Bolivia

Telecoms sans frontiers

2007-08-31T20:00:00.000-07:00

Just reading back thru posts in this blog, I see the post about the katrina telecoms crisis. Recently, TSF Telecoms Sans Frontieres have cropped up numerous times in news reports I have read. I am excited to read of their existence and the technology they use in crisis situations, especially the funky satellites they can set up in under 30 mins from arrival.

Sadly, I do not possess the necessary skills to apply as a volunteer, but their existence has highlighted to me the need for a TSF sans crisis. We have managed it once, as far as I know, with huge success with the Wennington project, when a small squad (we called outselves a SWAT team) of wireless, wifi, community etc folk got together to install comms into a rural village where the incumbent feared to tread (for lack of profits). I would dearly love to repeat that experiment, because the financial benefits to that community in Wennington far, far outweighs the £30k put in to build the network. If only other development agencies, councils, communities etc could help to fund wireless community networks, or even better fibre/fiwi (fibre-wireless) networks with some FTTH and smart meters, CCTV etc built in that would assist economic regeneration of areas that BT et al have long neglected.

The lack of FTTH development in the UK remains a complete mystery to me, especially now it is so obvious in other countries, and often it starts in the rural areas I have long campaigned to connect, not the urban areas where competition and cherry picking attracts the telcos. The economics of FTTH are now apparent to all, and well understood by all but the consumers (and probably politicians) it seems, who still fail to pursue the telcos with the enthusiasm and energy that has seen such projects as those in rural Sweden, Denmark, Holland etc succeed. Roll on the End Game, I say, with FTTH starting in the UK in the deeply unconnected rural areas, like my own in Eden in Cumbria, where in 2007, we still don't see more than 512kbps download on a very good sunny day once in a blue moon. (Upload is stil less than on dial up for 90+% of the time) - oh fun!)

Why facebook etc is important to biz

2007-08-31T19:22:00.000-07:00

All over the news - companies are banning facebook etc as it is costing untold millions for employees to live their online lives at work. One question: are those self-same employees slagging off the companies they work for (because they are only allowed online after work etc or in secrecy) or acting as unpaid marketers with the odd/regular nugget of PR done for the company in areas that company would never consider marketing normally?

I personally think facebook, myspace, cyworld etc are all places where companies should be marketing in some way nowadays. Just the same as blogs, podcasts, forums etc were all previously freaky, edge of the network oddities that have become a very serious part of any company's armoury in the marketing world, so will mini hompies, myspace, bebo etc. The companies who do not adopt these techniques can only lose out. Especially if they unleash a set of disgruntled (ex) employees into the online world who were not allowed to drop in links to the company products, website, write positive reviews anonymously, link, promote etc in their daily online working lives.

The TUC may not have phrased their report about the importance of facebook etc in language that IOD etc understand, but actually, any company who blocks usage of these social networking sites is not improving productivity; it is creating a workforce who feel they are misunderstood, and who stop marketing and promoting the company they work for because of management misunderstanding.

The cost to a company of not using every form of promotion, its resources etc in a positive, understanding manner? Possibly priceless. Stick it in the balance sheet under 'loss', guys. Open your eyes.

Networking is vitally important to any business, and if your employees are willing to do it without you forking out a fortune to put up stands at expos, or for them to attend seminars or networking events during their working days, and they are doing it for free, then hell, what gain??

And really, at the end of the day, if they are booking a flight online during working hours, and then they go abroad on a holiday during their 4 weeks off, how do you know who they will talk to, what they will say about your company, and the damage/benefit that might have?

In the last few weeks, in our tiny little village, we have had someone high up in Converse (the shoes), the grandson of the person who actually farmed at Emmerdale farm (before it became a soap), David Beckham's tattooists best mate (boy, did he have some goss to tell us), and a signed copy of William Hague's latest book that a sprog acquired from him - all in our pub with a mere 12 regulars. Each of those people who met our bunch of 'marketers' also has (potentially) gone away with a story to tell from us too. And it is surprising how many people come back, year on year to this place.

Imagine that those in our village who have met these people over the last few weeks were one of your employees. And instead of marketing for you, or marketing our village, our pub, our county, we had lots of bad things to say about working conditions, the prohibitions, the quality of the service in the company etc etc just because you had banned us from social networking - or going to the pub. Whether it is on Bebo, myspace, or in the local, down the nearest Starbucks etc, if you treat your employees well, they will promote your business everywhere they go. If you forbid them from going places, all you can attract from it is long-term, bad PR.

Personally, I advise all the SMEs I deal with to get the word out about their companies on the Net, wherever that may be. And I think it is highly telling that some of the most successful Korean companies have had a Cyworld mini hompy for several years, and have built communities around them. Ditto YouTube minivids etc about products, or off the wall, viral online marketing ideas. Add Myspace etc to your corporate blacklist for surfing, and all you are doing is limiting the social networking and marketing that your employees do for you, surely? Oh yeah, and p*&^ them off at the same time so they end up moving on, and slagging you off even more as ex-employees! Economic effect? -ve.

I disagree with the blacklisting of social networking sites for any employee because I think every employee is part of the marketing machine for the company they work for. And every business who realises that, is generally a winner if there is a good product stack behind them. Those who rely on traditional methods for marketing are going to end up losing out as others set up myspace product pages, and communities, and videos, podcasts etc, all supported by loyal employees.

Google allows its employees 20-25% of their working lives for pet projects of their choice, to go the gym, to play, to learn, to discover online, to surf. Are you stymying your employees growth, or letting them discover new avenues for their own growth, for the growth of your company and its product range, to find new customers, suppliers, competitors? How valuable are the discoveries your employees come across accidentally and are you willing to learn from those experiences?

Add social capital to your balance sheet and see just how many 'coincidental' leads from conversations your employees have had on or offline have led to sales, new product development, worthwhile events, better suppliers, cost savings etc etc, and then tell me that networking hasn't got an economic worth to every company who partakes in it and encourages its employees to do the same.

The book

2007-04-18T18:13:00.000-07:00

Where did 18 months go? Oh well, at least book no 1 is now published.

JFDI Community Broadband@ Wennington

Madrid

2005-10-08T19:21:00.000-07:00

Sat/sitting in Madrid. Free wiffy abounding. But comps ridden with spyware etc and need help. Not in my spec, I'm here on holiday for next 48 hrs but there is one laptop I might have to sort out.

it is currently running so hot I have it propped up on an empty packet of Marlboro from the next table and I wouldn't like to rest my hand on the asdf keys cos travel insurance as far as I can see doesn't cover third or first degree burns gained by being a dipstick.

Found ultimate pub. That's all I wanted to say to others coming to Madrid. Free wifi, Guinness, pool and Floyd nd Zappa on jike box.

Fingers burning, gonna turn this lot off......ow ow

Sad day

2005-09-18T17:22:00.000-07:00

Have just heard that Malcolm Laws passed away last Wednesday. He will be sorely missed by many, many people in the broadband and communications world.

I met him in November 2002 at the first BSG conference when I was given an opportunity to speak to 400 delegates (or so). I was terrified. And writing the speech in the half hour or so before my 'slot' wasn't necessarily a bright move! Malcolm was the facilitator of my session and was hugely supportive of me personally that day, and has been since.

He believed in ABC and the need for it, and was enthusiastic about making it happen. Without him, I suspect that much that ABC has achieved would not have been possible. He opened many doors, and was a catalyst for the actions that led to ABC actually becoming 'real'. Interaxion was a fantastic magazine that had huge potential and Simoli was doing well too when Malcolm had to take a back seat because of illness.

We were all privileged to know him, and my deepest sympathies go to his young family.

New orleans, on the fly WISPS etc

2005-09-09T22:31:00.000-07:00

The last post I made was about a flood in Lancashire, Northern England and I'd found a book which highlighted the implementation of landlines and wireless in a crisis situation in the 60's. It surprised me, if you remember (if you don't, read the alst post).

I could have had no idea that the next thing that forced me to post would be a similar crisis, in the noughties, in the US, in a big city. The similarities are alarming. The stories I am hearing from over there in the last few days show that we have learnt BUGGER ALL scuse my French.

If we fail to learn from history, we will continue to face each crisis as a novelty, without the experience to overcome certain hurdles and approach new ones. We are taking x+3 steps back for x forwards. The fact that bodies are still lying in the streets today, almost 14 days after Katrina hit, is horrific. But the fact that no-one has managed to:

1) Set up a wireless network within any of the refugee centres and dish out simple radios to allow communication to the refugees from the aid agencies, FEMA etc even though the FCC AFAIK granted instant emergency licenses
a) FEMA refused to allow into the Super Bowl in New Orleans many of the fully trained and qualified wireless engineers due to lack of "the appropriate papers"
2) set up Skype or similar voice mail boxes on every single mobile number for the stricken states

leaves you wondering about the last remaining global super power's capabilities. Especailly after all they achieved in Aceh, Sri Lanka etc within days and weeks of the tsunami. $51 bn needed in aid for the US? Ho HUM. Your popularity rating in the US was at an all-time low, in case you hadn't noticed. At a guess, it's just plummeted. It has in this house and village anyway. Sympathy is only available for real people, not the senators, etc nor the fact you keep voting them in, or letting them con their way in to 'celebrity government lifestyles' at your expense.

I am not taking credit for the wireless stuff. This came from our CEO, Brian Condon, of Access to Broadband Campaign when I phoned him at Big Hook in Boston yesterday, and he may have overheard it elsewhere, (it's quite likely he came up with it on his own) but c'mon. This is easy stuff. However poor, most of the people stricken by the floods had a mobile, yeah? Then grab the database, stick a Skype voice mailbox on the end of every number and let people search for their friends and family, leave messages etc. It would be so fecking easy to do and cost bugger all to allow people to at least leave a voice mail msg, "We are in Baton Rouge but missing Uncle X. Please leave a msg so we know where you are". "John, I'm calling your number so you knwo we are OK, ring us on 555-etc".

In a world of global communication, the fact that there is still no database of the missing or dead, no internet access for many of the survivors, none of the basic telco stuff that we all take for granted is being used/adapted etc. God, I am so pissed off with the authorities. Because when I see them failing abysmally, I read about community networkers (CANdoers) who have set off out with a few access points and antennas and set up networks that can cope with the crisis comms that this crisis needs.

You want $51 billion Bush to recover from this 'disaster'? Well, give some of it to the telecommunications experts who could have had you in touch with the ground the day you flew low over NO and ever since, if you just realised what they CANdo.

portable land lines

2005-07-25T03:47:00.000-07:00

Should be asleep in bed but Chris gave me the story of Wray flood to read and I am.

This is very interesting -the whole book is mega but this is intriguing.....

p.51 of "The Wray Flood of 1967" Emmeline Garnett isbn 1-86220-119-6

"The Cave Rescue people appeared on the opposite side of the river.......at Bridge End, and they were shouting across "We've got a land line, we've got a telephone land line, can we bring it across?" I said "Ay, bring it across." And they'd come from Settle, and they were used to doing this kind of thing - up on the fells they've got to get land lines to caves where probably somebody's life's in danger, you know, they've got to get a land line up, and they were quite used to it. And they had these reels of wire, and they came over this debris which was on top of the bridge. The bridge had been half destroyed but there were piles of trees just perched on top of it...They came across there, and up to the Institute, and got communication...they were there within about an hour."

Data rates? How? Connected to what? Have we really lost so much in 40 years??? I'm going to see if Chris will let me talk to Emmeline in the 'morning', and start quizzing the old boys from the Fell and Cave rescue from the Dales - one of whom happens to be my dad who may have forgotten to pass on some useful info!!!

P.S. This book, for many who live in urban or 'distracted' rural areas where community is not as apparent as it should be, is a MUST READ.

40 years ago or last Xmas in the tsunami, no matter - it's relevant today. If you rely on video reports, then bend your eyes to this book and think about words. And for those who have recently suffered major floods or terrorist attacks in Carlisle, Yorkshire, London or Turkey, and sent in MMS or SMS, have you thought about a podcast? Have you, who vociferously devour News 24, listened to one report and actually heard it?

