how open source software and wireless networks are transforming two cultures an investigation in...
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How Open Source Software and Wireless Networks are
Transforming Two Cultures
An Investigation in Urban North America and Rural Africa
David Yates, [email protected]
Thomas A. McGonagle, [email protected]
Anas Tawileh, [email protected]
Outline
• The digital divide in United States and Africa– Disempowering populations
• Towards digital inclusion– Policy and technology are both essential
– Wireless networks for communication
– Open source software for diverse applications
• Case studies– In our neighborhoods
– In Africa
• Conclusions
Impact of Digital Divide in the US
“Each year, being digitally connected becomes ever more critical to economic and educational advancement and community participation. Now that a large number of Americans regularly use the Internet to conduct daily activities, people who lack access to these tools are at a growing disadvantage. Therefore, raising the level of digital inclusion by increasing the number of Americans using the technology tools of the digital age is a vitally important national goal.”
Source: “Falling Through the Net: Toward Digital Inclusion”, U.S. NTIA Report, October 2000, http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/fttn00/contents00.html .
Percentage of Households with Internet Access in 2000
Arkansas 26.5 %
Louisiana 30.2 %
Mississippi 26.3 %
While national average in 2000 > 41%
Example of Digital Divide in Africa
Source: “Global Digital Divide: The Issue”, UC Atlas of Global Inequality, July 2004, http://ucatlas.ucsc.edu/communication/digitaldivide.php.
Per Capita Internet Capacity in Africa
Source: “The Internet: Out of Africa”, International Development Research Centre, Nov 2003, http://www.idrc.ca/en/ev-6568-201-1-DO_TOPIC.html.
Global Digital Divide
• World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) expresses the common desire and commitment to build
… a people-centered, inclusive and development-oriented Information Society, where everyone can create, access, utilize and share information and knowledge, enabling individuals, communities and peoples to achieve their full potential in promoting their sustainable development and improving their quality of life, premised on the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations and respecting fully and upholding the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. (Dec 2003)
•Cost of Global Digital Divide: Disempowered Populations
Measuring The Digital DivideStructure of the Digital Opportunity Index (DOI)
Global Digital Divide Illustrated
Lower DOI values imply lower digital opportunity in these regionsGlobal and regional digital divides persist in spite of positive trends
Low Digital Opportunity in Africa (2006)
Source: “World Information Society Report 2007: Beyond WSIS”, ITU Report, http://www.itu.int/osg/spu/publications/worldinformationsociety/2007/report.html .
Mobile DOI Fixed DOI DOI Score
Digital Inclusion• To empower disadvantaged populations
– Men and women– Minorities– Poor– Children and elderly
• Need to empower individuals in many areas– Economy– Family, community– Government and society
ICT4D = Information and communications technology (ICT) for development
ICT Trends in the United States
Source: “A Nation Online: Entering the Broadband Age”, U.S. NTIA Report, Sep 2004, http://www.ntia.doc.gov/reports/anol/NationOnlineBroadband04.htm .
Domestic gap in digital inclusion persists in spite of positive trends
Development of ICT Policies in Africa
National ICT Policy Development by Country
2000 2005 2007
Policy in place 13 28 36
Policy under development 10 15 12
No development underway 30 10 5
Total 53 53 53
Farrell, Glen and Isaacs, Shafika. 2007. Survey of ICT and Education in Africa: A Summary Report, Based on 53 Country Surveys. Washington, DC: infoDev / World Bank. Available at http://www.infodev.org/en/Publication.353.html.
ICT Policies in Africa• ICT4D has been most successful when policies
and practices– Encourage competition among service providers– Support universal access to services– Regulate access to critical resources– Address sustainability
• An ICT4D challenge from Kofi Annan:“We need to think of ways to bring wireless fidelity (Wi-Fi) applications to the developing world, so as to make use of unlicensed radio spectrum to deliver cheap and fast Internet access.”
Source: “Kofi Annan's IT challenge to Silicon Valley”, CNET NEWS.com, Nov 2002, http://www.news.com/2010-1069-964507.html .
