Technology for the third world: FON?
We have been reading about the (now ex-)”movimiento” FON for months, but those news rarely where from other countries than Spain. Just after Varsavsky announced that FON let the revolution to become an enterprise, and the investment on it by Google and Skype, FON has become omnipresent.
What surprised me was reading about FON at places like Timbucktu Chronicles or My heart’s in Accra, where Zuckerman (now i see that he is a member of FON board) explains why sharing WiFi?s a cool technology for Africa.
Despite the original concept about FON is that isn’t much more than putting a router close to a window and pay/earn money for doing it, we will go to Africa. Putting a reouter next to a window at any home anywhere, let’s say Zimbabwe is is really cool, but which are the problems I see for that being really useful?
So, firstly, to allow acess to the Internet to Zimbabwean users, they must join FON or to pay as “alien” users. The second point, as rightly says Ethan, the price for the connection is not cheap, he says that Entire universities run on less bandwidth than I have coming into my house on a DSL line. So what can we do then? Again, occidental prople living in Zimbabwe, who gets lots of money in their original countries, are the only who can join FON and offer his bandwith to the locals who, again, will have to use FON like a “Linus” or pay like an “alien”. And what about the price this alien connection in Zimbabwe? Can those who think to get a $100 laptop afford that connection?
The real problem is that there is not affordable broadband connection in Africa. And FON won’t bring it. What FON will do in Africa is to continue with the actual plot, in whererich whites give things to the poor blacks, but they don’t tell them how to do these things for themselves, signing them away for life.
For that reason i trust more in an ensemble of Starsight and Wireless Networking in the Developing World. I trust more in giving tools than giving built products.
