Making the Web world-wide: A project in Laos is giving Internet access to villagers without electric

Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation

Authors

Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation

Date Issued

2002

Language

Type

Magazine Article

Review status

Internal Review

Accessibility

Open Access

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Citation

CTA. 2002. Making the Web world-wide: A project in Laos is giving Internet access to villagers without electric. ICT Update Issue 9. CTA, Wageningen, The Netherlands

Permanent link to cite or share this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10568/57575

External link to download this item: http://wayback.archive-it.org/3908/20150511084934/http://ictupdate.cta.int/(issue)/9

Abstract/Description

Making the Web world-wide: A project in Laos is giving Internet access to villagers without electricity, The Economist, September 2002

Notes

Making the Web world-wide: A project in Laos is giving Internet access to villagers without electricity, The Economist, September 2002 Villagers in a remote region of Laos that has neither electricity nor telephone connections are being wired up to the Internet. Wireless Internet cards connect each Jhai PC to a solar-powered hilltop relay station which then passes the signals on to a computer in town that is connected to both the Lao phone system (for local calls) and to the Internet. Meanwhile, the Linux-based software that will run the computers is in the final stages of being ´localised´ into Lao by a group of expatriates in America. One thing that the new network will allow villagers to do is decide whether it is worth going to market. Phon Hong, the local market town, is 30 km away, so it is worth knowing the price of rice before you set off to sell some there. Links farther afield may allow decisions about growing crops for foreign markets to be taken more sensibly - and help with bargaining when these are sold.

Subjects

ICT;