VillageTelco Project
This is a modal window.
The media could not be loaded, either because the server or network failed or because the format is not supported.
Formal Metadata
| Title |
| |
| Alternative Title |
| |
| Title of Series | ||
| Number of Parts | 64 | |
| Author | ||
| License | CC Attribution 2.0 Belgium: You are free to use, adapt and copy, distribute and transmit the work or content in adapted or unchanged form for any legal purpose as long as the work is attributed to the author in the manner specified by the author or licensor. | |
| Identifiers | 10.5446/45905 (DOI) | |
| Publisher | ||
| Release Date | ||
| Language |
Content Metadata
| Subject Area | ||
| Genre | ||
| Abstract |
|
FOSDEM 201144 / 64
3
7
10
11
17
19
21
28
33
34
35
37
40
44
48
49
52
55
57
59
62
63
64
00:00
SoftwarePolygon meshWireless LANSet (mathematics)Line (geometry)TowerComputer networkAnalogyWireless LANProjective planeSoftwareINTEGRALFiber (mathematics)Line (geometry)Scripting languagePolygon meshPoint (geometry)Multiplication signFocus (optics)Sampling (statistics)AreaTowerPresentation of a groupPhysical systemTelecommunicationVermaschtes NetzExecution unitSoftware engineeringRouter (computing)Moment (mathematics)Local ringGateway (telecommunications)System callExpert systemComputer animationXML
02:13
Wireless LANService (economics)Wireless LANMereologySoftware developerRoutingInternet forumSoftwareKey (cryptography)FreewareSystem call
03:14
Computer networkSpectrum (functional analysis)Focus (optics)Spectrum (functional analysis)Polygon meshPoint (geometry)PlanningEnterprise architectureOrder (biology)Computer animationLecture/Conference
03:41
CuboidInternetworkingGraph (mathematics)Open sourceSoftwareMereologyPolygon meshDigital rights managementServer (computing)BuildingLevel (video gaming)Radon transformComputer animationLecture/Conference
04:08
Graph (mathematics)InternetworkingComputer animation
04:30
InternetworkingDigital photographyLocal ringSystem on a chipTelecommunicationSoftwareBusiness modelService (economics)Data modelType theoryWeb servicePhysical systemHeat transferWave packetMultiplication signComputer animationLecture/Conference
05:26
Theory of relativityAlgorithmWireless LANIP addressPolygon meshLink (knot theory)Chemical equationSpectrum (functional analysis)CodeSoftwareTerm (mathematics)Band matrixServer (computing)Vermaschtes NetzField programmable gate arrayRoutingInformationPoint (geometry)Service (economics)Focus (optics)File Transfer ProtocolLimit (category theory)Computer hardwareWebsiteMereologyChromosomal crossoverLoginProjective planeOperator (mathematics)EmailIn-System-ProgrammierungProper mapEnterprise architectureSystem callGroup actionSoftware developerMultiplicationAndroid (robot)DemonElectronic program guideBasis <Mathematik>SpacetimeData modelRouter (computing)AuthorizationFormal languageVapor barrierLocal ringFiber (mathematics)Moment (mathematics)Different (Kate Ryan album)Software-defined radioConfiguration spacePlastikkarteRadon transformMeasurementBoundary value problemData storage deviceVideoconferencingDigital photographyParameter (computer programming)Coefficient of determinationHacker (term)Quality of serviceMultiplication signComputer programResultantCASE <Informatik>NumberInstance (computer science)CircleQuicksortClosed setModemDialectComputer animation
14:47
XML
Transcript: English(auto-generated)
00:08
Yes. Hi, my name is Don Awunama. I'm here to present the Village Telco project. First question is who am I? First, I'm a software engineer.
00:22
I'm an expert in wireless systems, telecom systems and embedded software. I'm also the founder and CTO of Wireless Dialog. I'll come to that later. The main focus of this presentation is to talk about the Village Telco project. First question is what is the Village Telco? Effectively, the Village Telco is a low-cost community telephone network.
