Mounting the high-gain antenna to reach out to a mobile tower more than 20 km away

The steps for success

• identifying digital friends in the community or at the school to ensure local participation and sustainability
• getting the equipment configured at the Regional Competence Centres (RCCs) at University of Dar es Salaam (UDSM) and Dar es Salaam Institute of Technology (DIT);
• install the antenna, the router and the schools server;
• train teachers and students.

It\'s always a pleasure to see the engagement

Our infrastructure is established to reach out to areas with bad connectivity. If you can barely measure a mobile network, we will provide Internet with a good quality. The trick is the high-gain antenna on the external mast, it\'s like standing on a hill and shouting out.

Connectivity is an event for the whole school and community

The engagement in establishing connectivity brings a ownership for the solution, ensuring the willingness to pay the OPEX costs. The experiences we got from the ongoing work in phase III:

1. The work of our local partners is the key to success. They know the culture, know how to engage and help.
2. The role of Universities and Technology Centres as drivers for configuration is inevitable. And even better, a student helping to connect through the RCC will give her/him a flying start on the jobb market.
3. It is very difficult to explain and experience what 10 or 20 Giga Bites as a mobile data package means. We have much more success when we can use a base connectivity of e.g. 5 Mbps (Mega bits per second).
4. A local internet with a school server at the school provides free access and enables affordable operational costs (OPEX) of about 20 USD/month.
5. The positive feedback we get is impressive, and we strive to move on.

Success, yet another school is connected

Our journey is ongoing. Through your support we can help our partners in 15 countries in Africa to connect their communities.

Our main question remains: Shouldn\'t access to information be free of charge?

If you want to read more, see our discussion on Internet Lite

About the Basic Internet Foundation

Basic Internet Foundation promotes free access to information for all, and has established community-driven informations spots to provide free access. The Foundation\'s distributed architecture opens for a quick deployment of a cost-effective Internet distribution worldwide, allowing for a reception of a 3G/4G network even in areas with no connectivity. The costs of the infrastructure itself is as reasonable, about 450 USD. For a CAPEX of about USD 1200 we enable lnternet access for everyone in the society. While lnternet links are expensive, its information spot solution has OPEX of typically USD 20 per month, which is affordable even for rural schools

Can you contribute to connect yet another school? Get involved - we want to connect another 200 schools in 2024!

The post Connecting another 140 schools appeared first on Basic Internet Foundation.

• Competence Centres at Universities & Tech Centres
• Students configure & connect communities
• Knowledge answering the needs
• Build your own RCC

• Wireless Information Spots (InfoSpots)
• Reaching out 20+ km to mobile network
• Affordable solution
  • OPEX <20 USD/month – CAPEX
  • 420 USD equipment
  • 1200 USD install & training

• Identify your Community Spot
• Measure the mobile network
• Establish Connectivity

• Knowledge for Climate Actions
• Locally available, free of charge for everyone
• Adopted from SESA Toolbox toolbox.sesa-euafrica.eu
• Local language support

The post Course: Create an InfoSpot appeared first on Basic Internet Foundation.

Have a look at the page information on energy, which we copied from the InfoSpot.

We added three courses, which you can extend and adapt to the needs of your community

• Basics of Energy and Solar Panels (Photovoltaics)
• Clean cooking with Biogass
• Establishing InfoSpots through Regional Competence Centres (RCCs)

If you want these courses to be available on your InfoSpot, please copy the latest image from http://Yeboo.BasicInternet.org > RPI_Images.

• The RPI_Yeboo_latest.img.gz is the latest image with all courses
• The Readme.md file contains information on how to install the image on an SD-card for your Raspberry Pi

The courses were developed as part of the SESA project

SESA – Smart Energy Solutions for Africa is a collaborative project between the European Union and nine African countries (Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Morocco, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa and Tanzania) that aims at providing energy access technologies and business models that are easily replicable and generate local opportunities for economic development and social cohesion in Africa.

More about the SESA project at http://sesa-euafrica.eu
The SESA project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 101037141. This material reflects only the views of the Consortium, and the EC cannot be held responsible for any use that may be made of the information in it.

The post Energy Information on the InfoSpots appeared first on Basic Internet Foundation.

Our focus is on competence building through Regional Competence Centres (RCCs), and on connecting schools and communities, besides promoting the "free access to information".

Though, we need your help in getting the message out, that every school & community can be connected.

We have updated the User Guide for the InfoSpots, see the InfoSpot UserGuide and help us in getting better.
Please leave your comments in the Google Document on what we missed out.

The post User Guide for the InfoSpots appeared first on Basic Internet Foundation.

