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Wireless Networking The Internet Hardware

WiFi Lifeline For Nepal's Farmers 175

Posted by simoniker from the yakkity-yak dept.
bahree writes "BBC is running a pretty interesting story on how yak farmers in the mountains of Nepal, where there are no phones or other means of communication, are using wireless Internet technology to keep in touch with their families, buy/sell livestock and exchange vetinerary tips."
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WiFi Lifeline For Nepal's Farmers More

WiFi Lifeline For Nepal's Farmers

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  • School of the Air - 21st century style (Score:5, Interesting)

    by PHPhD2B ( 675590 ) on Thursday May 27, 2004 @12:37AM (#9264317)
    Mr Pun said they were now looking at ways of using the wi-fi network for distance learning as there is a shortage of qualified teachers in the area.

    This is something that ought to be used in more locales than just Nepal - imagine how this can be put to good use in any underdeveloped nation. Solar-powered WiFi networks and computers, teaching reading and math, and even more advanced topics. Using freely downloaded and distributed learning materials, or learning materials created by teachers.

  • First Third World! (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    First India, and now Nepal....makes us Americans feel we are in the stone age.

  • no phones or other means of communication,... (Score:5, Funny)

    by ForestGrump ( 644805 ) on Thursday May 27, 2004 @12:39AM (#9264325) Homepage Journal
    Not even smoke signals anymore?
    Damnit! this "environmentally friendly" movement has gone too far!

    -Grump

  • Yak... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Samah ( 729132 ) on Thursday May 27, 2004 @12:39AM (#9264327)
    I wonder if they use IRC over their wireless so they can have a good "yak"...

  • electricity (Score:2, Insightful)

    by itsdave ( 105030 )
    how do these people get their electricity?

    • Wind and solar. Part of their infrastructure is half-way up trees on the sides of mountains, so it's pretty exposed and ideal for wind and sun.

  • Interesting... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by LinuxInDallas ( 73952 ) on Thursday May 27, 2004 @12:40AM (#9264336)
    Sounds like these people are very remote. It makes me wonder how they are even getting power for their PCs and network gear. Solar? Generators?

    It's amazing the good that has come out of the internet. This setup may even save someone's life at some point since these people can now "call" for help.

    • Re:Interesting... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by IroNick ( 668714 ) on Thursday May 27, 2004 @01:42AM (#9264671)
      About a month ago I saw a very interesting documentary about camel farmers in Tibet - and yes - they used solar panels and generators to power their satellite dish.

    • Re:Interesting... (Score:4, Informative)

      by femto ( 459605 ) on Thursday May 27, 2004 @02:11AM (#9264772) Homepage
      According to the web site [unk.edu] mainly via micro hydro, also with some solar cells.

      Have a decent read of the above link. It is a fascinating story. Anyone know what the current status of the school is?

      • Alive and kicking last time I was there.
        They were planning to expand to include another grade year. This is one of the biggest schools around.

        About being remote: it is a six hour drive over lousy roads and then a heavy 8 hour hike up the mountain. (1500 meters up on 7 km 'as the bird flies').

        They have main nepal hydro power, but that goes down at least once a day and when they think it might storm, the company turns it off... lighting protection, you see.

        I was there from day one of the network, did the r
        • >And last but not least... i wonder what the effect of this access is going to be on the village people.

          That's often an issue I think of. Is 'development' a 100% good thing? Do we view 'undeveloped' villages with a superiority complex?

          I can see that there is little dispute with things like developing the means to put food on everyone's table, keep people healthy, provide shelter and such basics. I can also see the value of communication in providing education, providing information to allow people

    • Re:Interesting... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Sounds like these people are very remote. It makes me wonder how they are even getting power for their PCs and network gear. Solar? Generators?

      Generators.

      Remember that the southern border of Nepal is practically at sea level and the northern border has Mount Everest. Add in the fact that monsoon comes every summer and dumps tons of rain on this grand slope for three months. They've got the potential for hydroelectricity coming out the wazoo.

      Hydro doesn't necessarily mean big dams, either. I was a

    • But whether "help" can arrive on time to save the dude is a whole different subject. *hmm* -bron
    • Sounds like these people are very remote. It makes me wonder how they are even getting power for their PCs and network gear. Solar? Generators?