00:45
What that means is that, I'm not sure if you guys are aware of the wireless mesh networking. With wireless mesh networking, effectively every node becomes a gateway and a router as well as an access point.
01:01
What the Village Telco does is take that concept and integrate in an analog telephone adapter. You can effectively plug in an analog device and an analog telephone and make phone calls. The key point of the project is it sets up in minutes. You don't have to be a bash script wizard to set one up.
01:22
Also, one of the key questions was that why do you need a Village Telco? The main problem in developing countries is that for access you need mobile phone towers. In Europe, we're blessed with the fact that there are copper networks and actually fiber networks.
01:41
In emerging countries, the government would not actually invest in copper networks. It's left to private companies to invest. As obviously, looking at the bottom line, they're more interested in getting the most users onto the network as possible. So they're only focused on urban areas.
02:00
I've mentioned before it's a wireless mesh technology. I have a sample for those who want to have a look at a unit. At the moment, it's around 100 US dollars per unit. But that price will go down over time. The question is, why? I'm not sure if you guys are aware of the mobile telephone networking.
02:23
The mobile telephone business effectively in developing countries, places like India and sub-Saharan Africa. Effectively, calls are very expensive.
02:41
The rural part of the world has basically just been ignored. Effectively, because the substance farmers, they cannot actually buy a mobile phone. Or even if they do get a mobile phone, they can actually afford the tariff prices. So effectively, you say, well, how do we then enable these guys to become connected?
03:06
Obviously, we cannot only use it for developing countries. We can also use it for community wireless, like the Free Funk in Berlin. The features of it. Basically, it's locally owned.
03:21
No spectrum license. It uses the same wireless mesh. It uses 2.4 GHz or the 5 GHz spectrum. Everything about the whole architecture is actually open sourced. I'll come to that later. Obviously, the focus on rapid deployment.
03:42
This is the constitution part. We basically have a billing server, and within the box itself, there's embedded asterisks. Embedded inside OpenWRT. If you guys are familiar with OpenWRT, obviously, this would be a no-hose bar for you to do. We've actually developed a truly open source mesh management mapping tool.
04:04
You can actually be able to configure and actually administer your network. This graph shows the amount of internet users in Africa. Where wireless dialogue is basically trying to encourage internet usage.
04:22
As you can see here, 80% of the population are connected. We're talking about less than 10% of the population. Our business model is to take the McDonald's type model. Effectively, we get local entrepreneurs to actually buy into the business model.
04:44
We give them the service, we give them training, and we also provide them with support. Then we can set up a locally owned wireless center for the villages. Obviously, the cost within that network is free, and we provide that to the services.
05:02
One of the main things is that the profits go back into getting more equipment, getting the villages connected. The beauty of that is decentralized. The communication network is not owned by the government or by the private companies. Obviously, we all know what happened in Egypt. Effectively, there's a kill switch. Obviously, with this system, you can't have a kill switch.
05:22
It's owned by the people, and it's controlled by the people. Finally, if you want to go on to the website, villagetelco.org, it's an excellent place for information. Also, join the Google group. If you're a hacker, as most of you are, you can join in.
05:43
We have the A2 Billing author that monitored the group. We have Steve Song, who's a Shutterworld fellow. We also have Elektra. She's the author of The Batman Demon. If you guys aren't familiar with OpenWrt, you know that she's a very, very keen developer on mesh technology.
06:04
Obviously, you can go to our list. I'll log on to our website or email me for more information. That's it. Any questions?
06:22
The question is, how do you measure quality on the network? One of the main focus, talking about quality of service, one of the main focus of this was that to be able to use this, obviously, you're sharing bandwidth between voice and data.
06:41
Exactly. If you think about it, although the wireless infrastructure here in Europe is actually quite congested, in most of those regions, there is no wireless network. Effectively, you are going to have a single link. Obviously, again, with the benefits of using mesh technologies, the more nodes you have, the more routing capabilities you're going to have.
07:03
The more infrastructure you build, so 50, 100, 500 nodes, the better your network becomes. Obviously, by building on a single router, rather than congesting the space with multiple routers, every router is actually utilizing the network properly.