Wouldn't it be nice to have an Internet where digital pedestrians and cyclists can use the Internet for free, while digital cars ensure the profitability?

Digital pedestrians use close to zero bandwidth, thus why don't we give them free access to the Internet?
The challenge is how to differentiate digital pedestrians from the digital cars.

And further, how to solve the issue of marginal and average costs, called the bridge problem by economists:
If crossing the bridge is free, who pays for the bridge?

Let's discuss

• The bridge problem in addressing who pays for the free access. Given that access to public goods is a human right (Shattuk and Risse, 2021, Equal Access to Public Goods and Services), thus access to information on the Internet should be a human right in the digital age.
• The freemium model for access. Some people believe that it is complicate to differentiate digital pedestrians from digital cars. It’s not really that difficult. Let’s use the AMP (amp.dev) standard as one example of a lightweight standard. We compare two web pages, with and without amp.

Please visit
http://BasicInternet.org/mission/ to see a full web page

And compare this full web page with the lightweight amp version
http://BasicInternet.org/mission/amp/.
As you see, no «singing and dancing” on the amp version, as it is a plugin in WordPress creating the lightweight info – no real issue as almost all Web pages uses WordPress.

Differentiation can be performed using an amp checker, e.g https://www.seochecker.it/amp-validator If you check the URL http://BasicInternet.org/amp/ and get the verification of a lightweight version:

The example of AMP shows that digital pedestrians and digital cyclists are easy to verify. What are we missing to introduce the freemium access to the Internet, with free access to digital pedestrians, and premium access for digital cars?

The post Digital Cars vs Digital Pedestrians appeared first on Basic Internet Foundation.

"Knowledge is power"

And collaboraton is key to achieve "Connecting The Future". The task looks overwhelming, stretching from technical work like configuring devices, teaching others, providing trainings, and contributing to knowledge. Equally important is the local, regional and global partnership. "It does not make sense if governments decide to connect schools, but there is no competence at the school to maintain the equipment" Likewise, "it does not make sense to ask for school connectivity if we don't involve our local administration, our regional representatives and the government to support the plans".
We need both, top-down and bottom-up. Thus, please select and area where you can contribute.

Where can you contribute?

Our wiki on BasicInternet.no describes the technology (see Solutions) as well as first steps to establish an InfoSpot.

Contributing to knowledge

Together with you, we build the knowledge base Yeboo.BasicInternet.org on health, education, energy and areas of interest.

Available for everyone, download and share

If you have videos, presentations or interviews, please register at Nextcloud.BasicInternet.org and upload to the respective directory. Or walk through, e.g. see the videos in health, download them to a memory stick and upload them to your School/Village server.

As and example, please see the animation of Cysticercosis in the health section.

Digital health education on Cysticercosis

or the training on "what is a Raspberry Pi", WordPress or Nextcloud

Training on Raspberry Pi, WordPress and Nextcloud

Is there another area? Have a look at the detailed work topics, and select an area where you can contribute

Detailed view on work items

Get involved!

The post Your help is needed appeared first on Basic Internet Foundation.

After our initial and successful pilot with African Child Projects (ACP) to connect 10 schools across Tanzania, the phase II addressed connectivity of 50 schools. We made it, and connect roughly 40.000 students across Tanzania.

Establishing the antenna at Mpirani secondary school

Catherine and her team get's experienced

• getting the equipment configured thanks to our Regional Competence Centres (RCCs) at University of Dar es Salaam (UDSM) and Dar es Salaam Institute of Technology (DIT);
• creating awareness and identifying Digital Friends in the region, who have the understanding of connectivity and can train others;
• install, connect and train teachers and students

Excellent network conditions, with a 4G Vodacom network of -92 dBm

Our infrastructure is established to reach out to areas with bad connectivity. The standard equipment adds 18 dB, turninng a "red" network into a "yellow" one. We are not piloting in adding 25 dB, meaning "no network" by your mobile will still give you access in the classroom.

"Knowledge is power", and to see how girls teach boys in ICT is a real achievement.

It's a different type of learning using tablet, though the entry is much easier than using PCs

The first training on how to use the computer (or tablet) is done, allowing the students to take over and experience the knowledge of the Internet.

Success, yet another school is connected

We are happy to announce that we reached agreement for Phase III, connecting 300 schools in Tanzania. Vodacom Foundation, UCSAF and our network of partners will contribute.

Excellent work on School Connectivity, though we still need to answer the question:
What can we do to give everyone free access to information?

