Wireless mesh networks in Somaliland
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Wireless Networking in the Developing World
- Laura, Leon, Nasma, jenny, two other ladies joined later
- Mobile phone healthcvare app in Nepal
- Mesh networks for small autonomous communities
- Somaliland has difficult, rocky terrain - no fiber coming in to the country, and
- Where do fiber lines come in?
- worked at a boarding school
- setting up local services, such as OwnCloud (for file sharing), a wiki and a file server
- little prior knowledge necessary
- Used Commotion software from the Open Tech Institute
Questions:
- How to support remote open source projects?
- Network went down when water was accidentally poured into a generator and fried all of the devices
- device issues - falling down from wind, power fluctuating
- Hardest thing was not the software but rather the hardware and keeping devices powered
- reallyly important to document well and train people to maintain it
- Now training this teacher remotely
- openflow - creating a script that auto-backs up the server and monitors power
- supply chain issues - building in places where the materials aren't available
- Had a script that would reset the router
Building a mesh network in rural somaliland [link]
- Getting through concrete walls in not easy
- The more devices, the better
- Point-to-point links
- $500 of funding from OTI for this small network
- 4 picostations (omnidirectional), 2 point-to-point links
- Only 2 service providers - one by a corrupt bank
- Leon doing a project in Nepal, a mobile app that provides health answers for women with limited access to health resources, works over SMS
- OpenBTS - open source DIY cellular networks
- Mesh networks in America
- friendly ISPs that allow sharing in their TOS
- suggesting agile, small groups
- local network shared among neighbors
- mobile money
- zaad