The authors are Corinna Aichele, Sebastian Buttrich, Rob Flickenger, Carlo Fonda, Jim Forster, Ian Howard, Tomas Krag, and Marco Zennaro, and the book is entitled “Wireless Networking in the Developing World: A practical guide to planning and building low-cost telecommunications infrastructure.” The book covers subjects such as an introduction to radio physics, network hardware, cabling, security, and even information on building an outdoor node.
The book is completely free, and can be found through the Wireless Networking in the Developing World website. Even though it is freely distributable, it is also hoped that the book would be sold by enterprising individuals in the developing world who take the time and effort to print and market it.
The choice of wireless networking is due to the ease with which it is deployed and the low costs involved compared to laying cables for a wired system. One of the authors, Tomas Krag, also points out that wireless networks can easily grow, which not only promotes extending communication, but also enterprise, since people running the networks and earning more money can afford to buy more equipment.
The book was made available last Friday and has seen a lot of interest, with over 3,500 downloads. A translation into Hindi has already arrived and it is hoped further translations into Arabic, French, Russian, and Spanish will follow.
Read more at Info World
You have to commend the group for taking the time to do this and put together a guide that will teach anyone how to create their own network with minimal hardware requirements and cost. One of the authors, Rob Flickenger, already has a book published on the subject called Building Wireless Community Networks, but as he rightly points out this book will never be distributed or affordable to developing countries.
By offering the book for free, but allowing its resale for profit, the distribution networks should open up. Anyone with access to a printer should be able to produce copies and sell them for a living, or as part of a bigger store. This will produce a large population with the knowledge to create their own communication networks. But, how are they going to acquire the hardware?
I hope the book is a success, and we continue to hear how its reach is spreading across the developing world. This will hopefully spur on others to attempt similar projects in a bid to share knowledge and help development in other countries.
USER COMMENTS 3 comment(s)
|slow news day (11:59am EST Tue Jan 31 2006)
nuff said. – by Yawn
|oh PAPER book, gotcha (7:24pm EST Tue Jan 31 2006)
For some reason, I thought it was a notebook type of book… – by Learns2read
|correction (2:32am EST Wed Feb 01 2006)
Thanks for this article, unfortunately it isn't true that there is already a hindi translation. There is a group currently working on a hindi translation, but there's quite a bit of way to go.