Gassama:
Honestly, I am more interested in plans to expand or put into place
infrastructure or equipment which will facilitate Internet access from rural
areas in The Gambia. While I acknowledge the summary you forwarded to the
List, it does not lend much to the topic at hand.
Point is the latest stat on phone lines in our country is along the lines of
for 40,000 households. This breaks down to something like 300 to 400 people
to one phone. Don't get me wrong, I think Gamtel has done a super job in
providing access to the population. However, most phone access is available
in the Kombos, and this means the pop to phone ratio in the remainder of
rural areas or the provinces is still extremely high. Furthermore, the
economic status of folks in these areas might mean much further expansion of
your higher cost land line network will not be feasible.
In this light, we might have to think about other ways to provide access to
these areas. The possibility of using wireless technology, and in effect
making a technological jump past the static and expensive infrastructure we
use now, is an interesting possibility. Some folks see wireless
communication as a technological leap which will benefit Africa in this
regard.
The piece you forwarded dealt with the very interesting topic of using
wireless networks for communication in rural areas. From your own article,
this project was funded by the ITU and Somalia and Laos were the other
participants. Somalia today happens to have the best wireless network in
Africa, and one which provides access to even very remote rural areas. To
their credit, the Somalian engineers learned well from this project and were
eventually able to implement a wireless network built by Somalians and not
some foreign firm. But unfortunately our country was not able to benefit
from this project because of the overthrow of the legally elected Jawara
regime in 1994. Gassa, how do you reconcile this blown opportunity vis a vis
the changes brought about by the overthrow? Gambians are now stuck with what
are possibly higher costs for wireless communication..
One of many other interesting possibilities is to provide LANs in primarily,
schools, health institutions, community Internet centers, government offices,
etc., to ISPS within the country thus facilitating the connection to the web
via local gateways. More modems facilitating dial-into ISPs could also be
made available in some major rural areas.
Overhead is certainly a major sticky point. Maybe UNESCO, govt., and other
funders can help subsidize or cover these costs. But one thing is for sure an
endeavor like this would be very worthwhile if planned properly.
Maybe with the creation of a new IT ministry, some of these plans will be
considered. I also hope more efforts are made for a parallel improvement of
the education sector, particularly equipment and the teacher's' salaries and
living facilities. While on this topic too, I cannot help but think about the
plight of rural farmers who have not been paid for their yearly harvests.
The possibilities are certainly interesting and unlimited but capable heads
need to come together to put forth a feasible plan for an endeavor such as
this one, something which does not seem to be actively going on right now if
Gassa's info is anything to go by..
-Yus
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