07:25
Obviously, there's actually a new routing algorithm made by Electra called Batman Advanced. That's a layer 2 routing algorithm. Effectively, it accesses the switch. It means you can have multiple servers on top of that. Basically, it means you have a huge wireless LAN network that's totally invisible to the user.
07:48
Thank you. The hiding nodes. The question is how do you resolve the problem with the hiding nodes.
08:01
I've never come across that problem myself. I think what you find is that it depends on the routing algorithm that you use. If you're going to be able to fix, because most of the time, we're going to be the fixed wireless. If you look at OLSR and if you look at Batman, you have to actually look at what you're building,
08:20
how you're going to design your network. It actually comes down to how you design your wireless network initially. You say, well, if I'm going to have nodes moving around constantly, now which routing algorithm do I use? Which one is my preference? I always find that the weakest part of the point is which routing algorithm to use initially, and that mostly solves your problem.
08:48
The question is do I have relations with the server backbone project? Actually, the server backbone project is a fork of this village telco project. Paul Gardner Stevens, he actually approached the group and said that he wants to explore and extend it.
09:01
Obviously, being open to what it is, it was welcome. For those that don't know, the backbone project actually utilizes embedded access inside an Android phone. Effectively, an Android phone acts as its own telco, router, and access point. You can make calls within the village telco network without any cost to the operator.
09:29
That's just for those that don't know.
09:43
Sorry, can you repeat the question? The question is, I'm trying to rephrase that into a shorter sentence.
10:04
The question is, in terms of reality, how do you ensure that we actually build decentralized and totally unconnected networks which are not connected to the rest of the world? In our experience, we find that most people want to connect to the world.
10:24
The biggest problem, which obviously we can't solve with the village telco project, is the fact that the ISP licenses restrict you from actually getting outside. Governments have actually licensed the spectrum specifically for the big telcos.
10:41
As a small local IP, you have to basically pay maybe $35,000 to $40,000 per year in license cost. Now, if you approach the Belgium operators in terms of actually having an ISP, it's virtually at no cost. You can see the imbalance there.
11:03
That's a major hurdle for us at the moment. Hopefully, with the coming of fiber broadband across the west coast of Africa, the main one and a few others, we should be able to alleviate that problem. Again, this is not part of this talk, but we're trying to actually build locally owned and locally provided services.
11:29
Locally designed websites, local servers, everything locally derived for the local languages. Hopefully, that problem should be alleviated. Yes, please.
11:45
The question is, how do I configure IP address to the mesh node? It's actually very, very basic. The key point is that within five clicks, you should be able to configure a mesh potato. There's actually a guide.
12:01
If you go to the villagetelco.org, I don't want to go into too much detail here. Effectively, there's a special facility you can actually FTP into using a crossover cable.
12:30
The question is, what do our franchises charge the customers? This is where we usually call it a tiered model.
12:41
We provide services to the enterprises, to the huge companies, and then in turn subsidize the price of the equipment going in to the small businesses and to the small entrepreneurs. Obviously, it's done on a local basis. You're not going to charge the same price as Africa that you would charge somewhere in Niger, for instance,
13:00
because the income difference is just too great. You do it on a case-by-case basis. Obviously, if big enterprises actually want to locate within that region, if they take our services, part of the agreement is that within that mesh network that they create for themselves, they create to connect and use a downlink, and then obviously reduce the cost to the small village entrepreneur.
13:28
Yes, please.
13:44
The question is, have we designed the hardware for that, for basically the limitations that you have of wireless networking? The answer is the only closed proprietary hardware inside the villagetelco is actually an Atheros chip.
14:00
Unfortunately, it costs about a quarter of a million dollars to actually get the code within that to actually then modify the blobs, as you say, to actually make the route more efficient. Now, obviously, we're moving on to software-defined radios. I just saw a talk yesterday about FPGAs. Hopefully, once that barrier has been opened up, because at the moment it's just literally impossible for us to design it on a radio chip,
14:27
but everything else is open-sourced. The answer to your question is we still have that limitation. Any more questions? Okay, thank you.