Make your own report today, for future reference of your experiences. Video, on a broadcast channel, edited by folks far away is not the best route to telling your story...... Real voices of your story and photos/films to watch/hear will give IMPACT far beyond what Emmeline's superbly crafted words could have because you would still be here telling your story yourself. I love this book, even though I'm still trying to work out where and who and how they fit in with those who I know today here.

Write your own report/history for your community, business, family, etc and add to our heritage. Someone, someday, will listen, watch and learn. If only we did more of it and knew how to store it for future generations. My kids will knowabout the flood of wray tomorrow through oral history - if that is all we have, then learn to podcast fast!!!!

Ethernet over power

2005-07-24T16:15:00.000-07:00

When I get home, I hope that my 2 boxes of still-to-be-strung cat 5 and assorted boxlets of faceplates, RJ45s etc will now be going on ebay. And the string dangling all over the house can be removed!

Have finally got my hands on the ethernet over power kit which means every fixed computer in the house will be on Phoenix through the plug sockets not through the switch, string and patch panel set up.

This also means that visitors can plug laptops etc straight into the mains and be on the network. I may need to put an extension cable into the layby opposite for the 'nomads' using the network until the antenna on the roof is fixed (or invite them in!) but hey....

Ethernet over power has made the installs recently a ton easier as the LMR400 can be as short as poss and there's no power over ethernet issues anymore. Could have done with this a couple of years ago but PowerLine is here to stay now and it's well funky! Bring on the next development which has to be power over wireless ;o)

Rural network in a month

2005-07-24T15:34:00.000-07:00

I'm sitting at the same kitchen table I sat at exactly one month ago in rural Lancashire, except this time I can see a whole new network out of the window (with binoculars!).

6 businesses had tried to find a route to getting broadband to their premises. The Marconi database doesn't appear to see them as 'disconnected' (on the wrong side of the digital divide) nor does the BT checker. But they most definitely were, and they have exhausted all avenues of moving into the 21st century, aside from plonking down a satellite connection, with all the issues that has. Until they realised that within a very few miles, a wireless broadband project was ongoing, and its champion - our very own Chris Conder (digital imager extraordinaire) - was our very able hostess for the CBN mentor weekend on 24th and 27th June.

During that weekend, Tom and Helen Anderson of South Witham Broadband and Adrian Wooster at ORB took a shufty round the area of "The 6" and stated, "No problem." As ever, this was a slightly simplified view of the situation, but honest, and a mere month later, the grant funding has been obtained, the network installed, and training has been given to local people to keep the network up thanks to NWDA the regional development agency.

12 families and businesses are now connected to a brand new wireless network that on Tuesday last did not exist except in all of our heads. CBN mentors have gifted over 180 hours of time and expertise to plan the network, consider all the issues, draw up the budget, co-ordinate the thinking and personnel, and help to reach the point where a SWAT team of CBN experts could be parachuted in to deliver what was required. Much more has been gifted by the volunteers at Wray Community Communications, from endless phone calls and visiting those involved, food, problem solving, negotiating with the funders, ironing out major and minor issues, firing up the community, budgets and finances, and much more. And that's just in the last 1 month - you should see what they've done in the last 18 for no apparent reward except seeing their community connected. An inspiration.

Over the next 6 months, case studies of the difference this has made to the businesses will be written and we hope that this can now be replicated for 'notspots' around the country. This _is_ CAN in a box - a community area network solution delivered painlessly, affordably, on target and to the benefit of many other businesses around the area.

I and others have had this vision for over 4 years, and after my involvement in a high profile pilot project of this type which did not deliver as expected, (others too have been and still are involved in CANs which aren't doing all they should), I am exceedingly proud and relieved that we finally seem to have cracked it. 10 and you're there has always been a model we at Digital Dales have cited as worth deeper consideration, (of no interest to the telcos or Govt/RDAs because it's 'too small' but funny how 10 can become 20, 30, 100, 1000......) and that has been delivered on more than one occasion around the country to give a sustainable, affordable community broadband network. But replicating it using grants, a SWAT team, full community involvement etc has proven difficult. Politics and personalities seem the biggest hurdle, the technology is bloody easy!

And now it's done. Another "10 and you're there" project but far more painless this time because the Govt has a digital strategy to deliver, and knows that ADSL isn't reaching far too many people nor is it future proofed. Chucking 30k at getting a few case studies to prove the obvious is a no brainer for the RDAs. Building a wireless network in a notspot is a minefield for them but when it gets results in a very short timescale.....and delivers a solution which is upgradeable, which crosses the digital chasm in a rural area, and which uses known expertise rather than expensive firms claiming they have a solution, well, the results are here to see for yourself as of Friday.

Next....................

If you can find a cluster of businesses who need broadband around you, we CAN do it. We can
* leave the control and ownership of the network with the community if you wish
* offer training on a wide variety of topics from network management through digital photography to internet marketing
* plough all benefits of the network back into the local community and its businesses and citizens through a social enterprise model
* Encourage local businesses to expand or develop services that benefit from the network
* build the best network for YOU
* support you long-term into the future through our own network (CBN) of around 360 CANdoers around the country - events, mentors, fora, 1-2-1 advice, training sessions etc etc.

Why not get in touch? We are the best value best network builders around because we've been there, done that and got the tshirts. We've learnt the hard way, by doing it and getting it wrong occasionally, and we're not afraid to admit that. And we know how much your business and your community matters to you because we live in rural communities too and all run SMEs. And all of us belong to a virtual community determined to get the rural areas of Britain connected to broadband.

To the world govts

2005-07-07T18:47:00.000-07:00

You go to war when we don't want you to.

1 million people in UK took to the streets (many more were sympathetic but couldn't make the marches and weren't counted).

31 million people have asked you to 'make poverty history'.

Will you listen?

Ask the right questions about the Middle East problems etc and you will find many more of us challenging your actions because we can see the results when you f*** up. Which you do regularly - do you really know best in countries and cultures you know nothing about?

YOU, as governors, take innocent lives in our names. Are you surprised that this is the result? We are going to object.

Please stop. Please let people live their lives, in their homes, and stop trashing people's cultures and existence by saying "we know best". You don't.

Stop supporting regimes which are killing our friends and family. Stop pandering to dictators. Stop selling arms. Stop prolonging this nightmare.

This week

2005-06-23T19:13:00.000-07:00

Have posted more on delicious this week than for a while because there seems to be quite a lot going on in our little world. Must work out how to combine blogging and delicious and furl properly - oh, for the time.

CBN website is nearly done, I think - still a fair way to go but it's one helluva behemoth now. Plenty going on with CBN to stimulate the mind in other places too, as well as the potential for an ABC conference to put all others into shade if a couple of large orgs can see sense and part with 1/500th of some dosh they have just been given. BT have escaped being broken up but who knows if what has happened instead will actually achieve anything positive for UKBB. Two sprogs got into the regional netball team and one invited to a Gifted and Talented Kids summer camp - doesn't want to go, of course, but ....Finally sat down in the sun in a layby with a couple of others and sorted out some of the wheat from the wheat to give us focused actions over the coming months with £'s as the priority, instead of just campaigning, talking, moaning and getting frustrated with lack of action etc. Feeding rabbits strawberries seems to do very odd things to them - possibly a form of wabbit wiagra?!

More to do in Bolivia - wish we could just go and live out there and get on with it. Too many distractions here and this is a project that has become close to my heart. I believe that some of the intended results there, and the implementation thereof, could definitely benefit UK communities. Ideas for schools and e-gov here that won't pay a bean for the research (how the hell do these guys in suits in Westminster etc get away with asking for input from skint rural business people and NOT paying??) but may well yield some very interesting information that we can commercialise.

Definitely water in the antenna off the hub meshbox. Anyone out there who likes climbing high roofs, don't hesitate to get in touch. I cook a mean chilli chicken now and then there's the CAT5 in the boxes under the stairs and dangling all over the house that could do with finishing!!

Am noticing that the word broadband is showing up in more and more of my non-broadband newsletters as the Internet Marketing world, and many others, take hold of the potential and start to exploit it. One minor worry recently has been the
IAB Guidelines for broadband adverts. Minimum streaming speed is 200kbps - Dave, I think we may have found a way to break the network and it's totally legit!!! Overworked DSLAMs watch out as we take out a guerrilla marketing campaign that shows the UK how crap their connections really are.

Like I have time for the above, and now I'll probably get done for consipracy though actually the fact that the UK first and middle miles are so vulnerable needs to be taken into account by those who think what we have now is adequate. Is it really? What if I or someone threw as much at broadband ads on UK sites as the Crazy Frog guys chucked at TV advertising? How much would it begin to cost UK business if there was a major DoS-type breakdown of the network?

Oh, and heard that they are trying to close the Tourist Info Centres. Have we forgotten FMD so damned fast? Can we remember the figures of how much tourism puts into the UK economy compared to farming? The Foot & Mouth crisis which closed both of these industries highlighted the reality. To close down TICs without replacing them with our Virtual Museum etc would be foolhardy in the least, and economically damaging even more so. Faced with people looking up info on the Net prior to their visit to tourist spots, they say "Close". We say "Think out the Box" and give something that the Net can't. But in the layby, we put the Virtual Museum into the holding stack for a while whilst we concentrate on other ideas. In fact, I think we put 10-15 ideas (the ones we could remember because we were ill-prepared for the meet!) on hold. I would think that isn't even a 1/4 of them between the three of us.

Ah well, here's to a long weekend at the first Unofficial Colloquium, camping, milking, quadbiking, surveying the network, trying out 5.8Ghz kit, and all the other things you do on a weekend off with CANdoers!

Bolivia

2005-06-14T21:50:00.000-07:00

Forgot to post that Carlos Mesa (am I right?), the president of Bolivia, has resigned. No-one seems in a big hurry to take his place, and a few people died in the demonstrations (miners, from what I heard) about the nationalistaion of the energy industry. Bolivia so need to get on top of all this energy stuff as they are sitting on literally a gold mine/oil well and yet the country is so impoverished. Much as I would like to return as soon as possible, and wouldn't go near La Paz except to walk down the MDR, everything is so confused at present, in my life and theirs, that an imminent return seems unlikely. Also, it's winter, and summer in UK is bad enough without a southern hemisphere winter to cope with. Hoy, Alberto, 15 grados, viento frío y lluvia, y aquí es verano, te juro!!!!

Sing your own ringtone

2005-06-14T17:20:00.000-07:00

Who needs the crazy frog when you can use a karaoke service from KTF in Korea to put your own personal ringtone on your mobi? My kids did some of my ringtones on my Nokia which are fantastic except when you forget to turn your phone off in important meetings!

Onspeed and BT

2005-06-14T16:51:00.000-07:00

BT/Yahoo have partnered with Onspeed to improve the dial up experience. Trouble is, it seems to be being called 'high speed internet access', yet it's just a compression utility rather than an increase in connection speed. As a diehard conspiracy theorist who can see shadows when the sun is high overhead, I'm dreading seeing areas of the UK etc without broadband connectivity (let's start with Scotland)being told that this is the solution to their woes instead of solutions to connectivity problems being found, or FTTH etc being explored.

At least they know they couldn't call it 'broadband' or there would be an outcry, but in the US 'high speed internet access' is the term most often used anyway, not 'broadband' because of the huge discrepancy between the offerings from the BabyBells and telcos, and the impossibility of agreeing on exactly what broadband should be to be sold under that name.

No 10

2005-06-14T08:50:00.000-07:00

Well, we went to No 10 on Wednesday last, Malcolm, Andy Cawdell and I, to meet Matthew Taylor - Señor Blair's Chief Advisor. The 'Boss' was on his way back from a sojourn in the US talking to Bush prior to the G8 Summit so no press to capture our arrival as they were all at Heathrow! And now Malcolm and Brian are going back on Friday for a follow-up meeting.

