It is not just us in the Western world who want to have high bandwidth connectivity, the demand is everywhere. People will use any possible route to get what they want, leading to unexpected developments.
Brough Turner reports in his weblog about junknets in Pakistan (Lahore) and in Romania (Bucharest).
(Lahore) Access to neighborhood rights-of-way is governed by local relationships rather than by official government license. As a result, there are extensive local broadband networks (fiber and Cat 5 cable) providing excellent local connectivity (typically up to 100 Mbps symmetric), including high speed access to local content caches. Actual connections to the Internet are still limited so, while one can download movies from a file server at 30 – 50 Mbps, connections to the real Internet tend to be limited to 512 Kbps each. On the other hand, the whole package costs roughly Rs 600 or about US $8, per month.
An insider explains how it works: no-nonsense, minimalist approach. And it works: customers complain if they do not get 5 Mbps download from a local media storage server.
If anybody ever questioned if people want hyperconnectivity and high bandwidth, here is your answer.
About Herman
Herman Wagter is one of the founders and co-editor of Dadamotive. His work as interim manager and consultant (Citynet Amsterdam/Fiber-to-the-Home, Platform Sustainable Mobility) has involved him directly in the impact of hyperconnectivity and sustainability on society. As an independent agent and "mobile warrior" he has experienced the pro's and con's of how organizations and projects can be structured, and what the effects on the final result can be. In his opinion we are entering an era of profound change, driven by these fundamental forces. Following the trends, discovering the fun and debunking the half-truths is a passion he likes to share with others.
Thanks for picking this up. I’m curious. Is the picture “cabling mess” reflective of local people bypassing national regultion? i.e. is it related to what we’ve seen in Bucharest, Lahore, Karachi, etc.?? Thanks, Brough
The picture is just an indicator of an important fact enabling these people to create these nets: aerial deployment and no regulation. In cities like Amsterdam (actually all of Holland and many other EU countries) this is 100% and totally forbidden. Everything must be put underground after receiving permits to do so. Anybody can deploy, but in practice this limits deployment to big companies. Which in my opinion puts a heavy burden on regulators and government to make sure open nets ARE deployed.