The connectivity battle is won with a million small victories
Tuesday, March 21, 2006 at 7:38PM ARTICLE: “Where Showing Skin Doesn’t Sell, a New Style Is a Hit,” by Marc Lacey, New York Times, 20 March 2006, p. A4.
TECHNOLOGY QUARTERLY: “Wi-Pie in the sky? Communications: Cities across America plan to build municipal Wi-Fi networks to widen access to broadband. Will they work? The Economist, 11 March 2006, p. 22.
ARTICLE: “Ring Up My Bill, Please: Mobile Payment Via Cellphone,” by Eric Dash and Ken Belson, New York Times, 21 March 2006, p. C1.
I know, I know. Everyone wants the Gap gone tomorrow or it’s just too damn hard to even contemplate. It’s gotta be some huge System Perturbation unleashed by the U.S. military to work, right? Followed by the occupation to end all occupations? White man’s burden and all that?
In reality, the victory is won, day in and day out, through millions of small victories, almost all of which will be driven far more by the private sector than by the public one.
Great stories, these three.
First, there’s Nike designing the next generation hijabs that allow Muslim women to participate in sports with as much freedom and comfort as possible while still maintaining the desired modesty.
That, my friends, is some cool connectivity--brilliant, in that British sort of meaning.
Then I read about American cities going all aggressive on setting up urban WiFi nets to jump start connectivity, hoping to rapidly connect up their own mini-Gaps-within-the-Core, and I think to myself, Wouldn’t you want that as part of your Development-in-a-Box package whenever you go into a place? Just crank up the WiFi and pass out those $100 laptops and connect everyone, the locals, the aid groups, the peacekeepers--everyone all at once right from the start. Wouldn’t that send a huge signal (pun intended) about what your military intervention was all about?
Just thinking, mind you …
Then I read the bit about fans at arenas buying their beers and brats with cell phones, and I’m wondering, Why wouldn’t the Development-in-a-Box process utilize cell phones like this? Why not have part of the DiB process be handing out cellphones like crazy to local inhabitants, providing all the hardware and software for free as well, and then using that system to provide secure salaries and payments and whatnot? There were so many practical problems with distributing and managing currency in Iraq, so why not marry the two forms of connectivity that people love: blabbing on cellphones and paying by credit? Wouldn’t that speed things up, offer more simplicity and security, and blow away the locals by connecting them to opportunity that anyone can appreciate?
Just thinking, mind you …
Reader Comments (5)
Why not combine the two ideas? Use a broadband blimp (sanswire.com) that does both wireless phone and data. Throw one or two of these 13 miles above the area of interest... nicely out of the range of where insurgents can get at it, and it can stay up for 18 months... Seems like a great DiB tool.
Like that one.
"Then I read the bit about fans at arenas buying their beers and brats with cell phones, and I’m wondering, Why wouldn’t the Development-in-a-Box process utilize cell phones like this?'
A month or so ago I read that in some of the southern African countries cell phone minutes were being traded as a cash subsitute. This is to get around the hyper inflation of many of the currancies and for cross national transactions were the finanical markets do not do well. How about a pay pal like system for development in the box trans-national medium for small buisness?
i see on Lifehacker today that PayPal has this now.
The US Army already has this. I did a piece on my own blog August, 2004. They've basically hardened 802.11b and call such node systems supercrumbs. The actual winner wouldn't be this system but the next generation WiMax ones that would have sufficient range for the scenario being posited.
WiMax is IEEE 802.16
Max range is 30 miles (instead of the 300 feet you can realistically get with wifi).
You'll know that wimax is ready by checking in on this page and seeing more and more of the "current status" boxes change to approved;in press.