No 10 is an interesting place; actually, it's an office block with a flat at the top. Wherein lives Gordon Brown bizarrely, not the Blairs. (Already in situ!) The art collection reminded me I don't know the first thing about art, but I know others who would undoubtedly have been impressed with it all (John Wilson for one). I guess the same applies to the furniture and ornaments, about which I also lack knowledge but some of them were probably worth more than my house.

Weird meeting room. Not often you get to sit around a coffee table on antique furniture you are scared to spill the coffee on. Good meeting is about all I can say, and as there are already more in the diary, it obviously went well from all sides.

What is a community network?

2005-05-24T23:02:00.000-07:00

Interesting debate today that seemed to be going on in several different places.

Define a community network

You'd think it'd be easy, but there is a strange tendency to drift towards a 'them' and 'us' scenario. Them are those who do it for money. Us are the ones struggling to keep our heads above water as we do far too much for 'the community' and not enough to protect ourselves and thrive.

Reminds me of that Quaker poem I can never quite remember about if there's peace in the heart, there's peace in the home, and the ripples spread outwards so you reach peace in the world. If you make sure you are OK, then you can afford to help others around you is one way of looking at it, I think. I'm not very good at this I know because the money side of life isn't of enough concern. I'd rather have mega experiences than be rich and bored rigid trying to work out what to do with the wonga.

No project should be running entirely on volunteer energy. As I keep saying to myself "Volunteers-it'll end in tears" We keep seeing it. There are not for profits who think they should do everything for free and can't reach a surplus or sustainability. And for many this is where the yogurt knitting image comes from, that social enterprises sometimes don't show balance sheets that make sense to business people or our current culture where money is apparently everything for many if not most people.

So, back to this defining community networks. I can't name names as it wouldn't be fair but there are a couple of well-known CAN operators who skewed the results on the Springing up all over survey because they've got several hundred people connected into quite a few of their networks. They've extended way beyond their own patch, because they are in business doing this. Are they community network operators? The communities quite often don't own the networks, but in many cases they didn't want to. They just wanted someone to come in and give them a decent broadband connection. And it has been done.

There are others where the company running the network is owned by its members, who have elected people to take charge of the daily running of the network etc. All profits are spent on extending the network, offering new services etc. Is that a community network? What about all the people in the community who are not members and who may think that profits should be ploughed into other community projects which need help like the playschool or youth club? Is involvement by a subsection of the community enough to say that a community network is owned and run by the community even when it is only a small percentage of that community?

What if there is only one person, a lone ranger, who hasn't managed to persuade anyone else to get involved yet? Or maybe doesn't want the grief of trying to explain to them how it al works? If contributions are made to worthy local causes but the profits are spent as the sole proprietor sees fit, ie to prop up their ailing business because they are too busy climbing on roofs fixing antennas to deal with their clients, is that a community network?

Or is a community network one which has had large amounts of public funding and connected the local council offices and put a kiosk in the swimming pool? Can BT say they run community networks because they occasionally give hard up communities a computer and an ADSL connection?

Can we even define 'community'? Because I think until everyone is clear what a community is, who or whether anyone owns it, runs it, where its boundaries are, who makes sure that everyone has blue fingers, who assesses the impact of each and every one of our actions to benefit or detriment of that community, we are a bit knackered trying to define what a CAN is. Personally.

Sustainability

2005-05-24T22:23:00.000-07:00

Been working on CAN in a Box all week, and the issue of sustainability is key. Read this in the Demos report Beyond Digital Divides? and it's stuck in my head. It's from a New Economic Foundation report called The Money Trail.

"Suppose you paint a pound coin blue and watched where it went. Every time it changed hands within a community, it meant income for a local person. If the blue paint were to come off onto people's fingertips, how many people would have blue fingers before the money finally left the community? The more times it changes hands, the better for that community."

Once you start looking at your spending patterns within your own community, ie watching pound coins as they leave your pocket, you realise that not only does that pound coin have an impact on your community - positive or negative depending on where you spend it - but how many of your other actions affect the place you live, and the community you work in.

Social capital has been a big phrase for quite some time and it is very difficult to assess but we all know it is as important sometimes as fiscal capital in its impact on communities. When trying to create a sustainable community project, such as the ones in Bolivia, what other factors will affect them? And what if by the very process of creating a project which is sustainable, you destroy some other vital part of the community by taking away the energy or the pound coins from those facets of life to sustain your project? How much work has been done on the assessment of community projects on the communities they serve?

Many of the projects I have seen or been involved with for deserving communities, even in a peripheral manner, have had initial funding and then folded. The reasons seem to be generally that there wasn't enough revenue funding ie funding the people behind them, and over and over again we see voluntary fatigue. Or the time limit is reached, the boxes are ticked and the project folds gently, or struggles along under its own steam. This constant generation and destruction of community projects must be slowly taking its toll.

What if projects were judged/assessed not on the new jobs they create, or the boxes they tick for NGOs and civil servants, but on how many blue fingers they leave in the community, and how long those fingers stay blue?

The things I forgot to mention

2005-05-05T14:30:00.000-07:00

Condors, everywhere, and now on film. Stunning, especially with the scenery. Haggling and buying from the artesans, crouched on the pavement, and in particular, those selling musical instruments who gave me impromptu and private concerts. The guys in Asuncion holding one end each of a large banner on poles who leapt out at road junctions and advertised shops on the next block, and then leapt back to the pavement when the lights changed. The kids in the banana plantations who had a banana box as a playpen to keep them from wandering onto the MDRoad. The ladies doing the washing in the rivers and waterfalls, with all the clothes strewn on rocks and cacti to dry. The kids sitting patiently and quietly next to the old men talking and chewing coca. (You could see that they would be doing this sitting, listening and talking for the rest of their lives. Russ in Spain recently told me he was really looking forward to getting to that stage of his life, sitting in the plaza with a few friends and discussing whatever topics - tertulias they are called - and it is part of a way of life Britain has lost, I think). The mad mountain bikers coming down the most dangerous road - no sign of risk assessments and lawsuit culture here! The number of people who just don't show up on the Bolivian census who live so far from anywhere and have no need for governance - they JFDI in life. The wizened and shrunken old ladies lugging their enormous packages of goods for sale in the multi-coloured shawls which double as display mats and carrier bags, miles from anywhere, heading to a distant town or village to sell their wares. The palm trees, banana trees, butterflies, and tropical luxury that hide the abject poverty. The cold, the heat, the humidity, the glacial ice, all in one day. The speed of the sunset - sun sinks gently behind a mountain, it goes dark kazam! The persistent steet vendors trying to flog you the most rancid looking piece of cheese, pasty, or a dust covered bottle of pop, warm and ancient! The packs of wild dogs in the mountains, the straggly haired but well-fed donkeys, the free range pigs at the side of the road in La Paz. Eating soup with a knife and fork on several occasions. The many different breads to eat when there is nothing else available. The friendliness of those we met - only 1 kiss on meeting and departure, not two as I'm used to in Spain. The men shake hands with one hand and pat on the shoulder or back with the other - it looks quite macho but intimate, friendly. The jokes Betsy (American) told in Spanish in the car! The family who had stopped on the most dangerous road next to one of the many waterfalls and rivers, and were just lowering a toddler into the fast-flowing and rocky river in an inflatable ring. The weird and wonderful things for sale in Sucre market on the Monday when I'd forgotten my camera. The dried cats in the witches' market. The woman jogging uphill in La Paz - we were at 3600m and climbing fast. The poodle in the jumper when it was 30+ degrees. The porter in the 5 star hotel in La Paz whose smart black suit was covered in dust from our luggage and car. The buses (flotas) coming round the corners on two wheels, overloaded with bags, boxes etc on their roofracks, who looked to be about to plunge downwards into the gorges as their smashed drivers fought their way to another beer, more coca etc at the end of the journey. The Argentinian restaurant in La Paz with the best meat on the planet. The amazing salad bars when we ate well in Sucre and La Paz. Huari beer, cold and delicious in Caranavi. The best child waiter on the planet at the Hotel Jatata, who I forgot to tip. He ran around the village to acquire pen and paper for me so I could write my notes. The atrocious child tuba player in El Villar who decided that playing outside the practise room would cheer up those playing volleyball. Not! The characteristic smell of api, choclo etc in villages all over. The slightly unexpected power of the chilli sauce in Alcala. The 'mad' French woman in Coroico who cooked the most incredible souffles, crepes, and lamb curry whilst being hostess, smoking and mixing with the guests in a multitude of languages all rolled into one! The impatience of Bolivian drivers at every junction, traffic light, traffic jam etc and the incredible cacophony of noise from horns of every type from wolf whistles to Dukes of Hazzard to air horns on Beetles. The demonstrations with drums and pipes as farmers protested the lack of diesel to harvest their crops. The growing feeling whilst we were there that the President would have to go/flee, as in Ecuador. The anger and frustration at the totally unnecessary regulation and bureaucracy to make these people's lives ever harder. The amazing community spirit and drive against all odds to make life better. JFDI.

All this and more made my trip to Bolivia a wealth of sights, sounds, smells and impressions that make me determined to return there.

For anyone who can't find Bolivia on a map (half my family it seems), and who thought it was a country of mountains, llamas, multicoloured women in black bowler hats, and no more, as I did - think again. Bolivia is a mini continent in its own right, and has the most inadequate tourist board on the planet. Visit it! You will never regret or forget it.

UK Blues

2005-05-05T13:30:00.000-07:00

Woke up this morning in yet another unfamiliar bed. Befuddled brain took a good 10 secs to work out it was my own!

Long, grievous journey back, made worse by first my e-ticket being unacceptable for the first leg of the journey from Bolivia to Brazil. Had to unpack entire belongings next to check in to prove I had no other ticket that would serve, and ended up catching flight by skin of my teeth. That repacking meant that my Ipaq went in my hold baggage not my hand luggage in the rush, and is no more. So, that was the second bit of grief - various other items have also been nicked during the journey so now I have to sort out the insurance. Trouble is, some of what went is of no real monetary value to claim on (a few dollars literally) but were pressies for the girls that I had chosen and haggled over.

However, luckily I bought a lot of stuff and the girls now have ponchos, jumpers, hats, jewellery, hair braids, instruments etc. And the hammocks made it back too so Ant has a multi-coloured hammock to thank him for looking after two sprogs at a very busy time of the year for him.

The overwhelming feeling about the trip now I can almost look back on it (brain still very fuzzy - maybe it's the low altitude!) is that 1) there are plenty of opportunities out there that I am very interested in seeing happen and 2) there are lessons learnt that that apply strongly here with all I am involved in now eg CBN, carrier, CAN in a Box etc. The aim is to use today to tie up some work that needs finishing from before I went, plus writing my report for IICD, and getting some of the stuff in my head written down for CBN etc.

I think there are very valuable lessons learnt from the main aim of my visit which was to try to help the telecentres and the communities they support to achieve sustainability by extending their infrastructure, sharing costs, facilitating champions and evangelists within the community, adding services etc. In fact, we broke it down to
sustainability = improved infrastructure + working 'processes' + content

CANs in UK also require the same type of 'improvements', although in some cases now this is so external observers realise what is actually happening within them rather than for the networks themselves to improve. In Bolivia, telecoms are so poor, not only in coverage and availability but in the ludicrous and unnecessary complexity of the way they run, and regulation, that it is almost inevitable that what you build by improving the infrastructure is a Next Generation Network. And that is what CANs are generally doing in UK, and what new CANs will do this year and next, before BT roll out their 21CN. (See Marconi lost out on that one and are now in dire straits, anyone know who won into it? Bit behind on news on that front!)

So, now it's headlong into the fray again now I'm awake though a little groggy. I'm going to keep the Blog going as my own personal record of the months to come as my other Blogs have all been abandoned for this one anyway! Sadly, no more photos from that camera for now as I dropped it whilst uploading the final photos and it needs repairing. Sorry, Richard! Chau chau

Oh, and is there an election on or summat?! I don't think I'll be voting today because it all seems like they are talking the utmost crap from the little I have read in the 36 hour journey from British papers, and it all boils down to DIY and JFDI anyway, which I don't need an MP whose policies I don't agree (hardline Tories in rural areas) with to do!

