without using up seats in the centre. If the client will
pay enough, they can up their VSAT bandwidth. This is what we are
looking into but high street Wi-Fi kit does not go far enough and
expertise in souped-up Wi-Fi is limited.


Ben Parker






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Re: [GKD-DOTCOM] How Much Bandwidth is Necessary?

[Cliff Missen]

Hi all!

Thanks for your insights! I agree with many of the sentiments coming
out of this thread. Bandwidth is important, but only after issues of
meeting real communication needs and developing the human capacity to
use ICT.

Peter Burgess notes, "Having the ability to communicate LOCALLY is
enormously valuable, and should be done better than yesterday, but it
need not be done using broadband!"

Guido Sohne says, "I also agree that connectivity is not the whole
issue. More the tip of the iceberg."

Pam McLean adds, "The first urgent necessity is simply to be able to
communicate."

The issue, from my view, has got more to do with _services_ than
bandwidth. There's an old adage that goes, "It's not what you got, it's
what you can DO with it that matters!" This rings true with ICT in
developing countries. The challenge remains for communities to turn this
tool into something that serves their individuals and institutions in
the most productive and effective means possible. This means
identifying models that deliver high quality communication and
information access at the least bandwidth cost.

So the question, "How Much Bandwidth is Necessary?" begs the point. What
are we attempting to accomplish? What services are we attempting to
provide our customers? How much are our "intended victims"  able
to pay for bandwidth? And finally, what KIND of bandwidth do our
customers require?

If we need to check email on Yahoo, then we need real-time interactive
Internet bandwidth. If we need to get 400 messages a day from one
location to another, we might do well with someone using an intermittent
wireless connection. If we need to exchange 200 messages a month with a
distant village, we might have someone carrying a USB memory key to an
ISP in town. If someone needs to get a letter to another, they need a
word processor and a printer. If we need to deliver multimedia
documents to schools around the district, we might use DVDs or rewitable
CDs.

For example, the WiderNet Project's eGranary Digital Library delivers
over 1 million high-quality digital multimedia documents (books, videos,
Web sites) to African universites using large hard disks and, soon,
cheap satellite radio broadcasts. See


There's an old adage in the computer science community: "Never
underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of magnetic tape." 
There's a myriad of ways to deliver digital messages and documents and
our task is to find the most appropriate way to do so within the
economic, social, and political context of our friends and colleagues in
the developing world. This challenge will be met through better
technologies in a small part, but the development of services that
deliver real change will come through bending and twisting and shaping
the current services into new services that meet user needs.

My particular expertise is in university ICT development. Here's a clip
from a paper I'm working on regarding the importance of services on
university campuses. Note that only the last service requires Internet
bandwidth, the rest provide real productivity and organizational
improvement using only the LAN.

- - - - - - - - -

Many universities get caught up in ICT measurements that are numeric and
technical: numbers of computers, numbers of connections, bandwidth
speeds. But the real measures of a holistic ICT endeavor are
productivity, participation, and people-centered services.

By "services" we mean things like:

*   Corporate messaging systems that include sharable and integrated
email, calendar, address lists, task lists, etc. for staff and
administrators

*   Reliable basic Web-based email system for ALL students

*   Web services for departmental intranets, course delivery, and
public Internet.

*   File sharing/collaboration capabilities for departments and
administrative units

*   Printer sharing capabilities for departments and administrative
units

*   Consolidated security/authentication services for campus (one
trustworthy login to all university ICT services)

*   Common people directory for intercampus communication

*   SQL database services for departments

*   Web database applications for common university functions:

-   student registration
-   results processing
-   ID card manufacture
-   personnel and payroll
-   student financial accounting 
-   electronic forms
-   academic transcripts

*   support for course material creation

*   course management software (WebCT, Blackboard, KEWL)

*   and, phew!, finally. . . access to the broader Internet

- - - - - - - - -

Unfortunately, many in the donor community are more interested in the
"sexier" issue of connectivity. It's easy to get enamored with the CPUs
and VSATs and mbits and Internet cafes. But research in this area shows
us that the physical stuff -- the hardware, software, and network
connections -- only consumes 30% of the typical budget of 

[GKD-DOTCOM] How Much Bandwidth is Necessary?

[Meddie Mayanja]

Dear All,

I am Meddie Mayanja, working for the World Bank Institute. I wanted to
contribute to the debate in the context of my experience in the ICTs for
Development and my current position.
  
> 1. Are high-bandwidth connections necessary, or even important, to
> making a real impact on development? Or are the costs and problems
> inherent in establishing such connectivity too high--and
> unsustainable--for underserved areas?

The question seems to put the horse infront of the cart. In development
work we do not need to put technology before the services/development
objectives we aim to serve. Its not fair to discuss whether
high-bandwidth connections are necessary if we have no specific service
under review. Take a case of a basic telecenter in a rural community,
high bandwidth will be a waste if they want to use e-mail, internet.
However if we are considering telemedicine, with high-quality image
transfer between a hospital and a health center in the community, then
high bandwidth is a necessity.
  