See the 3-min video: at https://basicinternet.org/wp-content/uploads/school-connectivity-Kilimanjaro-region.mp4

About the Basic Internet Foundation

Basic Internet Foundation promotes free access to information for all, and has established community-driven informations spots to provide free access. The Foundation's distributed architecture opens for a quick deployment of a cost-effective Internet distribution worldwide, allowing for a reception of a 3Gl4G network even in areas with no connectivity. The costs of the infrastructure itself is as cheap as a mobile phone, about 300 USD. For a CAPEX of about USD 1100 we enable lnternet access for everyone in the society. While lnternet links are expensive, its information spot solution has OPEX of typically USD 15-20 per month
Get involved!

The post 40.000 students connected, Phase II Tanzania appeared first on Basic Internet Foundation.

School Connectivity in Kenya

Our school connectivity programme is a tremendous success. Thanks to DENT Wireless, who sponsored the activities, we connected 45 schools connected in Kisumu, HomaBay and Siaya in Kenya. Our local partner Africa Higher Education Research Institute, CISS Kisumu and other supporters made connectivity happen in just 3 months. 

Thanks to Lameck Omondi Omolo 🌍 for creating the map and supporting us 🤎, together with our #RegionalCompetenceCentres (#RCC) and all volunteers. Have a look at the map, and hopefully, we can arrange a project to connect your school! 

Kenya, as well as other African countries, are fast-growing. 1750 girls in the Bishop Okoth Mbaga Girls Secondary School, as well as all the other 27,501 students, can now access information on the Internet. When providing the girls and boys with a tablet, and explaining how to search on the Internet, their first search was ... 

Mount Kenya - the first search. Not an actor, singer or other amusement, the first search addressed the cultural heritage of Kenya. It was a real eye-opener for us, and a confirmation that we need to focus on empowerment and value creation. Our suggestion is to follow the model of the road: Someone has to build the road, but once it is built, pedestrians and cyclists can use the road for free. Free access to information on the Internet ("Internet Lite") is access to text & pictures, being the pedestrians and cyclists on the Internet.

While working on the final report, we have some early takeaways:

• It's all about teamwork and involvement. Thanks to Robert, Barrack, Kenneth, Emmanuel, Mitch, and all the other team members.
• Connecting schools is much more than making the Internet available. It's about involving everyone
• The devil is in the detail. Though our configuration with an antenna, local network controller and school server (see products) is standard equipment, some glitches in the configuration were first visible when the team installed the devices. Example: We configured the school server, a Raspberry Pi, without a dynamic IP address. When replacing the Raspberry Pi with another one, we got an IP address conflict, and the school server was not reachable any longer.
• It's fun! Though working hard, everyone sees the benefit of empowering "the next generation". You will never forget the smile in the faces of young people experiencing the information that is available out there.
• We are part of the international work in empowering students at schools, with GIGAconnect by Unicef & ITU promoting school connectivity worldwide. Thanks to the common efforts we got a unique business model to work. Safaricom provided us with SIM cards using the new model of 5 Mbit/s (Mbps) for 58 USD/month, which is favourable as it has no limits on where and how to connect. 

Looking forward to partnering with you for reaching the next 100.000 students to become part of the digital world. Call me at +47 9083 8066 to see what we can do together!

Leave no one behind, and Connect the Unconnected!

The post 27.501 Students connected appeared first on Basic Internet Foundation.

Our promotion of "free access to information on the Internet" (Internet Lite) got huge attention at the Internet Governance Forum (IGF 2021), which took place in Katowice from 6-10. December 2021. The main take-away for our work were:

• Ensuring that all people everywhere have meaningful and sustainable access to the Internet must be a priority. Access to the open internet is key for bridging the digital divide, as well as fostering democracy and human rights.
• The open Internet can be considered a multistakeholder domain, fostering dialogue. There are three main elements that structure the concept of meaningful access: (a) affordable access; (b) social environment (skills, education, content, multilingualism); (c) meaningful connectivity (technical foundation that allows meaningful access to become reality).

Internet Lite, the free access to text, pictures and local content is applying the free usage of roads by pedestrians & cyclists. We are thankful for Telecom Operators, ISPs and National Research and Education Networks building the "roads". Once the roads are built, we can apply free access to information on the Internet. By

Our BasicInternet booth at IGF 2021

that, we are answering

• access to open internet - through free access to all text & pictures on the internet
• bridging the digital divide - everyone has free access to information
• fostering democracy - information is available for everyone
• human rights - access to information on the internet is a human right
• affordable access - free access to information and premium access to broadband
• social environment - the wireless information spots (InfoSpots) in each village
• meaningful connectivity - the scale-up from InfoSpots to commercial operations

For practical people like us, we want to see solutions now! Thanks to our premium partner DENT Wireless, we were able to connect 45 schools in Kisumu and Siaya (in Kenya), and are looking for connecting another 200 schools in Tanzania in the upcoming months.