      Probably the same place the yaks plug in their razors.

  • Farmers are actually High Tech nowadays (Score:4, Interesting)

    by www.2cups.com ( 642654 ) on Thursday May 27, 2004 @12:41AM (#9264344) Homepage
    A common misconception is that farmers are low tech hillbillies. In the real world more the 70 percent of farms are "online". Farmers increasingly use databases of yeild / irrigation / fertilizer to optimize their operations. Same thing goes for ranchers, where the daily milk output of dairy cattle is tracked against the feed going in. When output drops over time, the cow is sold for prize beef (dairy cattle are held to a high standard).
    I would even venture to say that there is a higher percentage of farms that are internet enabled then classical brick and mortar business

    Just my 2 cents
    Colin McNamara
    Senior Network Engineer
    Openwave Systems
    "The difficult we do immediately, the impossible just takes a little longer"

    • no - northern bias - think globally (Score:4, Insightful)

      by fantomas ( 94850 ) on Thursday May 27, 2004 @02:41AM (#9264870)

      In the real world more the 70 percent of farms are "online"


      With all due respect I'd beg to differ. This may be true of the "North" (USA, Europe, Australia, NZ), but if you mean '70% of the total number of farms / farmers in the world' , I'd guess to disagree. Sub-Saharan Africa, India, China...



      Indeed many have problems gaining regular and guaranteed access to water. [peopleandplanet.net]

    • What a lame comment. We all know about farm technology in developed countries. Nobody thinks it's remarkable that farmers in Iowa are tech-savy. But this isn't Iowa -- it's Tibet. You do know about Tibet, don't you? No, come to think of it, you probably don't.
    • This looks beautifull. But is it based on solid sources?
    • Agreed. I talked once with a South African farm manager,
      and he said they used a device to do soil samples of every square meter of the land to be planted,
      put the results in a database, and then used the data to customize the fertilization process
      to put just the right amount of each fertilizer component in each section of soil.
      He said it just doesn't work to be old-fashioned any more, it isn't profitable enough to support the business.

  • Maintenance? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by timgoh0 ( 781057 )
    Well, this is interesting. Here is some potentially sensitive equipment placed in a rural, relatively inaccessible region. Wonder what happens if something breaks, like, say the transmitter/ap they are using? Forgive me for the paranoid thoughts, but working in support for quite some time, i have learnt that the worst things happen to you when you least expect them.

  • Wait... (Score:1, Offtopic)

    by JessLeah ( 625838 ) *
    ...it isn't April 1st already, is it?
  • Uh-oh, my tinfoil hat is on and my gun is loaded and cocked. Four consecutive Slashdot stories without a single comment... what gives?

    • Re:Uh-oh (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Elfan ( 677935 )
      Database maintenance is currently taking place. Some items such as comment posting and moderation are currently unavailable.

      That could have had something to do with it ;-)

  • New hacker activity... (Score:3, Funny)

    by konichiwa ( 216809 ) on Thursday May 27, 2004 @12:47AM (#9264398)
    ...yak driving?
  • Why don't they just set them up with mobile phones? Cheaper, easier to use, etc. Of course, not as flashy and newsworthy as Internet.

    • Re:Phones (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Ba3r ( 720309 )
      I think (but i am no expert), that setting up a wifi network is substantially easier than a mobile phone network; specifically for those who are not directly in the communications industry. Wifi requires standard, serviceable off the shelf hardware, and there is alot more free online info on how to setup wifi networks than how to set up a cell tower in your backyard.

    • Re:Phones (Score:2, Insightful)

      by WhiteDeath ( 737946 )
      Why use a low-data-speed, expensive to install, expensive to use, limited technology?

      While each user's equipment is more expensive with WiFi, the user gets far more flexibility in their equipment, and the cost is more than offset by the cheaper access point (it can cost hundreds of thousands to set up a phone tower).

      Using WiFi results in a high speed data connection, with internet access as part of the bundle, and the option to make normal phone calls if you want (using VoIP).

    • Re:Phones (Score:3, Informative)

      by barnzi ( 760875 )

      Probably the complete lack of a working mobile phone network in the mountains was a good reason for this. Can't really see a mobile being a lot of use without one. They had to build an entire communications network.

