FON in Less Developed Countries

It's in less developed countries that we see really anal ISP contracts. We have a business plan, but it prohibits us from doing just about anything one would like to do with that bandwidth.

That is the norm in the underdeveloped world, and that is probably one reason it stays underdeveloped.

I for one, would like to join the fon network, but need to discuss the implications amongst our partners.

We will have a bloggers meeting in Bangkok on March 4 the first ever. See http://www.sf-day.org/wiki/index.php/Bloggers_Meeting_Bangkok

Can you give us concrete recommendations on what we could do to start up FON in Thailand?

Michel

Basically, a good start would be for several of the bloggers meeting on March 4th to try out FON before the conference, test it and experience it. It would then be great to discuss your personal experiences and then brainstorm on ways to promote the FON movement in Thailand and study ways on how FON could best develop in Thailand. Spreading the word through your blogs is sure to encourage many to join the mouvement. It'd be great to be updated on the conference outcome and I could definitely blog about it on the FON blog.

Greetings all Foneros,
I would like to point out the sad lack of internet access in Africa. Recently, after my last travels, we looked into starting up an ISP in Zambia but the only way to get internet traffic into the country is via satellite, which made it too expensive.
People in Zambia are well-educated and internet cafes are full of eager people paying extortionate rates to watch the front page of Yahoo.com take up to 2 minutes to load. I also spoke to professors at the University of Zambia who tell me that they find it difficult to download information for their research because the connection so slow.

This sort of situation is very typical of Africa: lots of people, often with their own laptops, wanting to get online and happy to pay good money for it too. But because of the reliance on satellite and narrow cables, the cost is extortionate even for a level of service that people in Asia, the US and Europe would not even use if it was free.
Foneros out there, what can we do to bring them internet access?

5G deploys citywide
WiFi network in Lagos

California's 5G Wireless had finished deploying a citywide wireless broadband network in Lagos. 5G announced Tuesday that its Citywide Base Station network of WiFi base stations would bring high-speed wireless Internet connectivity to homes, offices and other locations in Lagos and surrounding communities. The WiFi project was established with Polestar, 5G's marketing partner in Nigeria, and will be established later in other areas of the country.

"The Internet access being offered by Polestar and powered by 5G Wireless is unrivaled in terms of speed, download capacity, and virtual connections within the city of Lagos," said Polestar Chief Executive Officer Obasi Uba Obasi. "This is just the first step in setting off other deployments across other key cities in Nigeria." Citywide Base Station is compatible with IEEE 802.11 b/g technology standards and runs off macro-cell base stations mounted on towers and atop tall buildings, which 5G said fills in the dead spots that vex other WiFi systems.

We want to distribute the FON Social routers in Southern-Africa? Who do we contact and what is the procedure.
Thank you for your help.