Our booth, demonstrating the InfoSpot and School Connectivity, had extremely good visibility and received tremendous attention. Together with the active participation in the sessions, we addressed

• The scale-up towards a national framework of school connectivity in Tanzania
• The inauguration of a total of 6 regional competence centres (RCC) in Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia and DRC.
• Collaboration with the African Union on economic development
• Empowering communities in 13 countries in Africa

Stay tuned and join

Lady & Catherine enjoying the winter market in Katowice

The post Internet Lite, the way for meaningful connectivity for all appeared first on Basic Internet Foundation.

DENT Wireless

The partnership between DENT and the Basic Internet Foundation entails a significant financial contribution to the Foundation, as well as the long-term technological involvement of DENT to achieve common connectivity objectives in African regions. For the past four years, DENT has strived to promote and advance their charity initiative “Gigabytes for Africa”, which aims at providing easier and more affordable access to mobile data in the developing world. “We are very pleased to have a strategic partnership with the Basic Internet Foundation, which will help us in reaching the areas that are underserved and sometimes completely unconnected to local telecommunication networks in Africa, while simultaneously being a perfect fit for our blockchain-based world telco strategy”, says Tero Katajainen, Director and Co-Founder of DENT Wireless. 

The main focus lies in establishing connectivity by building wireless information spots for African communities and schools that are currently unconnected. As Prof. Josef Noll, the Secretary General of the Foundation points out, “The premium partnership with DENT Wireless is a leapfrog for the Foundation. Having DENT as a leading technology partner allows us to concentrate on our core responsibilities. Connecting the unconnected needs the promotion of free access to information for all as a human right. Furthermore, we can focus on knowledge transformation and community involvement for the digital transformation”.  

The first phase of this collaboration is aiming to connect 50.000 students in rural Kenya, contributing directly to the United Nations SDG 4 with basic digital services (indicators 4.4.1, 4.6.1 and 4.a.1). Beyond short-term connectivity goals, the partnership between DENT and the Basic Internet Foundation constitutes a breeding ground for fostering innovation on topics like connectivity, blockchain, artificial intelligence, and cloud-edge-continuum for connecting the unconnected. 

Access to mobile networks and feature phones have increased dramatically, with overall network coverage of more than 90% of the population. About 3.8 billion people, thus 49% of the world’s population, used the mobile internet by end of 2019, according to GSMA. About 3.4 billion people (44%) don’t use mobile internet, even though they live in an area that is covered by a mobile broadband network. The digital divide is especially pronounced for rural areas in low- and middle-income countries, where people living in rural areas are 37% less likely to use mobile internet than those living in urban areas. In Tanzania, 75-80% of all connections on the mobile network are still 2G based. That means, we need a substantial lift in the adoption of the Internet especially in rural areas - and the partnership between DENT and the Basic Internet Foundation will be a driver for connectivity and skills development.

About DENT Wireless

DENT Wireless Ltd., based in Hong Kong, was founded in 2014 with the vision to liberalize the mobile data market, while creating new opportunities for telcos. As part of this liberalization, DENT has created a global marketplace, where everyone on this planet has the opportunity to buy, sell and donate mobile data and voice packages. Using eSIM and blockchain technology, DENT has developed a vast range of products and features providing worldwide connectivity, both for consumers and businesses. DENT eSIM is already providing connectivity in over 60 countries. More information: https://www.dentwireless.com 

About the Basic Internet Foundation, 

The Basic Internet Foundation, founded in 2014 by University of Oslo and Kjeller Innovation, was established as a special focus vehicle to solely foster on connecting the unconnected. In order to achieve the goal to connect the 3.5 Billion unconnected people, the Foundation focuses on the following three topics:

• Promote the Freemium model for Internet access, with free access to text, pictures and local video, and premium access to broadband and streaming services;
• Collaborate to establish Internet Lite as the driver for the freemium model;
• Involve our communities across currently 11 countries in Africa to establish InfoSpots with free access to information, even in areas with basically no mobile coverage.

Free access to information on the Internet is the catalyst for the Sustainable Development Goals and key for health, education and meaningful work. The Foundation is currently active in 11 countries in Africa, working with communities to deploy InfoSpots, connecting schools, communities and primary health facilities. The partnership for digital inclusion builds the basis for sustainable development, resilient communities and business acceleration in Africa.

Contacts

Prof. Josef Noll, Secretary General of the Basic Internet Foundation, +47 9083 8066, info@basicinternet.org 

Tero Katajainen, Director and Co-Founder of DENT Wireless, info@dentwireless.com

The post Premium Partnership with DENT Wireless appeared first on Basic Internet Foundation.