I spent the last two days at a workshop at the University of Wollongong discussing Broadband In The Bush…

Met some fascinating academics from Sweden, Canada, Australia, Korea and China.

Saw some interesting presentations…

One of the most surprising was about an Indian company called United Villages. This is Internet at its most basic run under the brand name Daknet.

Daknet is for villages that have maybe only one phone line.

The deal is that there is a community computer that is accessible by the villagers. It is not connected to the Internet, but it has a small aerial and is able to send wireless data locally.

The local place that it sends the data (which comprises of emails) is to a server on the local bus, that also has an aerial. The emails move off of the village hard drive and onto the bus hard drive. This happens at every stop that the bus makes until it eventually gets to the depot. At this point all the emails are moved to an Internet connected machine and are sent. At the same time return emails are sent back to the bus so that the whole process can happen in reverse.

Interestingly, the main use for this service by villagers, is for commerce. The example given was the local bicycle shop owner who orders parts for motor bikes and push bikes, which the people from Daknet purchase and send to him on the bus, adding a small margin on the way (that is the business model). He gets to save time travelling and keep the shop open for business instead, which increases his revenues too…

Amazing that as we sit and deliberate about broadband, there are people in India whose lives are being transformed by something so basic as the Daknet service!