Wireless Networks for Communication
• Two very different stories– Empowering people to expand their access
(US)– Empowering people to gain access
(Africa)
• Open international standards for wireless network access
• Scaling wireless access using wireless mesh networks
Wireless Networks and ICT Access
• Part of Internet access story in the United States– Cellular telephone service revenue passed $50 billion in
2004
– WiFi equipment market passed $2 billion in 2004
– In 2007 Internet penetration was 70.9% in North America
– WiFi access now common for enterprises and households
– Some community wireless networks for Internet access
– Most wireless communication over hybrid access networks
In hybrid access networks, wireless access is shared among users in a geographic area, but communication infrastructure connecting wireless access devices is almost always wired (the “wireless paradox”)
• Essential for Internet access in Africa– Cellular telephone service revenue passed $4 billion in
2004 (compared to $50 in the United States)
– In 2007 Internet penetration was only 4.7% in Africa
– WiFi and other low-cost network technologies used for “last inch,” “last 100 miles”, and everything in between
– Community wireless networks essential for Internet access
– Wireless communication over wireless distribution networks
In wireless distribution networks, wireless access devices connect to wireless mesh networks that provide one, two, or more paths to a backbone network (e.g., the Internet)
Wireless Networks and ICT Access
Wireless Networking Landscape
• 1G (early 1980) analog cellular networks
– AMPS (Advanced Mobile Phone Systems)
• 2G (early 1990) digital cellular networks
– public DECT & PHS– GSM T/FDMA, circuit switched voice– High‐Speed Circuit‐Switched Data (115 kb/s)
• 2.5G packet switched data– GPRS 170/54 kb/s– EDGE 384/100 kb/s
• 3G mobile voice + data at high rates– UMTS FDD(/TDD) 384/384 kb/s– HSDPA/HSUPA 1800/800 kb/s
• 4G full end‐to‐end IP– for mobile voice, data and streamed
multimedia at higher data rates– UMTS Release 8 (LTE) 100/50 Mb/s with
technology to be determined
• 1999: 802.11b and 802.11a ratified• 1999: 802.11b products (11 Mbits/s,
typical: 5‐6 Mb/s)• 2000: Wi‐Fi certification program for
802.11b‐compliant products launched• 2001: 802.11a products (54 Mb/s)
– 2002: 802.11a/b products
• 2003: WPA security becomes mandatory
• 2003: 802.11g ratified– 2005: 802.11a/b/g products
• 2005: 802.11e QoS• 2008: 802.11n MIMO• 2009: 802.11s Mesh
Wireless Local Area NetworksWide Area Cellular Networks
Wireless Networking Standards• Open standards mostly developed in International
forums– IEEE, IETF, ITU, ETSI, 3GPP, 3GPP2, …
• Encourage cooperation among vendors to make emerging technology work for customers
• Ensure competition between vendors, and interoperability among equipment and services– Cooperation + competition … “coopetition”
• Invariably include tradeoffs, so are not perfect– Complete development vs. Timely delivery
• Mostly not encumbered with intellectual property rights
Philadelphia Metro WiFi (IEEE 802.11b)
Wireless mesh network uses unlicensed spectrum to distribute and scale Internet access
Metro WiFi Questions in US• Public vs. Private Sector
– Who Owns the Network– Who Pays for the Network– Who Operates the Network
• Metro WiFi Funding Models– Fully Outsourced (Philadelphia)– Privately Funded (Boston)– Federally Funded (New Orleans, Sandoval)
• Difficult questions are usually political or regulatory rather than technical
Castle Square Tenants Organization Wireless Mesh Network
More advanced networking protocols developed using open source software;research project is called Roofnet see http://pdos.csail.mit.edu/roofnet/ Delivers broadband wireless Internet access to housing complex in Boston
OpenWRT (Embedded Linux)
• An embedded operating system configured to run on the Netgear WGT634U (and other hardware)
• Released under the GNU General Public License making the source code freely available
• Free to use and install (no licensing costs)
OpenWRT + Roofnet = Linux-based Wireless Mesh Network
• Roofnet software is configured and compiled to run on the Netgear router by using open source OpenWRT development tools
• Roofnet takes advantage of the MadWiFi wireless drivers in OpenWRT
• MadWiFi access to the low level wireless protocol makes mesh networking possible
Low-cost WiFi Gear + Open Source = Community Internet Access
Kafanchan, Nigeria (IEEE 802.11b)
Wide area wireless outdoor network consisting of 11 backhaul links connecting 13 partnersSECT1, SECT2 and OMNI-1 antennas operate on 3 different 802.11b channelsExtend 802.11b in SECT1 and SECT2 quadrants using Proxim’s advanced wireless outdoor routing protocol to add QoS for voice-over-IP (VoIP)
Open Source Software• Diversity of applications reflects diversity of needs
– e.g., e-everything for majority of US population
– basic e-commerce, e.g., e-agriculture in Africa
• Empowers people to communicate, express themselves, and engage in information society
• Open source software is ubiquitous, but mostly invisible, in the Internet and on the web
• Open source software also needs open standards• Open source software in K-12 education
(some in US, much more popular in Africa)
Open Source Software
Examples of Open Source Software
• GNU/Linux– Ubuntu Linux originally developed in South Africa– LTSP, Edubuntu, Xubuntu, SkoleLinux, K12LTSP
• GNOME and KDE desktop environments• OpenOffice.org• The Mozilla Internet Applications
– Firefox, Thunderbird, …
• Apache web server• MySQL database management system• PHP, Perl, Python programming languages
Another Linux-based Wireless Mesh Project (IEEE 802.11s)
One Laptop Per Child XO laptop developed for children in least developed countriesWant each child to interact with the laptop on as deep a level as he or she desiresBattery charged with DC input between 5V and 25V from a variety of possible sources
Linux-based Sugar GUI
Sugar graphical user interface (GUI) written in Python runs on Linux (Fedora) kernelThe center of the screen is a “scratchpad,” and the outer shell is where a child goes to start or switch applications
Wireless Mesh Networking
Wireless mesh networking allows children to distribute and share Internet accessMesh networking also allows them to immediately share thoughts, ideas, learning …
Share Reading and Writing
Literacy is the “killer app” for the XO laptop; the XO has a built-in eBook readerSource: “Open Letter to Nicholas Negroponte: Its Education Not Laptops,” Jan 2008,http://www.olpcnews.com/people/negroponte/
Share Music
TamTam Jam is a fun, powerful way to perform music, play instruments, and collaborate musically with other children
Share Equations
Empower a new generation by educating young Africans to develop their own information and communication technology in the future
Conclusions• Empowering people via digital inclusion is a
global need• Sound policy and affordable technology are
key• Open software, open standards, and
wireless access are important enablers• Wireless networking and GNU/Linux are
having a global impact• There is much more to be done
Thank You!
How Open Source Software and Wireless Networks are
Transforming Two Cultures
David Yates, [email protected]
Thomas A. McGonagle, [email protected]
Anas Tawileh, [email protected]