Last Post from South America?

2005-05-02T23:35:00.000-07:00

So, we have to talk about this road. It was terrifying. Worse coming back because I knew what to expect, and we stopped more frequently on the way back so I could calm down - Rescue Remedy and nicotine were all I had. Wish I'd bought a bottle of Singani to neck as it really was a bit much. Even when there was nothing coming the other way down this single track road, the size of the drop was just too much. Especially when you really couldn't see any sign of any road beneath you, just thousands of metres drop.

Meeting other vehicles meant that when driving down hill, you had to back up until he could pass. The Bolivians are clueless about reversing, and the mirrors were covered in dust so you couldn't see out of them anyway. The best route I decided was to get out of the vehicle and film the chaos, rather than risk being driven over the edge.

Actually, I must say that our driver, Jose Luis, was a cut above most of the other drivers we watched. It turned out that he used to be the chofer (Spanish spelling) for the ex-President so he really was far far better than other drivers. Even so, it wasn't an experience I'm going to be in a rush to repeat.

I will upload some video from the phone as soon as I get back to UK so you can all share the experience! The journey took 7 hours in total and I was exhausted by the end of it. Leaning to the right constantly to try to ensure the car stays on the road by will power and all 8 stone of me really takes it out of you.

We finally arrived in Caranavi and went to our hotel which had a fairly big pool and the rooms were OK. Basic but they had a fan, which was essential as it was hellish hot. We went to the Telecentre and had a meeting with them. They have one of the best connections out of all the telecentres but didn't seem to quite have the same oomph as some of the others. Probably because the person who is in charge doesn't live in Caranavi and I can't blame him for not dropping in very often! Actually, parachute or white water rafting down the river would be infinitely more preferable than that road, we decided.

Went and did some shopping, supposedly for a swimming costume but couldn't find one and the sun was just about to drop behind a very high mountain when we finally got back to the hotel, and it got dark really suddenly so I never did get a swim. I stayed in the hotel to work and drink a well deserved beer whilst Liang went out, and the hotel owner came over and started asking for a quote for an Internet connection. Of course, it ended up going a bit further and he is now getting a quote for sharing the Telecentre connection, 3 or 4 computers, and a wireless network around the hotel for guests. Funny how these things happen!

Went to sleep quite early, and in the morning woke up to see a huge amount of mist. We were supposed to be leaving early for Coroico but no-one in their right mind would drive that road in this weather so we sat around till it started to clear, about 12. Then it was a five or 6 hours journey to Coroico, which is a hill village that is pretty touristy. Because of the May Day holidays, there were no hotel rooms left anywhere. We ended up sleeping in what could only really be described as a garage! Anyway, sleep was desperately needed by the time we'd found somewhere to stay, been to a mega French restaurant - I had lamb curry - and got back to the hotel This going to sleep at 10pm is very odd but it seems to work quite interestingly as I've had to get up really early every day.

Am rushing this as I am now back in Santa Cruz, and have to try and pack a huge amount of stuff into a limited number of bags tonight as I fly home in the morning. I went to the Witches market in La Paz earlier today and it was freaky! I just can't believe some of the stuff they were selling. Dried cats, llama foetus', wooden icons etc. Anyway, that was one of today's experiences but also managed to get some more funky pressies at the last minute. Seem to have done a serious amount of travelling on this trip, 2 more flights and 5 hours driving today alone.

Have uploaded some more photos, but still got a lot to do and had to put a lot on the phone so can't get at those till I'm near a bluetooth dongle again. Arrived back at Alberto#s this evening to find everything in chaos as they discovered they had termites so the whole house has been fumigated and all the clothes etc are piled up all over the place so that the fumigators could get at all the wood work, which is a fairly integral part of this house as you can see from the photos.

Should be home Weds morning, and will be on a really weird schedule till at least the weekend because I'll be 5 hours ahead of UK, so don't expect any late nights from me guys until I get back to normal!! Thanks for all your comments, I'll try and remember some other things that have happened that I have meant to post about but in the meantime, thanks for all your comments, and next time I post I'll either be stuck in some bloody airport unexpectedly, or I'll be home with the girls, who I've missed loads. Chau chau.

2005-05-02T21:32:00.000-07:00

7 hours on this road. We were driving on the left so you can guess how narrow it was

2005-05-02T20:27:00.000-07:00

View from near Coroico, where we saw lots and lots of condors

Nature & Nurture

2005-04-30T16:15:00.000-07:00

Well, a 7 hour journey. I wish I could say, "Never again," but we have to go back! I´ll post about the journey later, first I wanna say about where we are. This is Caranavi, and they do reckon they have a claim to the Garden of Eden stuff. I think they might be right. I´ve never seen so many butterflies in my life for starters, and every colour and size. Some are yellow underneath and purple on top and as big as my hands, others are white and then ultraviolet blue when the sun hits their wings. Others are electric blue, or bright orange, or crimson, or every shade of yellow, or black and pink, or you name it, I´ve seen one that colour today!

Also seen tons of ave marias which I reckon are eagles of some description. Bloody huge until I try to take a photo and they suddenly turn into small black dots! The countryside is totally stunning, I just wish we hadn´t had to drive that road to see it! As we came out of La Paz and hit 4500m, you hit La Cumbre (the summit) where the peaks are covered in glacial ice. There was a lake and then....yeehah....at long last, a herd of llamas! Phew, I thought all I knew about Bolivia was wrong! So, seen me llamas, and the women in multicoloured shawls and black hats, just not together! So, that´s blown that image of Bolivia right out of the water.

There was quite a lot of snow on the tops, even though it´s not really winter yet, and it wasn´t exactly warm - I was wearing a tshirt, big thick woolly jumper from Tarabuco, and my fleecy coat (Oh and jeans and boots of course!). Now I am wearing the tshirt and jeans and would far rather be in a swimming pool - it is cooking, must be up around 30+degrees. In fact, that is the weird bit, it truly is how you would imagine ´tropical´ - banana trees eveywhere, vines hanging down from trees, butterflies everywhere, and bloody hot and humid! And not how I imagined Bolivia Central. Well, actually we´re to the east of La Paz I think and about 600m up. So, we´ve dropped nearly 4000m in total.

The hotel Jatata has a pool, and of course this time I´ve left my swimming costume in Santa Cruz - last time it was my coat! This is quite a big town, truck heaven as of course anyone who can make it here probably has to fix their vehicle! It´s market day so I´m off to buy shorts, a cossie, and some sandals. I think I might have persuaded Liang that we do not need to leave for Coroico early tomorrow morning and that we could possibly chill out here a short while. After all, there I was in the jacuzzi bath in a 5star hotel at midnight just to try and make the most of the facilities and I was in the hotel less than 12 hours in total. Now it´s sunny and hot and I want to swim and sunbathe a little and think about everything without worrying about what is coming round the next corner.

I didn´nt get to sleep until 3.30am anyway. The altitude really got to me and I drank every bottle of water in the fridge before my body would allow me to close my eyes at all. I have never ever been that thirsty in my life and I started worrying my brain would explode at some point but I think it´s still as useless as ever!

The world´s most dangerous road

2005-04-30T16:14:00.000-07:00

Yep, it is. And what makes it doubly dangerous are the Bolivian drivers. When you want to drive a car in Bolivia, you apply for a driving licence. It seems to require visiting several hundred different offices etc. Then you are allowed to drive an under powered car. When you´ve done that for 5 years, you can apply to drive a bigger car, like a 4x4. Drive one of those for 5 years, and you are automatically qualifiued (how????????) to drive a truck or bus or anything else you fancy scaring the pants off people with.

And that´s who we were meeting on this road. We were only a little over an hour out of La Paz when the police pulled us over. But, no trouble, just half the road had fallen away so there was a diversion. Now in Spanish, the word ´diversion´ means ´fun´. Never confuse the two.

I´ll be back

La Paz

2005-04-29T20:49:00.000-07:00

omigodomigodomigodomigod it's fab!!!!!!

You land at 4100m, the plane has to almost go up to land! And the air is so rarefied that the lights twinkle and all the white lights look green which makes the city look amazing. Then you come down from the alto to La Paz city at 3600m, and we have come down even further (3200m) to the hotel, Casa Grande, which is superb. I have a suite and wait till you see the photos of it, it's probably one of the best places I have stayed in the last few months! Bearing in mind Ithis is the third 5 star hotel I have been in recently, I must stop complaining at how crap working in broadband is!! Even the loo roll is folded with a little fan of paper, and there are mega chocs on the table, but of course I don't eat chocolate so maybe I'll nick them and see how they travel!

I've just read some bits in Footprint Bolivia which I didn't know. Like the road we are going on tomorrow is considered the most dangerous road in the world. Like I wasn't bricking it anyway! Here's a line from the book, "Bolivia is weird....it's the kind of place where you start taking the strangest things for granted. Like sitting next to an alligator on the bus, sharing a taxi with a pile of llama foetuses, or waiting behind a group of piglets at the check-ion desk." So my trip so far has been tame!!

The best bit about La Paz is that it has International Harvesters. For those of you who don't know, that's a Yankee school bus and I have wanted one for as long as I can remember to live in. So, Bolivia is now perfect for me!

There is a DLink access point in every room and ADSL (I think it might even be real ADSL ie with some bandwidth to it as they call everything ADSL here even if it's 64k down!) so I'm prob going to borrow a free laptop from reception and post some stuff tonight and make the most of this book and some time to surf.....

Quick bit of culture. Butch Cassidy and Sundance came here to die in a tiny village in the altiplano called San Vicente. Also, Che came here to start a revolution and was executed in a miserable hamlet in the middle of nowhere called La Higuera. And for some British stuff - a british diplomat caused a crisis in La Pazjust over a century ago when he slagged off the local drink, chicha when it was served to him by the incumbent dictator. As punishment, he was forced to drink a barrel of chocolate and paraded naked around La Paz strapped to a donkey. Queen Victoria was not overly impressed at this treatment of one of her diplomats, so she demanded a map of South America, drew a great big cross through Bolivia and declared, "Bolivia doesn't exist". Luckily, things seem to have improved for us brits!

Anyway, off to make the most of this funky accommodation.

Cheers for the scarecrow parade pic Chris, any more whilst I'm on this fat pipe? Try hello for video, it's ace for sharing photos and maybe it'll work for your videos too. Otherwise what about Bittorrent for sharing them? It's pretty easy to convert them to torrents and then everyone can see them.

photos

2005-04-29T17:00:00.000-07:00

First photo album is
here
Second photo album is
here
Third photo album is
here
I can only upload 90 more photos into this free account. It is probable that I will take many more than that over the coming 4-5 days. If anyone can find me another place to upload stuff for free, can you post in the comments?

I am going to La Paz tonight (nowish), then to Caranavi in the morning to the telecentre there. Then Sunday morning we are going to Coroico. Monday morning back to La Paz and I hope to have time to go to Lake Titicaca before leaving La Paz at 7pm for Santa Cruz. Flights home start on Tuesday morning and within 30hrs I should be back at Newcastle, probably totally unfit to remember where my car is let alone drive it!!!

If anyone can find any links to sites with info on caranavi or coroico please do post them, I ain't had time to look beyond what I found about the road!

And all you lurkers, post a comment!!! Rotten lot. ;o)

skype costs

2005-04-29T15:08:00.000-07:00

We are on a 64k line here, contended at 75:1. Just phoned a mobile in UK. 1m 24secs, quality not great but good enough when it costs only 30c ie 20p ish. You can live with it if you can make yourself understood at that price. New infrastructure due to go in here in Santa Cruz in next few months, then Skype puts all Entel calls to shame. 1Bs (12.5c to a local landline), 3Bs /min to a local mobile. There are complex mobile problems here in that you cannot make national calls on some operators etc and it can cost a fortune to make international calls as I discovered when trying to sort out the flights, when I spent some 100Bs (12 US dollars speaking for well under 5 mins in total).

carrot sauce

2005-04-29T13:26:00.000-07:00

The food is really healthy in this house. We have just had almuerzo (lunch) and I have managed to acquire the recipe for a wicked carrot sauce which we had with rice (which had little bits of veg and ham in), roast chicken pieces, salad and boiled potatoes and some other thing which I think might be boiled yucca.

