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Maybe someone can help me change my view on this topic. I don't see why we should be in such a rush to bring the third world online. Shouldn't we be focused on

Maybe someone can help me change my view on this topic. I don't see why we should be in such a rush to bring the third world online. Shouldn't we be focused on making sure they have clean water, food, and jobs that pay enough for them to afford the internet first? All these efforts to put smartphones in the hands of starving people seems motivated by mega-corporations eager to "open up new markets", exploit vulnerable people, and increase their tracking datasets using people too naive to know any better. Most Americans resist privacy invasions because they've been a bit educated on the topic, so let's move on to people who don't know better?

Retric 11y ago
First off mobile infrastructure is cheap. Second, in many ways the developing world is better leveraging the internet than the developed world. Travel is a huge issue in the developing world so being able to do remote transactions becomes far more valuable. Access to education and professionals is more limited so information becomes more valuable not less.
- walshemj 11y ago
  Really in that case if its cheap why are mobile carriers into infrastructure sharing. Or why doesn't BT in the UK just build its own mobile network instead of buying EE
  - Retric 11y ago
    "why are mobile carriers into infrastructure sharing" Because for profit companies want to make as much money as possible and spectrum is limited. Which is more or less why buying an empty field in the Brazil is ridiculously cheaper than the same sized empty field in downtown London.
    - walshemj 11y ago
      Doesn't that just prove my point building a country wide mobile network is not a minor or cheap undertaking.
      - Retric 11y ago
        The first network is cheap to start, it gets pricy after that. You don't need to start by building a nationwide network when you start out. 1 Cell tower can handle a little over 1200 calls at the same time and cover up to 1,500 square miles using 2002 teck. So start with one tower in the major city(s) for a few million and add towers as needed after that with the revenue from customers. Which is why there is a cell network in every country. The problem is a few towers is not going to cut it once someone is covering the country. PS: Building a modern tower in the US costs ~300k USD as a baseline including equipment and construction costs (though you can have more than one network per tower). Covering the UK wold cost at a minimum ~30million USD for the towers assuming ~1k square miles per tower. Less if you include significant gaps, laying the ground network is adds costs. But you would probably pay 10x just for the spectrum and you would want a much higher density in city's, and land is not free etc.
        walshemj 11y ago
        Yes but the USA's model of mobile is broken - European Governments sensibly mandate yes you can have the licence but you must by xx years have yy% coverage of the population.
  - nextw33k 11y ago
    Customer acquisition costs is usually the first problem for businesses.
- walshemj 11y ago
  On of the other reasons the developing world uses mobile is its easier to defend against insurgents and from people nicking the copper.
orborde 11y ago
Internet access is more valuable than you surmise, I think. Having good telecommunications allows people to coordinate much better, and that efficiency bonus could easily create enough extra real wealth to help with the food, water, and jobs problems. Heck, having better communications directly helps with food and jobs; you have a much easier time finding the guy who needs a worker or has a spare bag of rice if you're both online. Might even help with "clean water"; you can find information on how to make water potable and sanitation in general. I couldn't tell you for sure whether getting smartphones to a village is a higher priority than installing a good well, but the smartphones are worth enough that I don't think that either choice is obviously superior.
zorked 11y ago
1) why would companies care about tracking people who don't even have clean water and food? (You are just confused about what the third world even is) 2) "Americans resist privacy invasions" What.
aaggarwal 11y ago
While, I am sure governments at some level try to reduce poverty, but they can't do it without educating the people. Internet is rather cheap and provides a great way for the same. "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime".
- digi_owl 11y ago
  Bingo. Some years back i read about a project where young ladies in rural India was equipped with and trained in the use of a laptop loaded with medial and agricultural documents. Then they would travel from village to village to help locals with various issues (saving crops from pests, figuring out minor illnesses etc). Basically they were carrying around the equivalent of a library in a shoulder bag. More recently an article mentioned a farmer somewhere in Africa that had gone to a netcafe to look up solutions to his failing crops.
cmaury 11y ago
> "Jobs that pay enough for them to afford the internet" A strong argument for getting the third world online is to help create more jobs. This sounds like a corporate sound bite, but it's a complex issue where job opportunities are a few degrees removed from providing broad access to the internet in and of itself. In a lot of developing countries the only jobs that are available are supporting existing industries that are heavily dominated by mega-corporations that are much more focused on resource extraction/profits than they are on developing human capital: Clothing industry in India, Tourism in Mexico/Caribbean, Mining Natural Resources everywhere. While much of the initial profits and use cases for bring a country online are frivolous and tend to mirror 1st world consumption patterns, the internet access is critical infrastructure for supporting a more decentralized economy. As adoption of the internet, and telecommunications infrastructure more generally take hold, economic opportunities that didn't exist before will start to emerge: Mobile payments in Kenya, Bitcoin merchants in Chile, or even the selling US produced content in Cuba (the "paquete"). Access to decentralized communication networks enables people in developing countries to participate in the economy on more favorable terms and enables people to work and start businesses without having to work through existing gatekeepers (I think this is why people have responded so negatively to the internet.org model). I would love to see some studies on internet or network driven economic development, maybe as an alternative to Import Substitution.