      They chose wi-fi because it is cheap, easy to install/maintain, relatively power efficient and available off the shelf.

    • Too bad the Iridium project was killed, it would be really, really good for this situation.
      • Unless by killed you mean alive and well [iridium.com], I think you're a bit mistaken. In fact, here [azcentral.com] is an article published today about someone reselling the service. Perhaps you are confused by the fact that the originial Iridium went bankrupt. That doesn't mean that their 66 satellites stopped working, though. They were sold to a new group of investors.

        The problem with Iridium in this situation is that, AFAIK, rates are on the order of $1/minute. That is probably out of the reach of your average yak farmer. W
  • If there are no phone lines or other infrastructure, where are they getting their electricity for all this WiFi from? Do they all have solar cells as well?

  • Wi-Fi Wish (Score:1, Funny)

    by sofakingon ( 610999 )
    I guess Stinky Wistle-teats finally answered their Yaksmas wishes!

    Obligatory Ren and Stimpy reference

  • Hm (Score:1)

    by kuzb ( 724081 )
    I thought everything in the post was good, except the part about it being interesting.
  • luckily now if anyone were to try to invade nepal, they could quickly mobilize their army...

  • Amazing. (Score:5, Informative)

    by taj ( 32429 ) on Thursday May 27, 2004 @12:51AM (#9264429) Homepage

    Electricity in some of these areas is not easy to come by. The valley below Mt Everest shares a hydro electric generator via a community coop. The electricity amounted to slightly over one 60 watt lightbulb per house.

    There are computers to be found. They do have Internet all the way to the Everest base camp now. But most of the people in the region are living very simple lives. Collecting yack dung to burn for heat and fertilizer.

    Great people if you ever get a chance to visit.

  • before people think what a waste of money.. (Score:5, Informative)

    by reeb ( 768587 ) on Thursday May 27, 2004 @12:54AM (#9264454)
    my father taught at a nepalese school as research for his thesis, and some of the comments from the students, about how long it takes to get to school, are astounding.

    how about 1 weeks walk plus a 2 hour helicopter ride for one student, 3 day walk and 2 day bus ride for another. this is not just a handful of students either, very remote communities.

    Many move to the school, and do not return home until completed years later, simply because it takes so long, by the time they got home they would have to return to school!

    so, this has to be good for farmers in similar situations.

  • Line of sight (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Well I guess being that high getting line of sight is not a problem.

  • Amazing... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by finker ( 735219 )
    This is pretty cool/amazing: People on the top of mountains with WiFi equipment attached to pieces of trees can get high-speed (I assume it's high-speed since the article mentions video conferencing) Internet access. However, at the same time, it's kind of amazing how people in the United States can't even get high-speed Internet access when they're a couple hundred miles from a major city. Does anyone else see anything wrong with this picture? I mean, it's great to see people making these kinds of adva

    • Re:Amazing... (Score:2, Informative)

      by Samah ( 729132 )
      Um how about in most Australian capital cities where there are still many suburbs which can't even get broadband due to crappy wiring. I'm about a 15 minute drive from the central business district and I have 1500/256 adsl. A mate of mine who's literally a 10 minute walk down the road can't get it in his area, even though he's in a brand new development area (ie. under 5 years old) and the exchange supports it. He gets about 28800 baud with his dialup account.

      Another friend of mine just bought a new house

  • Pretty Interesting (Score:2, Interesting)

    by nev4 ( 721804 )
    I really think there is a large market for WISPs in 3rd world / developing countries. I really want to get involved and learn more about mesh networking, and deploying large scale wireless, etc. Can anyone recommend any good reading on the subject? (I've seen some recent /. articles, but not much else).
    • If your interested in wireless sensor networks, we're working on that stuff at UC Berkeley. Heres a link to the home page. http://webs.cs.berkeley.edu/tos/ Go to the publications link if you want details.

  • Yaks? (Score:2, Funny)

    by 10101001011 ( 744876 )
    Must use GNU! Anyway, I'm happy that WiFi is being so widely adopted however why do I get the feeling someone is doing this because they can? There is no phone and yet there is supposedly a stable source of power? Possible, yes, likely, no. ANd there people are supposed to be able to buy a computer.... heck, if memory serves me correctly, the Nepalese dollar is worse than Canada's...