So I can remember how to make it when I get home:

Peel and boil carrots, liquidise. Make a fine white sauce with cornflour, add some cheese, an egg, and some top of the milk, mix well with the carrot mush, and stick in the oven for a short time. Pour over boiled potatoes and yucca and it is gorgeous!

Teresa the maid is really friendly and all my clothes are nearly dry, and very clean! It's windy today and cold, well, so they tell me. It has become easier to just agree with them! At a guess, it's about 19 degrees, cloudy and most pleasant for this 'ere northern European.

The Dutch travel agency have pulled their fingers out and you will be pleased to hear I have a flight home on Tuesday. The girls were! Thanks to Joel and Mike for looking into alternatives to bring me back. It's going to cost me a total of 100quid to change the flights which isn't bad considering it was 'after the event'.

Just been in Skype chat with Chris and it sounds as though Wray is overflowing with people, press and dignatries/dignatories/dignataries (how do you spell it?!). Brief discussion about a new game where you have to build your own CAN. Sort of CAN in a Box role play/sim game. Might help us qualify exactly what you _do_ need to do to get a CAN off the ground and to sustainability. As this weekend is supposed to be part work and part play, I might think about this a little more as I think it could have some mileage.

We have been talking lots about capacitacion (I can't think of the exact translation of this, Google says qualification but that's not quite it), and the need for the adminstrators etc of the Telecentres to receive capacitacion courses in order to learn to run the centres smoothly and easily. There is also a need for standardisation of process and practice across the centres in order to make life easier and build a 'brand'. It is far easier to teach people when they are having fun, so maybe the game could be one way forward to CAN operators? Not necessarily the techies but definitely those in the front line, or customer facing.

Anyway, off to try and get an ever-growing pile of stuff packed. Luckily, I am coming back to SC earlier on Monday so I can leave things here for the weekend, and pick them up before the flight on Tuesday to Sao Paolo. I now need to sort out some cash, which means flogging the laptop today, so I will be on hotel and cybercafe connections from now on. Bye Bye Florence - she has served me and a couple of CANs well over the last 5 years but it's time to live here now and be a LatAmLaptop. Chau.

2005-04-29T10:57:00.000-07:00

where I am sitting now after lunch

Photo tools

2005-04-29T00:00:00.000-07:00

As you can see, I have discovered how to put photos in my blog. This is quite a cool tool, and I'm quite impressed by it as it saves on hefty uploads. It's called Hello from Picasa, and it's sort of IM. Hello lets you talk to people whilst sharing photos with them, and you can also use it to 'chat' to your Blog and dump photos into your posts, including ones you have already published. The Picasa bit of it is a photo management tool which is quite funky as well. It's all owned by Google so it's fairly seamless with Blogger, which they also own.

I can see the IM side of it turning into video etc quite shortly so you can watch a film with friends and chat about it whilst you watch even if you are on different sides of the planet. They have this in Korea already with the shopping channels etc. We are so far behind, it's untrue!

Oh, and what's this I read from Esme about 1Gbps in Hong Kong? Oh god........and the price for their entry level 10Mbps service? $16 US a month. Don't give me tons of excuses about high rise blocks and the ease of installations, as that's just saying it will cost us slightly more to do it. It doesn't tell me why we aren't even close to this level of connectivity. When your election candidate knocks on your door, or you see them in the street, ask them how they are going to help us compete with the rest of the world.

Flying high

2005-04-28T23:27:00.000-07:00

Am trying to find a route home after the Dutch travel agency cocked up changing my return flight and made it impossible for me to do so from this end with BA.

Have just found one that would turn this trip into a comprehensive world tour!

On the way here I went Newcastle, Heathrow, Sao Paolo (Brasil), Asuncion (Paraguay), Bolivia. I will have been on 4 domestic flights whilst here, and the cheapest return I can find is La Paz (that would mean only 3 domestic flights as there would be no point coming back to Santa Cruz and then flying back to LP!) to Lima (Peru), Caracas (Venezuela), Paris, Newcastle. Grand total during trip of 11 flights and 7 countries in two weeks! Not bad going, huh?

Anyone with a friendly travel agent who could help get me home on Tuesday? It's really quite important ;o) Not only do I want to get home to my kids who I miss tons, but I have a life to get back to, a website to launch, and much more!

Up the ante

2005-04-28T19:29:00.000-07:00

Liang has just phoned to say that hiring a driver to get to Caranavi is going to cost 450 dollars. I offered to drive a hire car instead as neither of us can face the bus journey, which is renowned. BUT, I have just spoken to Alberto's dad and he says it would be a very bad idea for me to drive. His description of the road is enough to put anyone off going - the road is narrow in places, and the vehicle coming up the hill has priority so you have to reverse until he can pass. This can quite often be on the side of the road next to the precipice and you can be knocked off the edge by the tail of the vehicle as it goes round the curve. Apparently there are lots of accidents. I'm going to have a word with Liang but Alberto's dad, who is a very good lawyer judging by the house, has started phoning round his normal chauffeurs to find one he can trust to take us. He says anyone that knows the road and is a good driver will manage without difficulty. That's OK then.

I can feel the comments piling in after this post..............I'm going to sleep on this as it may or may not be a good idea to go visit this telecentre.

Family

2005-04-28T19:00:00.000-07:00

Staying in a family home is really nice as it gives you a true feel of how a country works. Everyone goes home from work or school for lunch here at around 1pm. They ahve at least an hour for lunch and often more. It is something which we seem to be particularly bad at in the UK - sitting round a table and eating as a family. I know I am pretty bad at making sure we sit down and eat together, we tend to do it round the TV. And I can't imagine the kids coming home from school for lunch, even though school is so close.

I'm missing my family noticeably so it's nice to be in someone else's. Tara has been sending me emails, which is great, although reading such long mails without a single full stop in sight is hard at altitude!! ;o)

The other really nice thing about Latin America, and it is also obvious in Spain and probably other countries too, is the hospitality. People just wander in and join in the meal - friends of the kids, relations etc - here. Even foreigners are welcome!!

2005-04-28T17:56:00.000-07:00

nice place to grow up!

Transformers

2005-04-28T17:00:00.000-07:00

Picked my bags up from the Asturias last night and got a taxi to the condo. Climbed in the front to be faced by a dashboard and a very large hole where the steering column used to be. Weird! There are some 12,000 of these cars in santa Cruz according to a newspaper I found from February, and they are imported from Japan on the whole and 10 percent from the UK. These are cars which have reached the end of their useful life in their home country, are a minimum of 8 years old, and they are shipped en masse to Bolivia and transformed on the border. Obviously, this is not great for car importers here who are trying to bring in better cars, nor is it great for the environment. The one I was in was knackered! Screeching fan belt, no window winders, invisible brakes, etc. Must remember to use Carmelo every time I want to go anywhere!

Washing

2005-04-28T16:48:00.000-07:00

Hmm, been away over a week and running out of clothes fast so decided to ask if I could use the washing machine. There isn't one! In fact, importing washing machines might be quite lucrative as this country seems to have a massive shortage of them. The really nice 'maid' Theresa (I think but there are two of them and 4 kids and other family members etc popping in and out all the time and I'm getting confused on names!) has offered to do it for me by hand. I feel quite guilty but she insisted and at least this way I'll have a pair of clean jeans and a couple of tshirts for the next few days. My capabilities as a Mrs Tiggywinkle are limited, as I discovered in India and also in Spain when we used to wash the clothes in the river up in the mountains. However, it also means that I haven't given her all of it so I've got to lug around a load of dirty washing for the rest of the time. At that stage it gets quite tempting to jsut start binning clothes. pretty much the same attitude I have when there is loads of washing up to do! Either that or move house!

No multitasking here

2005-04-28T16:06:00.000-07:00

The connections available in Santa Cruz are so impoverished - this is a city of over a million people, that I can only do one thing at once. Eg, I can upload photos, or I can write the Blog, or I can check my email. Photos are priority as I need to clear the camera out before the next phase of the trip.

I have just walked into a glass door, hard, and suspect I have quite an interesting bruise developing on my nose and forehead! When you see the photos of Alberto's house, you will know why I wasn't looking where I was going!! The link for the photos is this I think. That's the first album as I can only put 100 photos in each album and am only allowed 240 altogether so I'll have to wait till I get back to UK to put the ones from La Paz etc onto a website somewhere.

Bolivia generally

2005-04-28T12:00:00.000-07:00

Great encyclopedia article on Bolivia

Have found the above article which has a wealth of information and some decent photos.

The plan for the next few days is to chill out today and tomorrow here in Santa Cruz and then go to La Paz on Friday evening. Have been told how to cope with the altitude by a multitude of people. And there's more scary info here! It affects everyone differently apparently, and the hotel I will be staying at is 500m below La Paz which can make quite a big difference. There are some pills which you can get from the chemist so I'll take those before I go. Also, you should eat very light food during the day and nothing at night. Also, the usual, avoid alcohol and fags. Actually, I have been avoiding alcohol pretty much anyway as there is too much to see and do to waste time sitting in bars. However, I must admit that Jorge told me about a local aguardiente from the place he was born and I tried that with 7 up the other night. Now if I could only remember what it was called! Ah yes chuflay when it's a cocktail and the alcohol itself is called Singani. We also had a Huari which is very typical Bolivian beer.

Anyway, the plan is to leave La Paz on Saturday morning and we have a three hour drive to the next project. I have been told that the road to this place is absolutely terrifying so I hope we have a decent driver. Or I'll end up walking! We have to pass a summit of around 5000m first which is going to be a trial but hopefully then the descent will ease the altitude problems, if there are any. It seems it turns tropical quite quickly from this article.

Las Yungas is supposed to be one of the most beautiful parts of Bolivia- valleys between the altiplano and the Amazon basin, tropical jungly sort of stuff. I'm really hoping that this trip won't be as madly rushed as the others because I really do not want to miss seeing Lake Titicaca too. According to Alberto's dad, it is the highest lake in the world and bearing in mind how far we are from the sea, get this, it's salt water! Anyway, off to upload more photos and send out the email invites which I have just realised I have forgotten to do!

Sucre park

2005-04-28T11:02:00.000-07:00

Am back in Santa Cruz, staying at Alberto's house and have some free time to write some of the things that I haven't had time to write previously. I also managed to upload some photos last night. Sadly, I don't seem to be able to load photos into my Blog on Firefox which is all I have on the laptop. So, if you want to see photos and haven't received an email invite, let me know and I'll send you one. And if anyone knows of a decent online album that generates a weblink let me know!

So, last Sunday I went to Sucre park. It was warm and sunny and I was chilling out on a park bench, writing some notes on the CBN website etc, when my first 'visitor' came along. He was a clown, who spoke reasonable English and seemed determined to entertain me. I wasn't madly up for it, and eventually he toned it down a little and just asked normal questions, like where are you from, why are you here etc. He wandered off to harrass others like me, reading and being tranquila, and got fairly similar reactions ie get out of my space you overpainted, multicoloured lunatic!

Next along was Enrique, a bloke dressed up very badly as a woman. He had huge painted lips, hearts painted on his cheeks, a red flowery dress, and balloons stuck down his front and his rear. He was selling chewing gum for a living. I'd seen him in the market the previous day so he recognised me and came over. He wanted to know what I ahd the night before (not a great deal), whether I liked Sucre, and a host of other questions that were in such atrocious English I couldn't begin to fathom what he was on about! Eventually, to my relief, he left me alone too!