Retric 11y ago

First off mobile infrastructure is cheap. Second, in many ways the developing world is better leveraging the internet than the developed world. Travel is a huge issue in the developing world so being able to do remote transactions becomes far more valuable. Access to education and professionals is more limited so information becomes more valuable not less.

walshemj 11y ago
Really in that case if its cheap why are mobile carriers into infrastructure sharing. Or why doesn't BT in the UK just build its own mobile network instead of buying EE
- Retric 11y ago
  "why are mobile carriers into infrastructure sharing" Because for profit companies want to make as much money as possible and spectrum is limited. Which is more or less why buying an empty field in the Brazil is ridiculously cheaper than the same sized empty field in downtown London.
  - walshemj 11y ago
    Doesn't that just prove my point building a country wide mobile network is not a minor or cheap undertaking.
    - Retric 11y ago
      The first network is cheap to start, it gets pricy after that. You don't need to start by building a nationwide network when you start out. 1 Cell tower can handle a little over 1200 calls at the same time and cover up to 1,500 square miles using 2002 teck. So start with one tower in the major city(s) for a few million and add towers as needed after that with the revenue from customers. Which is why there is a cell network in every country. The problem is a few towers is not going to cut it once someone is covering the country. PS: Building a modern tower in the US costs ~300k USD as a baseline including equipment and construction costs (though you can have more than one network per tower). Covering the UK wold cost at a minimum ~30million USD for the towers assuming ~1k square miles per tower. Less if you include significant gaps, laying the ground network is adds costs. But you would probably pay 10x just for the spectrum and you would want a much higher density in city's, and land is not free etc.
      - walshemj 11y ago
        Yes but the USA's model of mobile is broken - European Governments sensibly mandate yes you can have the licence but you must by xx years have yy% coverage of the population.
- nextw33k 11y ago
  Customer acquisition costs is usually the first problem for businesses.
walshemj 11y ago
On of the other reasons the developing world uses mobile is its easier to defend against insurgents and from people nicking the copper.

orborde 11y ago

Internet access is more valuable than you surmise, I think. Having good telecommunications allows people to coordinate much better, and that efficiency bonus could easily create enough extra real wealth to help with the food, water, and jobs problems. Heck, having better communications directly helps with food and jobs; you have a much easier time finding the guy who needs a worker or has a spare bag of rice if you're both online. Might even help with "clean water"; you can find information on how to make water potable and sanitation in general. I couldn't tell you for sure whether getting smartphones to a village is a higher priority than installing a good well, but the smartphones are worth enough that I don't think that either choice is obviously superior.

zorked 11y ago

1) why would companies care about tracking people who don't even have clean water and food? (You are just confused about what the third world even is) 2) "Americans resist privacy invasions" What.

aaggarwal 11y ago

While, I am sure governments at some level try to reduce poverty, but they can't do it without educating the people. Internet is rather cheap and provides a great way for the same. "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime".

digi_owl 11y ago
Bingo. Some years back i read about a project where young ladies in rural India was equipped with and trained in the use of a laptop loaded with medial and agricultural documents. Then they would travel from village to village to help locals with various issues (saving crops from pests, figuring out minor illnesses etc). Basically they were carrying around the equivalent of a library in a shoulder bag. More recently an article mentioned a farmer somewhere in Africa that had gone to a netcafe to look up solutions to his failing crops.

cmaury 11y ago

> "Jobs that pay enough for them to afford the internet" A strong argument for getting the third world online is to help create more jobs. This sounds like a corporate sound bite, but it's a complex issue where job opportunities are a few degrees removed from providing broad access to the internet in and of itself. In a lot of developing countries the only jobs that are available are supporting existing industries that are heavily dominated by mega-corporations that are much more focused on resource extraction/profits than they are on developing human capital: Clothing industry in India, Tourism in Mexico/Caribbean, Mining Natural Resources everywhere. While much of the initial profits and use cases for bring a country online are frivolous and tend to mirror 1st world consumption patterns, the internet access is critical infrastructure for supporting a more decentralized economy. As adoption of the internet, and telecommunications infrastructure more generally take hold, economic opportunities that didn't exist before will start to emerge: Mobile payments in Kenya, Bitcoin merchants in Chile, or even the selling US produced content in Cuba (the "paquete"). Access to decentralized communication networks enables people in developing countries to participate in the economy on more favorable terms and enables people to work and start businesses without having to work through existing gatekeepers (I think this is why people have responded so negatively to the internet.org model). I would love to see some studies on internet or network driven economic development, maybe as an alternative to Import Substitution.