Joho the Blog
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March 05, 2006
Martin Varsavsky (CEO of Fon , which I advise) has posted what may be the first photos of the new designs of $100 laptop being created by the project Nicholas Negroponte heads. Very cool! In the same post, Martin talks about the desire to have Fon routers mesh. This to me is one of the great hopes of the Fon project. Right now, the selling point to users for Fon is that if you share your bandwidth, you can use any other "Fonero's" bandwidth anywhere in the world. (The selling points to ISPs are that Fon encourages people to get broadband and Fon will split the $2/day access charge for those who don't share their bandwidth.) But imagine that your wifi router (Fon-ized) is also able to mesh up with other wifi routers in your neighborhood. Now you can have a neighborhood LAN that's a new social infrastructure. There are other benefits to meshing as well, but the social possibilities are to me the most exciting. You know the "network effect" from which unpredictable properties emerge? Meshing could bring a neighborhood effect. [Tags: nicholas_negroponte martin_varsavsky wifi fon] Posted
by D. Weinberger at March 5, 2006 08:11 AM
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Comments
I applaud the intentions of such a project, but are these rudimentary $100 laptops what the potential recipients really want? Why would they want anything less than our state of the art in technology?
Considering cost, energy management and other usability issues, wouldn't a smartphone be a better alternative? I've heard of health professionals in Africa who are using cellular service to keep in contact, both voice and data, with satellite clinics.
Posted by: Bill K. | March 5, 2006 09:33 AM
Smartphones certainly have their place, but these $100 devices are intended primarily for use in classrooms.
Posted by: David Weinberger![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.hyperorg.com/blogger/nav-commenters.gif)
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March 5, 2006 10:10 AM
Bill K., of course the intended recipients would want the real thing. But if they got the real thing, they would sell it for food.
Posted by: Branko Collin | March 5, 2006 06:41 PM
Dave,
Indeed, mesh has been the holy grail of Wi-Fi for so many years. However, there's one huge problem to overcome. The current generation of Wi-Fi routers only sport a single radio making communication half-duplex. This means that a meshed access point has to
1) receive packet from router a
2) send confirmation of receipt
3) send packet onto next routher in mesh
4) await confirmation of receipt
And the same goes for the reverse (receiving packets).
There are several initiatives underway to solve this, but for the moment it's either/and solved by expensive equipment and proprietary protocols.
Other than that I agree it's the way forward, not least as local social fabric.
/n
ps. I only wish Negroponte and his staff would release the $100 laptop into the open, instead of insisting sales and distribution must happen through a government agency that in places will be prone to corruption and inefficiency.
Subsidize it for schools and more, and sell it to anyone else at $200, and you'll see a bunch of innovation on top.
Posted by: Nikolaj Nyholm | March 6, 2006 05:04 AM
coucou a tous
Posted by: sara | March 6, 2006 05:15 AM