Peace again, but not for long. An old man in very grubby clothes came and sat at the other end of the bench. Most of the campesinos here have fairly dirty clothes, tied together with string, and that don't fit properly, and it is just a symbol of the absolute poverty here. After about 20 minutes, when I had been able to get on with my work undisturbed apart from a constant gaggle of shoe shine boys who won't take no for an answer, even when you tell them, "I like my boots dirty", the old man turned to me and asked if I was at the University.

Sucre is a university town and has about 12,000 students (I think) and more than one university. "No, I am here working." It turned out that in his mind anyone who could write must be at the University. He told me he was from a village beyond Potosi, which is where the lead mines are. I guess one day it would be nice to go to Potosi as I have learned several odds and sods about it and there seem to be arrows pointing that way, but it won't be this trip. Anyway, he had a coat over one arm, hiding his hand, and it fell off. I saw his hand and nearly threw up. If you haven't got a strong stomach, read another post!

It turned out he had spent almost a week in Sucre trying to get medical attention. He had been in a lorry transporting goods to market and it had overturned. Not a rare occurrence considering the way they drive and the state of the roads. His arm had got trapped under the lorry. Anyway, he had come down to Sucre, and had seen several doctors in the free clinics, but without money they wouldn't treat him. Yes, yes, it could have been a scam but you didn't see his hand and arm. His hand had got infected and was a fairly revolting bluey, greeny, purple colour and several of his fingers were desperately swollen. His arm was a prime example of blood poisoning. He showed me the prescriptions and I debated going back to the hotel and grabbing the antibiotics I have left, after all penicillin is penicillin innit? And this was someone who had probably never had antibiotics in his life so they should work. Hmm, but I'm not a doctor and if it was possible to make things worse, I guess I'm capable of that.

The other prescription was for anaesthesia. At that point, he told me that he had to go back up to the clinic at 3.30 with the medicines so they could chop his hand off. Looking at it, I don't see that they had much choice. However, if he didn't have the
medications, they wouldn't do it. Dunno why, as he was hardly like to sue them if anything went wrong. The young doctor had already said he would do his part for free, so all he needed was the money for the prescriptions. I couldn't really face looking at his arm for much longer, nor did I know whether this was a scam or not, but whatever this guy was in desperate pain and to either alleviate my guilt at never having had to worry about any such thing as losing my arm for the sake of less than a tenner, or his pain, I gave him 10 dollars which would cover the medicines and all but 15 Bs of the treatment and told him I hoped everything worked out. I don't actually know if he was telling me because he wanted money, because at that point his eyes filled up and he seemed quite overwhelmed that I had given him money and thanked me until I couldn't really cope with much more. I left the park and its inhabitants and went back to the hotel for a cup of tea and a slightly less overwhelming environment.

The park before the 'storm'

In Sucre again

2005-04-26T14:25:00.000-07:00

My head is spinning!! We have just driven for 6 hours to get back in time for both Sherman and I to catch flights to Santa Cruz and we are both still in Sucre, hours after our flights left! More about that saga later! We drove through the most incredible mountainous scenery, this time in brilliant sunshine instead of pouring rain at night, have stopped in a village called hmm Tacaburo I think at 3000+m to buy yet more pressies for the girls, and one for Anthony for doing a sterling job looking after them in my absence. I will say here how much I appreciate what he is doing and what it is enabling me to do.

I have had to change the settings on the camera to lower resolution so I could take enough photos to even begin to capture what I am seeing. What we have discussed throughout this mammoth road trip, over meals, in meetings etc is the cause of my spinning head. The potential here is huge, and some people might be very surprised to hear this but this place is actually, in some ways, more advanced than UK. The difficulties which have to be overcome just to get through each day are immense - we´re talking 20-100 miles between villages here, on foot. To get to the market town it is 5 hours drive on a good day. In the rainy season, ie now, the roads can be entirely closed off for days or longer. And this means that in some ways they are leapfrogging the developing world because there isn´t quite as much bureaucracy nearby to contact or to deal with to make something happen that is inevitable and essential.

So, what are we proposing here? The projects I am ´consulting´ for are changing people´s lives. Drastically. They are giving them access to information, and in some cases it may seem very simple, but it has never been available before. Each day, in the window of the Telecentres are posted the market prices for all the agricultural products, from lentils and maize, through to exotic fruits etc so that the local producers can consider their choices about what they could grow, can see what they can expect for their harvest, take note of trends, etc. They bulk buy fertiliser, seeds, etc as part of a club. They have access to national and international contacts for marketing their products into new markets, discovering about exports etc. Many of these people can´t read so they come to the Telecentre to get help with letters, or regulations, etc.

I was told a story of 2 people who come to the Telecentre regularly now. One was taught to read many years but has forgotten through lack of use, the other is now learning. They are both learning to type and take it in turns to read out URLs whilst the other types them and they are surfing the internet looking for information to help them improve their lives.

Most of the telecentres do not have broadband in any shape or form. Only 2 have an ADSL connection. But many of these villages have no phones, at all. Some have one phone line which is housed in a public call centre. Imagine if you live 20miles or more from the village? Medical help is slow coming, if you can get any without travelling 100km or more to a clinic to find it yourself. This is a world apart from UK. We drove a total of 220km on our road trip - felt one helluva lot more!

Well, I guess I´d better mention that I´ve been asked to stay on a few more days so I can go to La Paz and see 2 projects in the altiplano - I was wrong about where we were going before, Chuquisaca is in the south of Bolivia and isn´t the altiplano, even though we´ve been up to 3200m. It´s the Highland Valleys, aprt of the central cordillera that we´ve been to. La Paz and the projects up there are 3600m+ and apparently life down here is pretty easy compared to there. That might tax me a little as I´ve had problems coming to terms with the idea of walking 20miles to talk to someone and then finding they are not in, let alone getting medical treatment, shopping, going to school etc. But before I go there, I have been invited to stay in Santa Cruz for a few days and I intend to go to the national park just outside if I can remember what it is called! I think it´s Espejillos, and with any luck I can chill out until Friday when I am flying to La Paz.

Ouch!

2005-04-25T22:33:00.000-07:00

16 hours in a 4x4, on roads that don´t deserve that name, mud, fording rivers, cliffs that have collapsed as we drive under them, amazing views of wild, mountainous scenes through trees and fields of maize, tiny muddy villages, donkeys led by women in multi-coloured shawls, overladen with multi-coloured sacks of carrots, onions, maize, etc, children riding ponies late at night miles from anywhere obviously returning from a distant mission, and much, much more.

Communities where they have set up community telecentres where community includes the college, the mayor´s office (local council), the school, and the local farmers´ association. We´ve had three such meetings since 5am, across a large area of Chuquisaca. Yes, the connection is too expensive but the projects aren´t making money on that, it´s just normal satellite stuff. The people here are SO poor, it is challenging to think of places where additional money can be raised to support the centres, and all they wish to do in collaboration. But everyone has shown support of the value of the projects, and emphasised the need for the Internet connections.

We´ve been to two plants run by farmers´co-operatives. One which dealt mainly with peanuts, and one that dealt mainly with maize. They are run in the most organised way, and it makes me realise that herding cats only happens when people have too much choice. These guys have set up a ´club of clubs´ which collects, processes, packets, and sells the products - organic food direct from the growers. They are still battling the legacy of being known for exporting contraband and struggling to find markets abroad.

How do you go about engaging the people? Well, it seems it slowly happens and you reel them in slowly, catching them with something simple that takes their imagination, until their curiosity and need to learn takes over. And the numbers grow.

I´m hearing the same things again and again. Now it is that Ticbolivia has a group of people with unrivalled skills. That there are opportunities to be exploited, networks to grow, and money for these so terribly poor communities. But some of it may need to come from within by diverting money going currently to the incumbent. And one thing which can be transported back across the Atlantic is the olde worlde opportunities that are creating new jobs here. Taking phone messages for people on the only phone there is in the community, providing information about market prices for locally produced products, and contacts (regional, national and international) for sales and marketing of the products from here, and creating an unmissable local radio station.

Today has been really quite astounding. Finding a small pig attached to the bottom of the satellite pole in amongst many fig trees in the garden of the council buildings in muddy El Villar has to be the moment of the day, although there were many more that came very close! Elisabeth and I are going to stay in proper alojamiento rather than in the bunk room attached to the Telecentre, where you only get one blanket, and it´s so cold and we are so tired.......Back to Sucre first thing in the morning, and maybe then I will find out if I can stay a little longer.

I´´ll be back. There are courses and events to run here as well as networks to build.....:o)

This little piggy had a Net connection....

Up, up and away

2005-04-25T15:59:00.000-07:00

Went for a meal in Joyride last night and met Tatiana who is doing wicked things with Skype to provide news bulletings to remote areas over community radio.

Joyride cafe

Early night and we left Sucre at 5am this morning. I´ve got bruises on bruises! You can´t really say we´ve been offroading as we were on the main roads, fairly amazing. Most people don´t have cars and I think we have passed probably 3 times as many people walking as vehicles.

It was absolutely hurling it down when we left which made for exciting driving, and it was also freezing. Within the first hour, we had to wipe shampoo on the inside of the windows to prevent it fogging up, and then came round a corner to find an idiot in a white 4x4 had gone straight into someone coming up the hill. That gave an opportunity to get some photos of the scenery from outside the vehicle.

We arrived in Alcala and had a look at their set up. get this, they have a satellite but it only gives 128k and 19.2k up, so no Skype except to listen to. The folks here have it all upside down compared to the Brits. Here it is, you ahve brought us the internet, but when are we getting a phone line. There was a meeting of the local council, institute, the telecentre, and various others to discuss what could be improved about the Telecentre, etc. I´ve heard all the complaints and suggestions before, and it didn´t take tlong to see they want everything for free (including a training course to help local people master the basics of computers at 10Bs- just over $1), and the connection is too expensive so although they freely admit it´s essential, they won´t pay.

Asked how much local people spend on making phone calls - there is one phone in the village - and it´s about 10Bs a week. It doesn´t seem like a difficult bit of Maths to work out that the money they are giving to the local telephone company would support a far better satellite connection and you could prob provide Skype phones so they could have mobile coverage in the vilalge over wi-fi.

Biggest problem is how on earth you make money out of these connections beyond phone calls. Folk here earn about 20Bs a day, and that won´t be 365 days a year. Anyway, this will all have to be thought through a bit as it seems to make far more sense to spend any money on internet and phone rather than a crap phone line that goes down at the first sign of rain - 4 months a year!

We are now in El Villar which is a tiny village with two foot deep mud instead of roads. I presume there is no way to keep yourself or your house clean and it must get pretty depressing. We´ve had to wade (in the car) through several rivers - funky! I´ve been totally enjoying the whole experience! We are now on our say to Sopachuy - pronounced Super Chewy - to spend the night, and then back to Sucre in the morning, because there is some Champions League football match on! Then back to Santa Cruz for me and hopefully a changed flight so I can stay a few more days. I will be gutted if I have to come home already.

There is so much potential here because no-one is really doing anything, but I think the regulations might be the killer. More later when we get to SuperChewy.

Joys of Skype

2005-04-24T14:51:00.000-07:00

Just spent an hour listening to K play the guitar, T complaining about a splinter, catching up on Corrers, asking if I can stay longer, hearing about what they have all been up to since I left etc. Grand cost less then 20p. Dread to think how poor I would now be if I´d used the cabins but I think it´s about 40p a minute from there. There is a minor lag but not enough to prevent T whittering away!!

The software used is from Tinasoft and called Easycafe. You seem to be able to download anything you want so there are PCs all round Sucre now with Skype and Yahoo messenger.

Cheap and expensive

2005-04-23T17:36:00.000-07:00

Well, the nearest cybercafe costs a whopping 20p an hour to connect to their ADSL so I´m pretty impressed by that. They must have got their numbers wrong, I just don´t see how that can pay! 2 Bolivars an hour, 8 Bs to the dollar....

And I´ve just been for the most expensive meal ever. 26Bs. 15 is more normal but then you start thinking about just how much that is! Bought some woolly things cos I´ve been drifting around a bit this afternoon/evening with dollars burning holes in my pockets.

