Motoman

This is an email mesh network with motorcycle mounted computers that collect and transport the messages from village to town and back again. It's one type of Sneakernet.

There are already people using motorcycle delivery services to carry email from village to village in Cambodia's Motoman project. This type of networking is likely to grow once there are large numbers of wireless capable laptops in place. They either exchange info wirelessly with the motorcycle, or, more likely, a teacher runs a village base station that can collect messages all week, then do a quick upload and download while the motorcycle driver is dealing with the paper mail. Bulk data transfers would be on CD or DVD since USB drives are readily available. The villagers will quickly learn how a single USB-CD drive can multiply the usefulness of those laptops 100-fold.

Some Articles

• http://www.parish-without-borders.net/cditt/cambodia/dailylife/2004/rural-internet.htm

• http://www.islam-online.net/English/Science/2003/12/article06.shtml

• http://www.cambodia.net/kiri/projects/motoman.html

• http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/russian/sci/tech/newsid_3504000/3504516.stm

If you can't read the last one (in Russian) you can still look at the several photos.

It basically works like the bus in this picture.

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This is a form of small world network.