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Yes the power of wireless is truly amazing
and how an important role it has started to play. We have several ongoing
projects where entire countries are beginning to leverage the 802.11b to bring
the communication for the masses. Some of these projects even have UNICEF
funding. Just goes to show the scale and magnitude of installations. By the way I forgot to mention that we are
actively seeking to sponsor these types of projects. Please feel free to get in
touch with us for more info. Nimesh D. Parikh smartBridges -----Original Message----- Quite an amazing story. Wish I could have helped out on this
one. Would have been quite the
adventure! The power of WIRELESS!!! Sully -----Original Message----- I thought this may be an interesting
story to share with the group here. The impact is quite large. sB had sponsored
a group of volunteers and they have done an outstanding job. A more polished
version of the story will be coming out soon but here is the report they filed
from the field. Nimesh Parikh smartBridges -- Bridging the Digital Divide: A smartBridges success story in
rural A handful of Nepali villagers and
foreign friends had a vision. One year later, the vision has become a reality. A ragtag team, without much
technical experience and without much money, has been able to create a wireless
communications network that connections five villages and the outside world
using wireless data radios. Two UCLA students, Mark Michalski and Robin
Shields, and one Boston-based carpenter, Sage Radachowsky, helped their Nepali
counterparts to locate the equipment and to implement the network. Nanda Thapa(*) uses the internet for
many things. He communicates with people around the world to find funding for
his village's school. He also responds to incoming emails from a website that
he created to get volunteers to come to his village. Nanda used to have to walk for 8
hours and then take a 6 hour bus ride to check his email. He used to have to
walk for two days to have a meeting with a neighboring village about a joint
project. Now he can do both in seconds, thanks to a new wireless network in
rural Now, instead of walking for one or
two days to deliver a simple message or to meet with people in neighboring
villages, villagers are able to communicate via voice and text meeting
software. Villagers and volunteers in the villages are able to communicate with
people anywhere in the world by sending email, a facility that was previously
available only by walking one to three days and then taking a 4 hour bus ride
to Pokhara. People are also able to access the wealth of information on the
internet regarding any subject, from learning about mushroom culture to getting
drivers for a printer. These capabilities have already made
a big difference in the lives of the people living in the villages. The ability
to communicate easily has already worked as a catalyst for future
locally-generated development projects. However, the future of the network
remains uncertain. In the context of a guerrilla war, the people having the
ability to communicate may be seen as a threat by both the government and the
Maoists. Each side may possibly believe that the other side will use the
ability to communicate against them. For this reason, the network must
unfortunately remain something of a secret within Despite the war, the team that implemented
the project would like to draw upon their experience in creating this network
and replicate the network in other places in Technical Aspects of the Project Please refer to the attached Network
Topology graph. The wireless network currently employs 12 smartBridges
AirPointPro Outdoor radios, and may soon employ two more to reach additional
villages. The longest link is between the main relay station and a city, where
a server is located to connect to a dialup ISP. This link spans about 34 km
horizontally, and about 3,000 meters vertically. The main relay station is on a
mountaintop at an altitude of about 3,400 meters. The extreme sensitivity of the
smartBridges APPO unit is one key to bridging this great distance without using
a signal amplifier. Using quality 24 dBi grid dish antennas from Pacific
Wireless, and connecting the dipole directly to the radios with a 0.5 meter
pigtail to minimize cable loss, is another key. All radios are protected from nearby
lightning discharges by lighting arrestors which are grounded to the earth. There is a secondary relay station
on another ridge at an even higher altitude. (Part of the The relay stations are each powered
by 70 watt solar panels connected to deep cycle batteries by a charge
controller. Each relay station also has a wind generator, but so far this has
proven to be unnecessary. There has been little wind, and the solar power has
proven to be sufficient for the radios. Currently, villagers talk and chat
with each other using Microsoft Netmeeting. However, one member of the team is
working to develop custom VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) software, using
the OpenH323 VoIP standard, which will use a Quicknet Internet LineJack at the
server base station to allow voice telephone calls to the PSTN (Public Switched
Telephone Network). This is very important in a country such as [If you would like more information
about this project, or if you would like to contribute to a future project,
please email (*) The names of all Nepali persons
and all place names have been changed for security purposes, due to the current
civil war in ### |
- RE: [smartBridges] Bridging the Digital Divide The Wirefree Network
- RE: [smartBridges] Bridging the Digital Divide Nimesh D. Parikh
- RE: [smartBridges] Bridging the Digital Divi... Sevak Avakians
- Re: [smartBridges] Bridging the Digital Divide Sevak Avakians
- RE: [smartBridges] Bridging the Digital Divide Chris Chance
- Re: [smartBridges] Bridging the Digital Divide Bill Culpepper
- RE: [smartBridges] Bridging the Digital Divi... Nimesh D. Parikh
- Re: [smartBridges] Bridging the Digital ... Eric Walter
- Re: [smartBridges] Bridging the Digital Divide Wayland
- RE: [smartBridges] Bridging the Digital Divi... Nimesh D. Parikh