Been into the market which is quite an experience, sprawling across several streets and up and down all sorts of alleyways. But weirdly, I couldn´t find a single tshirt and that´s what I need most desperately!

There is a cybercafe every 20 ft or so, and they seem very well used. There is also a LANgaming ´bhang´ opposite this one which is chocka full of kids. They have never heard of recycling in Bolivia but they sure know how to surf.

I can´t cope with being noticeably tall, and I seem to be compared with many of the people I walk past in the street. And some of the indigenous women selling in the streets are absolutely tiny, less than 3ft tall. The hardest part of walking round is seeing the street kids. I´m tempted to go and buy loads of paint, paper and plasticine and give them some free time for a few minutes. They beg really hard. The worst bit are the very little sprogs who are just plonked on blankets and told not to move. And they don´t. They don´t crawl, play, talk etc. Just wait for the next food item to appear after a hard round of blagging. It´s desperately sad. It was the same in India. What a bloody world we live in where footballers earn grotesque amounts of money for kicking a pig´s bladder round a field and children miss out on childhood for the sake of a few Bolivars.

Sucre is the legal capital of Bolivia, La Paz is the governmental one. There is a big cathedral, the Supreme Court, and the only tourist attraction I have seen advertised is the world´s largest park of dinosaur tracks. As that is closed on Sunday, I think I am going to try and do some work on the CBN website again, and sleep in. Off to bed now though it is stupidly early as am completely wiped out. Anyway, staying in a hostal right in the centre of town, about 20ft from here which may prove far enough!

Thanks for the news on the scarecrows, Chris, been wondering how it all went!

Sucre

2005-04-23T16:11:00.000-07:00

Caught the plane this morning to Sucre. If you need an adrenalin rush first thing in the morning, that´s the flight! Coming in to land all you can see are jagged peaks, valleys etc and you wonder how the hell anywhere up front can be somewhere flat enough to land. Some of the guys from yesterday´s event were on the plane too so when we arrived in Sucre we were all picked up by Diego in his 4WD. Haven´t mentioned that, nearly every motor is a 4x4.

I was dropped off at my hotel and had zero idea what to do with myself. However, that was taken out of my hands cos the altitude suddenly got to me and so I had a cup of coca mate (ma-tay) and then basically keeled over! Getting up two days running at 6am hasn´t done me any favours on top of the journey anyway so sleeping wasn´t a bad idea. Was woken up by reception saying some woman was looking for me. I wish I´d just told them I don´t know anyone. I reckon it was some sort of scam but was too fuzzy headed to really think about it. Went back to the room, and dozed a bit longer whilst waiting for the dozy guy in reception to bring me another cup of mate. It never appeared, so I´ve come out to look for some food.

Think I might be on a loser here as everything appears to be shut. I can get an egg butty in the hotel so am going back there. Very light headed and remember feeling exactly like this in the Himalayas, so am going to make the most of it and just read some docs, lie down a lot and see if I can train the guy in the hostal to bring me a cup of tea every hour! Liang will be here tomorrow afternoon and I have no particular desire to get lost in Sucre exploring. Especially when everything is shut anyway! Monday and Tuesday we are driving round these telecentres to see what can be done to extend the coverage from their satellites, and try to help them reach sustainability. They are looking for a cookie cutter project so they can replicate elsewhere. Sound familiar??!

NGNs

2005-04-23T01:18:00.000-07:00

Oh, seems I said this out loud....
ZDnet.

MC quote

2005-04-23T01:07:00.000-07:00

Just discovered this quote . I was asked to quote for this article too. I said I think it{s irrelevant what goes on in the ADSL market. Yes, there{s competition, good. But those of us in rural areas don{t want public or any other money being spent on enabling exchanges for DSL unless the money is spent on upgrading the middle mile copper to fibre. And most of those exchanges are in deeply rural areas, not towns and cities. In fact, one could ponder on the correlation between the 600 plus unviable exchanges and the location of copper........

We want NGNs. We want more bandwidth now. Lay the fibre, light the fibre. Do we care who does that? Nope.

And final thought, when rural areas show take ups of 60 %, telcos should surely start asking themselves if they are really cherry picking the most profitable exchanges?

C&W announced today they are spending 190m on their NGN, which no doubt they can roll out before BT.

Anyone reading this.....?

2005-04-23T00:41:00.000-07:00

If there is, please post a comment. My mobile doesn{t work, and I can{t get the at sign to work on half the computers and haven{t therefore been able to log into my mails. Plus cannot get dial up to work on the laptop -anyone remember how to config a dial up connection?!!!

Need some two way conversation. How is everyone? Any exciting developments in CANs? Post a comment and let me know how you all are. No time to log into CBN either yet.......tempus fugit.

Its Friday? Could it be Bolivia......?

2005-04-23T00:15:00.000-07:00

Yep, it sure is! Hands up anyone who thought I was coming home?!! Bolivia is megaaaaaaaaaa. Totally not what I expected -no llamas in sight! No time now to write everything from today as Liang has pulled a fast one on me and I have to get up at oh dark 30 to catch yet another flight up to the altiplano to spend the weekend doing who knows what. Not madly happy about it as my entire time here is now mapped out for me, with no time. I don{t want to be rushing around like a headless chicken really, and I{m desperate for a decent night{s kip after failing to sleep in this morning!

The flight was easy apart from the fact I{ve developed air legs now and every chair I sit on moves gently up and down which is disconcerting! Suddenly realised how immensely vast South America is, all you could se out of the window of the plane was chaco stretching as far as the eye could see and nothing, just the odd dirt track ribboning dead straight from horizon to horizon. You don{t drive here, you fly.

Coming into Santa Cruz, the pilot announced it was 30degrees. And there are wild palm trees growing everywhere. Climbed down the steps from the plane and was hit by a wall of heat. Sticky, stifling, gorgeous heat! Carmelo the taxi driver met me in his battered heap and we had a mad drive into town, made far better once he realised I understood what he was saying and could reply!

He dropped me at the event, which was very like any DD event. Home from home. Listened to 4 of the projects describing the problems they are having and realised they have exactly but exactly the same issues as we hear at the Colloquia. That was quite an eye opener. And after the Gibraltar issues some of us have been looking at recently, they hve the same regulatory problems as there. Wanna know the worst? You can{t use 2.4Ghz here. Well, you sort of can at the moment because they haven{t got all the laws in place, but you will only be able to use it for commercial purposes, there will only be one operator allowed per area, and it will cost mucho money.

They use 5.8 more in the projects where the wireless stuff is being tried, but are having massive problems getting any kit. So, they are making it. Everyone has satellite connections, but the prices that were shown were ludicrous. 5,500 US dollars just to get a connection and then anywhere up to 500dollars a month for a 512k 128k Direcway. Most connections are not even 64k, imagine a 19.2k upload?!

I met Alberto (indie mesher) within minutes of arriving and he is a star! Has done lots of experiments with home built meshboxes, and is a fast learner, and determined to get round the issues of not being able to set up a hotspot even. Preferably before the laws come in!

There is a lot of potential for us Brits to learn from these guys. They have all set up telecentres so they can upskill the population, and are now looking to share out the connections and the costs. They have way more hurdles to overcome than we do in UK, but they are succeeding. Hence my trip into the mountains till Tuesday to see what they are doing, and how mesh could help. None of them had even heard of mesh. IN fact, if I{d known that, my presentation would have been far more community based and less about mesh as a tech.

Thinking on my feet was hard, in a foreign language and knackered but I hope I didn{t do too badly. After the event, we came back to the hotel, washed another layer of grime glued on with heat, and went to Alberto{s house for a barbecue. I cannot even begin to express my amazement at the house - sort of inside out with loads of garden inside, it had the complete wow factor.

His family are fab, and treated me so well. The food was amazing, cooked on a huge outdoor rotisserie - massive lumps of meat carved by his father. His sisters and various others dropped by and then headed to the communal area outside the house for an impromptu party. The dog looked like it would have been better off roasted than kept as a pet, but then I{m not a dog lover!

Santa Cruz is home to over 1 million people, and it is crazy. You drive until you hit someone or they hit you, as far as I can tell. There are police absolutely everywhere, on every corner, which makes you realise how few there are in UK. Well, there aren{t any in my village anyway, but I{m sure I{ve never seen this many on trips to towns! I really want to spend a day or two here and explore a little. It{s not madly safe apparently in some places, but that{s the same the world over- car jacking is the big crime at present. But it has a buzz which is infectious, and there is something to look at every step of the way. I feel like my neck has been on a swivel stick!

There are 8 Bolivars to the dollar. A meal is about 15 Bols, a taxi 6, and so the few dollars I have should go quite a long way! Must crash, but so much I want to mention. The mad interstitial adverts at traffic lights, the street sellers, the urchins juggling at traffic lights to get money, etc etc. And I{m still freaked out about the palm trees! I was expecting people in black hats and multi-coloured ponchos dragging obstinate llamas about. Not to enter some tropical zone and spend an evening in a private compound in what would be a multi million pound house in UK wishing someone would turn the heating down just a tad, surrounded by trees of every description, and in particular mimosas, which have to be the most delicate and beautiful specimen there is.

The family have offered me a room if I would like to stay a few more days. If my kids are reading this, I hope they won{t begrudge me a few days extra. Having come this far, I wanna see more and this offer of hospitality is unexpected, appreciated and I{d like to take them up on it.

Dunno if any Internet in the mountains, or if I{ll be permitted the time off to blog, but I{ll try to keep everyone up to date with Sucre, Chuquisaca etc. We are leaving Sucre at 5am Monday morning for a road trip, as Liang put it, all off road, so I might be a little jiggled and bruised Tuesday! I am also going to need to buy more loose, cool clothes as the heat is fierce, and when they say "It{ll be cold" they mean it{ll be 20 degrees!

More as soon as I can. I got the mate cup for the next Colloq and the mate!!

What time is it?!

2005-04-22T09:34:00.000-07:00

I woke up this morning absolutely clueless as to the time. Every flight I have got on has seen the clocks edging further backwards, and by the time I arrived in Paraguay my mobile had run out of battery. I decided, not sure on what criteria, last night that Paraguay was 3 hrs behind GMT+1 which is what the phone is on now and set it accordingly. However, the phone charger didn´t work overnight - dunno why - so the phone was completely dead this morning. Aha, thinks I, I´ll look on the TV. It was summat o´clock and the TV has 80 odd channels so news programmes weren´t hard to fall over. But of course this is South America and everyone except the Brasilians speaks Spanish. Which country is channel N1 for? Or CNN in Español? Or any of the other myriad of news programmes? All show a little clock and my choices range from 6am to 8am. Decided to go for the middle one - it´s 7am, I´ll get up. Quick text session with Brian didn´t reveal any clues, and I phoned every number on the switchboard to ask but no answer.

Spend an hour or so finishing the presentation and then go into flat panic thinking "What if I´ve guessed wrong? The bus goes at 10", pack everything, and dash out into the corridor to find a chambermaid, who tells me it´s about 8!! Giggle at my stupidity, vow to buy a world clock, set the phone to Paraguay time, which probably isn´t Bolivia time, and I may find myself arriving in Bolivia about the time I set off which may or may not be in time for the event that I have been flown out here for! As you can imagine, Liang was pretty pissed off yesterday when I phoned to see they had cancelled the flight. With any luck, the new plane they were bringing in from Buenos Aires has arrived overnight and I won´t have yet another day here.

So, back to Paraguay. The houses are quite grand, colonial style I would say as a complete unarchitect, and it´s so hot that it´s no wonder they have huge porches with columns on - should let a little of the non-existent air through. Outside of town, everyone seems to live in ranches, and there is an overbearing sense of red. Red roofs (or is it rooves?), soil, walls etc. Asuncion doesn´t seem very big and from upstairs I can see the Chaco stretching for miles into the distance. Did I see Paraguay seems waterlogged in my last posts or was that wiped? Well, it is exactly how I imagined it to be in the flat bit of LatAm with broad, meandering rivers filling the landscape.

