General discussion
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Topic
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INTERNET LINKS BY RADIO
Locked95% of the population of over 22 million people here live in rural areas; in villages scattered across tropical rain forests, covering the 240,000 square kilometre land area. Economic activities, educational programs, health programs, social development programs and international organisations are focussed on to this 21 million population.
Currently Internet services are provided by IP?s only within the city. Clients are linked to IP servers either through telephone wire connection (maximum speed – 32 kbps) or by
line-of-sight microwave wireless links (maximum speed – 64 kbps). Initial equipment costs vary $ 1,500 ? 5,000, installation costs $ 300 ? 700 and user fees range $ 200 ? 5,000 every month depending on class of service.These costs are unbearable to all customers, except for a few organisations. The need for affordable radio link internet connections is, therefore, paramount to serve the 21 million population. We are searching for radio links that are affordable, cover a wide radius from the transmitting /receiving antenna (at least 50 km) BUT with good speeds (minimum 64 kbps, preferably greater than 128 kbps) PC?s are also a prohibitive cost item to the average intended user. However, many people own TV?s for general entertainment. We are also searching for equipment that uses normal TVs to view Internet web pages.
