Connecting the next 5 billion?

1. Open. Connect. Network.
Connecting the next 5 billion?
Presentation:
Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Caribbean ITS conference 2009
Associate Professor Montego bay, Jamaica
Information Systems Department Online at http://slideshare.net/sverma
San Francisco State University
San Francisco, CA 94132 USA Creative commons license
http://creativecommons.org/

2. me

3. Workshop
work∙shop
Function: noun
Date: 1562
a usually brief intensive educational program for a relatively small
group of people that focuses especially on techniques and skills in
a particular field

4. Supply side
if we build it they will come...

5. Drivers of Change
● Better chips
● Moore’s Law: Performance doubles every 18 to 24
months, with size and cost remaining at a constant
● 1971: Intel C4004 ­ 2300 transistors
● 2009: Intel 8­core Xeon (Nehalem­EX) – 2.3 billion
transistors

6. Drivers of Change
● Bigger pipes
● Metcalfe’s Law: Usefulness of a network increases
with the square of the number of users connected
to the network
● Internet
– 1969 – 4 nodes (October 1969)
– 2009 – 625,226,456 nodes (Jan 2009)
Source: https://isc.org/solutions/survey/history

7. squares
(a+b)2 = a2+b2+ 2ab

8. Value within a network
Community X Community Y
A B
(32) = 9 connections
2 nodes C to C
C E C to D
(22) = 4 connections
C to E
A to A
D to C
A to B
D to D
B to A D D to E
B to B
3 nodes E to C
E to D
E to E
Note: Each community has some potential value, that may or may not be completely realized

9. Value of a combined network – community Z
5 nodes
A B
C E
(52) = 25 connections D
A to A B to A C to A D to A E to A
A to B B to B C to B D to B E to B
A to C B to C C to C D to C E to C
A to D B to D C to D D to D E to D
A to E B to E C to E D to E E to E

10. Where's the cheese?
● (2+3) nodes leads to (2+3)2 connections
● 5 nodes lead to 25 connections
● We already had 4 in community X and 9 in
community Y
● In the new community Z, we have an extra of 12
connections.
● This is where the cheese is at, so to speak.

11. 2ab
● Drivers of change
● Metcalfe's law
– http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalfe's_law
● Moore's law
– http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore's_law

12. Pushing the supply side
A common question:
“Do they have a business model?”
hint: the www did not have a business model

13. Leveraging the network
For value to flow across the network,
interoperability is key
The network m­u­s­t be open and unencumbered
hint: look up net neutrality

14. E­mail works
RFC 822
STANDARD FOR THE FORMAT OF ARPA
INTERNET TEXT MESSAGES
August 13, 1982

15. IM doesn't

16. Where is imunified.org now?

17. Networks
two step process:
a) connect
b) communicate

18. Convergence
from telco platforms to commodity tech

19. Asterisk
The free and open source pbx
Two cases: Astlinux and Trixbox

20. Astlinux
● Astlinux (http://www.astlinux.org/)
● 64 MB installation
● 128 MB RAM
● Web­based (https) management
● Soekris net 4801 (http://www.soekris.com/ )
● 233 MHz x86 processor
● Embedded, 12 to 48 volt PoE
● Carry 10 to 12 ­simultaneous­ SIP or IAX calls

21. soekris net 4801
Approx 170 USD

22. Astlinux variants
CD iso
config+log+voicemail
VMWare
image
Compact USB Keydisk
Flash
Hard
Drive
http://sourceforge.net/projects/astlinux/

23. 2007.june.28:thursday Dr. Sameer Verma, Ph.D. 23

24. Trixbox
● CentOS Linux based
● 1.6 GHz Dual­Core
● 1GB RAM
● Can handle
● 48 ports
● 200 SIP phones
http://www.trixbox.org/
Or simply use a PIII with 512 MB RAM

25. centralized

26. distributed

27. Cost
expensive to interconnect

28. localized

29. localized
We connect when we can afford to

30. Who do we communicate with?
communication: locally vs globally

31. Is 24x7 connectivity overrated?

32. Chicken and the egg
Infrastructure or nodes – which must come first?

33. One Laptop Per Child
http://laptop.org
and
http://wiki.laptop.org

34. Somebody is finally
thinking of the
children!

35. A different generation...

36. School Galadima, Abuja City, Nigeria
See http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Galadima

37.
Samkha village located in the suburbs of northern Thailand
See http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Thailand/Ban_Samkha

38.
Khairat school is India's pilot site.
See http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_India

39. Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Ulaanbaatar

40. Ethopia
http://www.reactivated.net/weblog/archives/2008/10/olpc­ethiopia­updates/

41.
Ghana
http://www.flickr.com/photos/olpc/2921143251/

42. Cameroon
http://www.flickr.com/photos/olpc/3110907018/in/set­72157611290673682/

43. Afghanistan
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Afghanistan

44. Colombia
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Colombia

45. Peru
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Peru

46. Rwanda
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Rwanda

47. Iraq
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Iraq

48. Haiti
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Haiti

49. Solomon Islands
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Solomon_Islands

50. Nepal
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Nepal

51.
OLPC Jamaica: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Jamaica

52. Deployments worldwide
http://www.buzzmoo.com/?p=257

53. Deployments worldwide
... ...
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Property:Number_of_manufactured_laptops

54. school...to go

55. Sugar: Free and Open Source
Collaboration
Activities
Journal
Sugarlabs at http://sugarlabs.org

56. Collaboration

57. Activities
● Write
● A simple word processor
● Chat
● Similar to Google Talk
● Browse
● Firefox­based
● Record
● stills and video
More activities... http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Activities

58. Journal

59. Mesh Networking
● Mesh does not require central hub­like
infrastructure
● Wireless mesh works even when the computer
sleeps
Based on an early draft of IEEE 802.11s

60. Under a tree model
Mesh “under a tree” model.
See slide 7 at http://wiki.laptop.org/images/a/a3/Country_Technical_Support.pdf

61. Local network

62. Global network

63. Until then? Sneakernet!
● Offline Internet
● Not so far fetched. Akamai and Internet Archive do
something similar
● How long before we run the mirroring cycle?
● See project:
● Wizzy
– http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wizzy_Digital_Courier

64. Run SIP clients on laptop

65. Run Asterisk on the School Server
Fit­PC as School Server
http://www.fit­pc.com/ See http://wiki.laptop.org/go/IAX for more

66. communicate locally with...
...brother, sister, uncle, aunt, cousin, bus driver,
fishmonger, doctor, banker, loan shark (ouch!),
healer, priest, lawyer (more ouch!), mayor...

67. 2 step process
1) connect
2) communicate

68. some day, access to the Internet will be cheap
enough...

69. some day a telco connection will be cheap
enough...

70. That day, we light it up and set the network
ablaze!

71. Until then, a month­old copy of Wikipedia isn't that
bad.

72. Open. Connect. Network.
Connect the next 5 billion!

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