village telco: david rowe

I've added David Rowe's blog: Beer, Coffee and a little DSP, to my blog roll.

David does awesome work along the lines of bringing free telephony to the developing world. His website is VILLAGE TELCO provides more detail: an initiative to assemble/develop the cheapest, easiest to setup, easiest to manage, scalable, Open Source, standards-based, wireless local do-it-yourself telephone company toolkit in the world)

The whole concept of universal communication is one that I'm trying to learn more about

universal communications

I've started a new wiki, universal communication. Tony Forster, who understands the engineering side better than me is helping too.

It is for documenting research about bringing communications technology and electricity to the developing world. At this stage it is mainly for notes about understanding concepts / terminology, resources and thinking aloud

It might be useful for:

• those thinking about how OLPC fits into a bigger picture of third world development
• more generally the connection between poverty, electricity generation and communications technology
• understanding the situation on the ground for those planning to visit and / or work in developing world (eg. Oceania, Nepal, Afghanistan, many African countries, etc.)
• understanding successful models about how it has been done, eg. PFNet in the Pacific