  • wireless-longhaul list (Score:5, Informative)

    by jonbrewer ( 11894 ) * on Thursday May 27, 2004 @01:15AM (#9264577) Homepage
    Back in March there was a bit of discussion on the wireless-longhaul list regarding setup in Nepal.

    http://openict.net/pipermail/wireless-longhaul/ [openict.net]

    The list-archive front end seems to eat much of the text, but it's all there in the gzipped archive:

    http://openict.net/pipermail/wireless-longhaul/200 4-March.txt.gz [openict.net]

  • IIT Kanpur Digital Gangetic Plain (Score:5, Informative)

    by hashinclude ( 192717 ) <slashdot@NOSPAM.hashinclude.com> on Thursday May 27, 2004 @01:18AM (#9264589) Homepage
    A similar set of projects [iitk.ac.in] has been undertaken at IIT Kanpur [iitk.ac.in], in association with Media Labs - Asia.

    Agreed that the terrain is not as demanding as in Nepal (flat plains vs. extremely hilly), but the goals look similar. They also have a pretty Coverage Map [216.239.41.104]

    The ranges they get out of wifi links are also pretty good - 5kms is on ordinary antennas, while with properly aimed parabolic antennae (antennas?) they get upto 40 kms (25 miles)

  • I don't wanna be the one... (Score:5, Funny)

    by grcumb ( 781340 ) on Thursday May 27, 2004 @01:24AM (#9264613) Homepage Journal

    ... But somebody's going to have to explain to them that http://yakse.cx/ is *not* a veterinary resource.

  • they have given india a break. take it away Nepal.


  • I can almost picture a neighboring yak herder perched just over the ridge, with an antenna made from a Pringles can, stealing bandwidth...
  • Its good to see wifi finally being used for something good, something useful. Something other than the ability to surf and drink your starbucks at the same time..

    I wonder what their range on thoes things is?

  • Open Source Wi-Fi (Score:2, Informative)

    by mobileone ( 615808 )
    PersonalTelco [personaltelco.net] has an excellen review on Open Source Wi-Fi software. Could be something for Nepal's farmers!
  • of what Hillary and Norgay think of this accomplishment

  • NepalWireless.net (Score:2, Informative)

    by xof ( 518138 )
    See also http://nepalwireless.net/ [nepalwireless.net] as indicated on the BBC page.
  • 2004-05-25 12:06:46 Wi-fi lifeline for Nepal's farmers (articles,wireless) (rejected)
  • Great, now I can swap more Robin Sharma [musicnepal.com] songs. His music is incredible. If you're looking for some Eastern tunes, without the "High Pitch" whining sound, then Robin is the man!

    He's the 5th Sexiest Man in Nepal [nepalitimes.com] for his "his roving eyes, wet lips and flirtatious manners."

    Solid.
  • It needs to be said that this might not last long now. Communists who are ravaging our country have destroyed most of the communication infrastructure (telephone, radio, tv towers etc). I suppose it was ok while it was under the radar, but these people will now be targeted. The Maoists have a lot of support among college kids in the US (I am sure there are a few on slashdot as well). The fact that it was on the BBC, here and probably countless other sites does not help. While it is nice to talk about the
  • Not knocking the coolness and geek apeal of being able to surf the net in a remote location, but it seems if they needed to be able to communicate plain old voice radios would be cheaper (both in money and power) than computers, hubs, and wireless nodes.

    • Not to mention recognisable, permit-needing and common among police and military. While the (il)legality of wireless networking in Nepal is at least questionable, mainly it is far harder to find. A small dish in a tree somewhere transmitting directionally in Ghz range is going to be less likely to be found than plain old voice radios. This is especially important in a country that has an active resistance.
  • Is a vetinerary what you get when your veterinarian has an itinerary?
  • Do yaks run GNU?
  • to prefer thinking of the mountains of nepal as not needing this stuff?

    isn't it possible to look at regions of the world not as potential markets, but also as places where people live (happily) without the baited hook of western consumerism dangled in their noses?

    there are places where the music is folk music, and you can tell what region it's from. places where each village has its own recipes, over 1000 years old. places where a person need not work 50 hours a week just to support his mortgage, toys,
  • For Nepal WiFi is prefect with it's mountainous terrain a digital repeater would have huge coverage.

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