There is poverty here. Every street corner and bus shelter has its resident salesperson. From weird looking fritter things I don´t think I´m vaccinated to eat, through shades, tapes, hats, crisps, fruit that I reckon could be pomegranates but really bumpy, and all sorts of other tat that you can´t quite imagine a casual passerby needing. The airport had a tribe of well-presented urchins in blue tshirts saying lustrabotas, who lugged overlarge shoe cleaning kits around and hassled everyone, even if wearing sandals! There were also some Indian women with woven bags, bracelets, necklaces made from local stones etc, so I grabbed a handful of goodies for the girls to dish out in school. At 5 dollars, I hardly felt ripped off but they obviously felt I was a mug!

UK could also learn something from the number of coppers on the street. They are everywhere, loitering with their shades on and fingering their truncheons. They are also symbolic of every Hispanic man in uniform (massive generalisation!)- not to be trifled with. Full of their own sense of self-importance, and of course, always right. Especially if you have dollars to be parted from. However, the people on the whole seem very friendly, honest and laid back. It wqas a bit concerning to be told not to wander far from the hotel, even in daylight, so I haven´t really been out much. It´s also too damned hot to leave the aircon comfort of the hotel. 35 degrees first thing in the monring and due to get hotter. I presume this is the end of summer, so god knows what it´s like at Christmas!!

Anyway, time to go and find a last cup of tea, nick all the Simba from the fridge (even if it is made by the Coca Cola company) because it is a delicious guarana drink that wipes out exhaustion. However, I expect to be having to drink coca tea over the weekend as we head into the Andes to check out these projects, so I´ll feel better ethically about that!!

Next stop Bolivia??? One can only hope!

Sproglet on PC next to me has just logged on to Neopets- it´s like being at home!! But she doesn´t speak English, so that must be desperately frustrating that there isn´t a Spanish version.

Hotel Internacional

2005-04-22T09:13:00.000-07:00

So, last night´s post was completely swallowed by something, probably a Poberon, so I´ll start again. :(

I am staying at the Hotel Internacional which has all you could want, ALMOST - gym, pool, wifi, free dial up in the rooms etc. No broadband. I´ve got a suite which has two bathrooms and aircon, thank god, it is so hot!

I still haven´t learnt a great deal about Paraguay but here goes. Everyone in the morning seems to wander around with their mate gourds, and drinks copious quantities of the stuff. The football team yesterday had a bucket, which appears to be a flask full of ice cold water, the gourd and a straw, usually made of silver and ornate. It´s about the most unhygienic habit you can imagine as they all pass the gourd round and share the same straw, but I looked it up on the Net and it is suppçsed to foster a sense of community, so I intend to buy one at the airport and bring it to the next Colloquium! More about how to prepare a mate here - sounds fairly revolting but I might try it at the airport if I can get one, for the experience.

Paraguay doesn´t seem to have really got the tourist bug yet, there are no hotels anywhere near the airport, and in fact, after half an hour´s driving this was the first hotel we came across. There is also a grave shortage of tarmac. The main road is tamracked but every side street I looked down was just a dirt track, even though some of the neighbourhoods seemed quite well to do. Was wanred last night not to go exploring, although the barman offered to take me to look around Asuncion, but jetlag and exhaustion crept in asnd I had to turn down the offer. Aside from the fact there are obviously unsavoury areas of the town, I quite like Paraguay. Any country which can issue a weather warning for intense cold next week when it´s going to be 19 degrees has got something going for it!

I have to mention a sign on the way in from the airport, I still ahven´t worked out what the hell it was about, and am cursing my stupidity at having put the camera in the bag in the boot of the bus as it was a brill photo opportunity. Large yellow warning sign with black edges, a picture of a monster with mainly legs and arms, no head, eyes and grimace in the body, and hairy. The sign said "Warning. Poberon at 60m" Google hasn´t been much help on this one nor was the friendly barman. All comments welcome!

After losing last night´s post, I´m just going to save this and keep going as my bus doesn´t come for another 45mins and I´m packed early.....telling the time will be the next post!

False start but 4 star one!

2005-04-21T16:55:00.000-07:00

I'm getting the hang of South America now, it's as laid back and chaotic as India but I understand what they are saying. The previous post was a little premature. This is turning into a Joel-type saga. I am still in Paraguay. The plane fell to pieces, well, technical problems they called it, luckily before we took off. So, now I am in a 4 star hotel with free wifi and dial up in the rooms for the day and night.Leave for Bolivia in the morning. So, dug the laptop out and moved into the bar as it's freebies on the airlines.

I don't know the first thing about Paraguay except that the runway was every bit as skiddy as reported on virtualtourist. The airport was OK, out in the middle of fields and ranches, although it's been a bit of a day for Customs visiting. Let's start at the beginning.

I arrived in Sao Paolo at 5am and was told that my bag had been checked onto the next flight so I didn't have to worry about it. Go to Desk 16. So I did, but then it turned out my ticket hadn't been brought through from the office so I had to go out through Immigration - very neat bit of queue jumping that saved me over an hour and pissed off about 100 South Americans. Picked my ticket up and then had to check in. Even though I didn't have anything to check in and my boarding card was at gate 16 on the other side of Customs, that was a 1 hr queue too that I couldn't jump! Back through security - more queues, and then get to the other side to find I'm stuck there for 2 hours and there's bog all there apart from the odd seat and an Upper Crust cafe with no bloody wifi. They wouldn't let me go through immigration again for a surf and smoke, so that was pretty tedious all round.

Got on the plane with the entire CCP squad who appear to be pretty famous footballers and had their own pink and white groupie who obviously entertained them with her antics (and stupidity). By now, I'm looking forward to getting the last flight as it seems to have been around 30 hours since I left home now. Oh yeah, I guess we'd better mention that the BA flight out wasn't full so the people next to me decamped to the front, leaving me with a bank of 3 seats, all their blankets and cushions. I basically constructed a nest and slept like a log for 8 hours!!! 3 seats is just the right length of a knackered Annison and I woke up just as they were serving breakfast, much to the obvious ire of others around me who hadn't been quite so comfy for so long! Hopefully the sound of the engines drowned out my snoring for them ;o)

Anyway, got to Asuncion to find that my bag was gaily whizzing round the carousel about 20ft away from me but I couldn't get it without going past the tetchy immigration official who refused to understand the word transit. So, fill out yet another form, get another stamp in the passport, collect bag, walk upstairs, pay a tax of 18 dollars, walk through Customs, get pulled by the antidrug squad who couldn't cope with the fact tht I had been in the country less than 30 minutes, had been out amongst the unwashed public with my bags and come back to get on a flight to Bolivia. I know better than to make jokes with these guys so tried to explain to him what was going on. He couldn't get his head round that and blatantly didn't believe i was on business. What is company name? I picked up my laptop bag and showed him Digital Dales conference bags do come in handy sometimes!! Hang on,just off to talk to sprogs, next instalment about paraguay shortly.

Que guay en Paraguay

2005-04-21T12:18:00.000-07:00

Guay en Spanish is cool!

Free hotspot, Macs to play on and gotta rush to get plane ~sad~. Been transited through more immigrations than you would believe today. meaning of word lost on South Americans! Next country coming up - Bolivia in 2 hrs or less. Knackered but happy!

Oh, and for anyone interested, there are spongy loo seats in paraguay airport.

Joel, can I have a lesson on using a mac *keyboard* This in Spanish too so even harder!!! where the hell is shift and the question mark_)(*&^%$#@!!!!! chau, last call for flight. Hi girls, got you a tshirt each here!

Terminal boredom

2005-04-20T21:04:00.000-07:00

I am never arriving this early for a flight again. Terminal 4 is not a place for an evening out. After several hours trying to combine my needs with the difficulties of being a lone traveller ie who do you ask to look after your bags unless you want em nicked or blown up? I have just discovered, less than an hour before the flight goes, a hotspot. GRRR. It's t-mobile as well and if course 1) I only have my freebie BT cards on me and 2) my credit card typically won't even take a fiver on it. Yeah, yeah, roll your eyes skywards, I will sort out my finances when I get back so I can actually access my own money!

I've also suddenly spotted a glut of trolleys having lugged the laptop around for the last three hours. Someone must have just beamed a few in from wherever airport trolleys airside go, but that doesn't help my back. I did debate buying a copy of Terry pratchett's book featuring the luggage and reading sections of it to the laptop to see if it got the idea....but have decided the easiest thing is to find some worthy Bolivian family and give the damned thing to them. After all, they have llamas to carry it around over there. It might persuade me that fixing the Ipaq would be wise. I've brought it with me just in case I find some electronic genius in Bolivia.

I hear that Piers Bearne has said that WLAN isn't the same without me slagging off his major sponsors in front of the their stands, and it's all very corporate so next year, we'll get our act together again and go mobcast from it, or whatever the latest trend is! The resports out of WLAN do sort of imply that all the funky stuff that's going on is still flying under the radar whilst the corporates pat themselves on the back, which I for one think is a good thing! After all, if we all spent our time chasing VC money, where would we be?!!!

Anyway, that looks like a plane. #2 of 4. http://www.virtualtourist.com keyword asuncion implies that I'll be lucky if the plane stays on the runway in Paraguay, so doubt I'll find a wireless hotspot there, and don't have time in Brasil to post, so next time I write I'll be in South America. FAR OUT!!!! Big grin here -lifetime dream this 'un.

Chau amigos.

1 down, 3 to go

2005-04-20T10:09:00.000-07:00

Had an interesting meeting with a nuclear physicist before leaving Newcastle to flit to Heathrow. I kid you not - Ed Brown of ADIT fame comes from that background. He has managed to dent my cynicism slightly about the ADITs (in)capabilities. And if the trip to Finland comes off to investigate what is happening there, he'll dent it even further!

Spotted a bank of PCs in Terminal 4 - haven't made it more than a few feet from the door, and couldn't help myself! Got a few hours to kill before the flight to Sao Paolo so.... Fingers start to seize up if too long away from a keyboard! 10p a minute and seem to have gone through half of them just waiting for Blogger to boot up so obviously Heathrow isn't Fibre To The Public!

Malcolm says there is a good thing about podcasting on Skype on New Scientist. Will go through security and check out the availability of hotspots. Mind you, I did slightly clunk the laptop when I put it down to pick up my boarding card - online checking in done late last night and boy does it speed things up. Maybe some Bolivian would like a very cheap laptop whilst I am out there? It's doing my back in all ready.

Anyway, kids are all set up to Skype me, although it looks like about the only time that will suit all of us is the weekend. Right, going to get off....more later about thoughts in my head following today's meet.

Not even left yet

2005-04-20T01:48:00.000-07:00

Surrounded by things I shouldn't forget, which invariably means I will forget the whole pile. Only 1.45am so not too late to get some sleep yet but have had to set up girls' comps so they don't kill both of mine whilst I am away, and they can easily Skype me. Mobile won't work in Bolivia and I'm not spending my daily allowance on calls to these two 'cos they have fallen out about something minor.

Both presentations uploaded to server as discovered late tonight that no PowerPoint on laptop any more. So, that solves one of the problems of how to fit all the work in on the plane! Have packed an Isabel Allende book in Spanish to read instead, and printed out all the most recent docs that have been doing the rounds. It'll be novel reading them from one side of the page to the other, instead of having to skim down the middle!

Got really stuck on translating Double level encryption etc so am either going to have use the independent mesher, Alberto, (who has invited me to a churrasco (BBQ) whilst I am there) or with the help of the audience, invent a special Bolivian Meshing Language. What is written on the screen isn't the important bit anyway, it's what I can persuade them to do out there, and of course, how many more times it may be possible to visit them and find out what they are doing!

Anyway, seems like all the AV stuff is installed on sproglet's PC so now to put the anti-spyware stuff on and I'm off to bed. Hopefully I will next be blogging from Heathrow, otherwise something has really gone wrong! Don't want to be doing a Joel on the first hop. ;o) Got 4 flights tomorrow to catch.........