Re: [gaia] Basic Free Internet Access

Thanks Paola - I will loop you with the mojolab folks..

Regards

On 5 December 2015 at 09:10, Paola Di Maio <paola.dimaio@gmail.com> wrote:

> Arjuna, and all
> I am in Pondy, near Chennai
>
> Please loop me in the discussions/workgroups
>
> P
>
> On Sat, Dec 5, 2015 at 2:31 PM, Arjuna Sathiaseelan <
> arjuna.sathiaseelan@cl.cam.ac.uk> wrote:
>
>> All -
>>
>> With all the disasters thats been happening these days -- including the
>> recent one at Chennai -- people are trying to get connected to the
>> Internet. We are now talking to groups in Chennai to put up an adhoc mesh
>> to get some connectivity etc - Power is a major problem. But those with the
>> power are now trying to open up their own WiFi for others to share..But the
>> biggest issue is we are all doing this after the disaster strikes and not
>> proactively!
>>
>> This makes me think, shouldnt governments create some sort of an
>> emergency network for such events for people to communicate? So like FON,
>> if governments can work with operators and use the existing home access
>> points to open up during emergencies - so that people can access for FREE
>> in proper isolation without interfering with the sharer - wouldnt this be
>> useful? Ofcourse if there is no infrastructure or power then nothing
>> happens or people have to use firechat/opengarden if they have already
>> installed..
>>
>> this was the idea behind the Public Access WiFi Service (PAWS) project we
>> did here in Cambridge few years ago (
>> http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~as2330/docs/dev12.pdf)-- this wasnt greatly
>> successful because we didnt target the disaster usecase -- but now thinking
>> if such a system indeed existed - this maybe worthwhile including the
>> syrian refugee crisis and the refugees wanting to connect and no
>> money/credit cards/no credit rating etc..
>>
>> This solely is not enough - but I think this could also be an enabler
>> especially when there are national emergencies..
>>
>> So the idea is enable all WiFi access points to open up by default
>> controlled by the operators with the governments subsidising the
>> connectivity during national emergencies. We could probably even mesh these
>> access points but I think we would end up needing some long range antennas.
>>
>>  we could probably do some fancy things like
>> http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~as2330/docs/vpun.pdf but lets leave that for
>> the moment..
>>
>> Regards
>> --
>> Arjuna Sathiaseelan
>> Personal: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~as2330/
>> N4D Lab: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~as2330/n4d
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> gaia mailing list
>> gaia@irtf.org
>> https://www.irtf.org/mailman/listinfo/gaia
>>
>>
>

-- 
Arjuna Sathiaseelan
Personal: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~as2330/
N4D Lab: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~as2330/n4d