I would add that the cost is secondary to the function and
appropriateness. If we need high bandwidth for a health service as
described above, that's it---we can find the money.

> 3. Can information distribution centers (e.g., public access
> telecenters) offer a viable economic solution to a community's
> information needs, by, in effect, sharing a single high-bandwidth
> connection among many users, and thus spreading the cost?

We are working with a School-Based Telecenter Model for access to ICTs
in underserved rural communities. In the program that has 15 centers
around the country - Uganda. We had until recently one C-band VSAT
terminal that was shared by 4 School-Based Telecenters (SBTs) via
wireless bridge and access point--spread spectrum technology. The
model helped to share bandwidth that terminated at one VSAT as well as
costs for its maintanance. The SBTs have now switched on to KU-band.

Visit  for more information about the
School-Based Telecenters.

Meddie


Meddie Mayanja 
ICT Community Development Specialist 
ICT for Education Program 
World Bank Institute 
Tel: 256 77 502 288 
[EMAIL PROTECTED] OR [EMAIL PROTECTED]






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Re: [GKD-DOTCOM] Bringing Connectivity to Under-Served Communities

[Guido Sohne]

On Wed, 2003-11-05 at 17:14, Robert Miller wrote:

> And, what if all the content on this server were remotely refreshed
> nightly via satellite broadcast with any updates so that those content
> resources were always current as of 2:00 AM that day and were available
> to students, faculty, and administration at high-speed using a simple,
> reliable wireless campus network?
> 
> Yes, this is possible and it is being done today! And, it operated on a
> financially self-sustaining basis by the University or a local community
> business person who is charged with providing this reliable service.

This is very interesting to me but raises some questions related to
practical use and implementation. It basically seems that 'offline'
content is being maintained in a somewhat current state by periodically
syncing with upstream information. You mention satellite broadcasts,
which imply that the information stream is one way. This makes sense to
me, because if it was two way, why does one need to mirror content
locally, except to save bandwidth (still worth doing!)

Another question is how well this fits in with the current state of
information out there. It appears that more and more, information is
tied towards its source, in the sense that information is not being
served raw but through an application, and interacting with an
application means bi-directional information flow. Packaging it properly
will avoid the problem and enable it to be used offline. IMHO, more
efficient use of offline capability is needed to help information
penetrate into places where this solution may be used.

How much does satellite unidirectional broadcast cost versus
bidirectional communication (factor in hardware cost as well as
operational cost) ?

Practically, I think this sort of approach needs to be combined with a
hard look at equipping people with PCs on a large enough scale to really
reap benefits. Community telecentres (basically shared access) is useful
as a means of alleviating this problem but too much effort seems to be
focused on community telecentres instead of on how to put more PCs or
lower cost computing/communication devices into the hands of people.

And that brings yet another problem, that of what sort of software or
interfaces are going to enable these people to take advantage of
information, bringing yet another problem into being, of whether the
sort of information that they need is really out there. This is somewhat
assumed for granted ...






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Re: [GKD-DOTCOM] How Much Bandwidth is Necessary?

[mahmudd]

Wire Lunghabo James <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
  
> However I would also like to add that many times when we talk of
> connectivity, we mean having probably a connection to either the
> internet directly or to the telcos etc. Has some one ever thought of
> creating a network of villages linked together probably through wireless
> technologies, enabling these rural folk to communicate with each 
> other and exchange information without having to ride a bicycle for 
> 20 kms. Eventually, this creates a mesh of villages interconnected 
> and one high speed connection probably links to the ISP or Telco. I 
> believe this kind of aggregation would prove cheaper and more 
> meaningful for our societies. Why in the first case should you try 
> and force a villager to communicate with someone in Europe when he 
> still has problems communicating with his in-laws 10 kms away ?

Wire you have said it all.

Even with these wireless solutions it can turn out to be costly and
prone to many problems taking the terrain and climate of Africa into
account. We have been trying to connect our offices with HF radios on
which we could transmit simple text messages. This is in Ghana. The
equipment cost us about $4000 per site and there were about 5 sites. For
the first year we could use the equipment effectively for voice
communication and once a awhile with text messages. Due to poor after
sales services in the 4th year we started encountering problems with
servicing of the equipment which was draining our resources. So we 
virtually abandoned it and tried using the email through the national
telcom channels. This is only available at the regional capitals and it
was impossible for us to link with our remote field offices where most
of our partners work.

To provide better access to information to these remote locations we are
considering using FM radio with a VSAT connection to the internet and
lobbying with the governments to provide at least a few lines to this
radio station to their major exchanges so we could share this link.

Because of the high illiteracy rate of the population in question their
direct interaction with the internet is going to be minimal but this can
be done through the radio presenters who will take on the requests from
the villagers, reasearch the issues over the internet and other sources
and then broadcast the findings over the air with some resource persons
to add some clarifications and make the local connections to the issues
under discussion.

I do believe WIFI and the other technologies need more research to adapt
them to the conditions and income levels of the vast majority of the
African population.





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