Re: [GKD] RFI: Low-Bandwidth Long Distance Wireless E-mail
Steven, Our NGO has experimented with a variety of technologies in Uganda over the years, including HF radio data for email (using Codan and Pactor II) and GSM data. We are now testing a hybrid solution that uses a PCI receive-only satellite card, together with GSM data, using an Ericsson Fixed Cellular Terminal FCT 221m for connecting rural schools. To make the most efficient use of such a connectivity solution there should be a server with good web caching. We are using SchoolAxxess www.advancedinteractive.com/schoolweb/. If you will check back with me in a few weeks I may be able to give you some results of our testing, and costs involved. Daniel Stern www.uconnect.org Steven Clift [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I am interested in learning about projects that have extended lower cost e-mail access into the remotest areas - particularly cheaper non-satellite options. Articles, tutorials, and links to software, etc.. are of interest as well. ***GKD is solely supported by EDC, a Non-Profit Organization*** 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 Archives of previous GKD messages can be found at: http://www.edc.org/GLG/gkd/
Re: [GKD] Update on Cisco LDC Initiative in Uganda
Sudhakar, Tariq et al, I think this is my first intervention since being a lurker on the list for several months. I am the director for the Uconnect Schools Project in Uganda. We provide mostly recycled computers to mostly rural primary and secondary schools here on a not-for-profit basis, i.e. they receive a PII (or Celeron equivalent) workstation with 17 monitor loaded with Win98 Open Office 1.1 and a few other applications, including DeepFreeze for $175. Schools provide their own transport for taking delivery. After setting up ten or more stand alone workstations at their computer lab they send one or two teachers and three or four students for a five half day Network Training Workshop NTW, bring with them a floorplan of their lab, and by the end of the workshop they will have cut, crimped and tested the Cat5 cable to return to the school to set up the LAN. They pay $100 in total for the five or six trainees, plus cost of Cat5 and RJ45s. This works, and is scalable. Without going into too much detail, next steps are to get the school lab connected by a variety of broadband technologies available here, then we provide those schools with a SchoolAxxess server (built on Compaq P4 2.4 GHz with entry level two (mirrored) 40 GB IDE drives for $750, including a Telecentre Management Training course for staff who will run the lab as a community telecentre after hours on a for-profit basis. I wouldn't think that the Networking Academies were a significant revenue stream for Cisco, though they might be for the local institutions that run them. I think Tariq, that you are probably in a better position to answer that question. You will have read in Tariq's intervention about the Cisco Networking Academy success stories from Uganda, including Lorna's, who was our Project Coordinator. In fact several of our team either have or are taking CCAP and CCNP. I am not sure to what extent those studies have contributed to their ability to conduct the above-mentioned NTWs, but I would guess that our training programme, specifically aimed at the students and teachers from primary and secondary schools in Uganda, has benefitted at least indirectly from their training with Cisco. Hope this helps. Kind regards, Daniel Stern ***GKD is solely supported by EDC, a Non-Profit Organization*** 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 Archives of previous GKD messages can be found at: http://www.edc.org/GLG/gkd/
Re: [GKD-DOTCOM] Bringing Connectivity to Under-Served Communities
After lurking on the list for more than a week, allow me to introduce myself. I am director for the Uconnect Schools Project. Our NGO is providing computers to mostly rural primary and secondary schools in Uganda. Schools pay something less than $200 for each computer, which is enough for us to continue to purchase and ship additional recycled equipment needed for the expansion of the project. The overriding aim is that the project should be sustainable, scalable and reproducible: schools provide their own transport for taking delivery of equipment; students and teachers are trained at Uconnect workshops at education ministry headquarters for installing their own LANs; and computer labs are opened to the parents and community after school hours on a fee-paying basis as schools-based telecentres. Our NGO's train-the-trainer programme has demonstrated that training the indigenous youth is a key component in the successful expansion of any such project, and that their supervision and training can be done remotely through Internet technologies. Bob Miller has already made interventions to the list about Advanced Interactive's SchoolWeb solution. I would only add that we have been quite impressed with their solution, so much so that we have begun a pilot project involving the installation of SchoolWeb servers at forty mostly rural schools. WorldSpace seemed to offer the low cost connectivity solution we were looking for. Certainly the one-time equipment costs were low, at around $200 per radio, with satellite data receiver and antenna (for bulk purchase of forty or more units). But I was not happy with the recurrent fees proposed by WorldSpace for our schools project: $180 monthly (for between 40 and 100 schools) per school for 500 Mb of download. Added to other recurring costs, monthly server maintenance, monthly dialup subscription at $30, and airtime fees averaging $1.05 per minute (for GSM data - for most rural schools the only means for Internet uplink), the WorldSpace recurring fees I was quoted were not even competitive with two-way satellite services offered locally, such as the Hughes Network Solutions DirectWay (Afsat's I-Way) which provides 1 Gb monthly for around $250. We are again in the hunt for a more cost-effective connectivity solution for the rural schools. Kind regards, Daniel Stern 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
