[CUWiN-Dev] Community Network Project in Pakistan:

[Christian D]

Hello, all!

My name is Christian. Not sure I know how to post here without
screwing things up...

I'm not a programmer, just an interested lurker. A few comments:



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Stephane Alnet" <stephane at shimaore.net>
To: "CUWiN Dev Team" <cu-wireless-dev at cuwireless.net>
Sent: Tuesday, May 24, 2005 10:51
Subject: Fwd: [CUWiN-Dev] Community Network Project in Pakistan:


> Tariq's complete answer, below.
>
> Let me know if you'd rather have me not Bcc: -dev on this
discussion,
> btw.
> S.

I'd second we keep the discussion here, for a while anyways.... May
be we could keep "DCN" as a sorting code in the subject line?



>
> --- Begin forwarded message:
>
> From: Tariq Farooqi <farooqitariq at gmail.com>
> Date: May 24, 2005 1:30:21 CDT
> To: Stephane Alnet <stephane at shimaore.net>
> Cc: Meinrath Sascha <sascha at ucimc.org>, Tariq
<tariq at linuxpakistan.net>
> Subject: Re: [CUWiN-Dev] Community Network Project in Pakistan:
> Reply-To: tari

......

>
> A DCN is nothing but a  ether LAN with wires  strung all over the
> streets/roads and people sharing cheap access to Internet.
>

I had been trying to understand if it was some sort of telephone PBX
where people modemed in on a spider web of telephone wires... So it
is just an Ethernet network to the buildings accross the street...

Thinking of it: I might have some use for that too...



> What we are trying is to provide them a way to build redundancy in
> their LAN and to provide  some content locally along with
applications
> [ accounting, forums, chats,

..................

>
> Please check http://www.rule-project.org,

Anybody would know why I can't get that site to display on my IE-6?

 we seek some thing like
> that. In our scenario ordinary voice chat using  cheap mic is o.k.
do
> not think of any IP telephone set, average PC [ used machine
imported
> from West ] cost under US$ 100.00 and that is expensive :).

My 2cts here: a couple years ago I had the chance to get hundreds of
free desktops (486 and Pentiums) from a firm upgrading a few
THOUSANDS  of computers in the hospitals in Honolulu.

These are perfects for the schools that barely have pens and papers.
My problem was that I could only afford the airfreight on a few
dozens... So while it is possible to get functionning desktops for
U$0, my delivered cost was U$50 and more... If I remember correctly
that firm had to pay U$50 a unit to legally throw away these
computers. I would expect such deals are available all over the
place; and I didn't even have connections in Honolulu...

......................


>
> We are keen in two parts of your project:
>
> 1.  Cheap wireless as in rural areas one can not strung CAT5 cable
to
> create a LAN.
> 2.  Local voice server  for local communications and where
required
> can be used as  gateway for  connecting beyond LAN on POTS
network.
>

If I ever manage to be allowed to retire on a remote Kiribati island
(Central Pacific) my situation would be similar: I could set up a
("fast") 80211b network, as sort of an intranet, but the connection
to the rest of the world would be strangled at the local telco
dialup link. Even keeping the dial up running 24/7 would be
exhorbitant $$$. I'd be needing a local email server for example,
that would dial up once an hour to the Internet, etc...

One solution we don't have in the Central Pacific is to use the
cheap satellite broadband (starband and Direcway). Asia on the other
hand is well covered with affordable satellite broadband -not sure
offhand if it reaches Pakistan. For example Cambodia is served with
a satellite giving 256kbps up/dn for $300 a month. See the "drive-by
store and forward Internet" at www.firstmilesolutions.com.


Another 2cts of mine: When down in Kiribati all I had was a dial up
testing at 25kbps. I used the plain service of Diapad.com, and while
it is not firstworld commercial grade in those conditions, it is
quite useable. Because of several satellite hops the delay was
atrocious (over 2 sec), but once the people at the other end
undestood they had to treat this as a slow "two-way" radio, it was
OK.

For the programmers out there, I have 2 suggestions for VoIP over
dialup: one is to use more compact vocoders than those of
high-quality used by mainstream outfits like Vonage etc. We just
can't afford the "toll quality" industry standard.

And the other one is to ABSOLUTELY incorporate the option of a "Push
to Talk" equivalent. My main problem, as far as I, a layman, could
tell, is that Dialpad was always trying to use some of that tiny
bandwidth for transmitting whatever noises were getting in the mike
of the "listening" party.... Breathing noise, clothing movements,
noises in the house, would steal some of the precious bandwidth, and
the audio stream from the "talking" end was getting starved too
much. In other words, we need to be able to set the audio stream as
pure simplex.

At my laptop-end I was using a mic with a switch, so I could silence
my end completely when listening, (not even sure if that helped
Dialpad at all....)  but the other party, with POTS hardware could
only cover the mouthpiece with their hand, if I could manage to
teach them...

In other words, thing would work much better if the VoIP software
was >>>designed<<< to take charge, and to always alternate the audio
flow direction. For example the end with the computer could be made
"master", and the space bar for example could be used for reversing
the audio flow. Or may be the soundcard can sense if the mike switch
is on, and then fully ignore the "noises" coming from the POTS end,
allocating them zero bandwidth...

In general, for people in situations like Tariq's and mine, there is
a big problem in interfacing a "fast" wireless LAN to a dialup-only
Internet. May be one of these days I'll have a chance to experiment
with one of those antique wireless Access Points that were designed
with a modem inside...

Speaking of antique wireless: I can't believe how cheap 80211-g etc
got to!!! Anybody got sources for "antique 11-b" by the pallet, and
costed "by the pound"???

Back to lurking and learning.

Regards

Christian