Internet

It is clear that Internet connections from schools to the rest of the world will be a critical to the success of the OLPC project, although OLPC itself is assuming that there won't be connections in many places.

OLPC is selling Laptops to governments. The governments will have to decide what Internet connections they can afford to include in the package they provide to schools.

There are several options.

• Some places, mainly in cities in the less poor countries, will have high-capacity landlines at reasonable costs.

• Many more places will have low-capacity landlines available.

• There is technology, and NGOs such as SFLAN and BARWN ready to deliver it, for broadband point-to-point wireless connections. BARWN has a link across San Francisco Bay connecting its free network in San Francisco to Berkeley and Oakland. SFLAN technology has been deployed all across Bhutan.

• WiMax technology will offer considerably higher bandwidth at considerably lower cost over a much larger area per transmitter. WiMax has a service area of 30 miles (50 km) radius. There are early announcements of nation-scale WiMax networks in the US and Pakistan, at an estimated cost of about $10 per person. We may expect to hear of many more.

• Satellite connections are normally the most expensive, particularly in Africa where there is insufficient market competition. However, SES Global] is offering free satellite connections for OLPC. That means that schools need a VSAT terminal to connect. They start at about $1000.

• Intermittent connections can be made using dial-up links, and variations of FidoNet and sneakernet. FidoNet depends on the existence of phone lines with reasonable night-time rates. Each server in the net calls a few of its nearest neighbors at night to exchange e-mail and other files. Nationwide propagation takes a few days. Sneakernet simply means taking data on removable media or portable computers from one computer to another. The data rate on transferring a single rewritable CD by walking from one village to another once a day is

700 MB / (24 hrs/day * 3600 sec/hr) = 8100 bytes/sec = 64.8 Kbps, somewhat more than a 56K modem.

Taking ten or a dozen CDs to different villages by bicycle or motor scooter, or even by bus, multiplies the data rate accordingly. Using rewritable DVDs multiplies it again. DVD recorders are available for under $100.

Bhutan has been experimenting with delivery of e-mail to villages by the postal service using Simputers, over a wireless national network built by Clif Cox of SFLAN.