Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!swrinde!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!munnari.oz.au!manuel!cmf851 From: cmf851@anu.oz.au (Albert Langer) Newsgroups: comp.society.development Subject: Re: Computers and Telephones Message-ID: <1991Jun8.194822.2332@newshost.anu.edu.au> Date: 8 Jun 91 19:48:22 GMT References: <1991Jun4.044628.13092@newshost.anu.edu.au> Sender: news@newshost.anu.edu.au Organization: Computer Services Centre, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia. Lines: 163 In article ccfj@hippo.ru.ac.za (F. Jacot Guillarmod) writes: >This gets back to my original argument about the need for having an >institutional or organisational culture that supports such things. It >is easy to follow the crowd and get support from other users if they are >all using PC's, but how do you get bootstrapped into this if it is still >standard practice to make use of say electric typewriters? I believe email and news will only penetrate where the use of PCs for wordprocessing has already penetrated. That however will be quite extensive as they are both cheaper and more convenient than electric typewriters. Continuing use of electric typewriters in developing countries is merely transient. (If nothing else, they will run out of spare parts before long :-) >A sort of 'email/news engine' - just plug it in, connect your telebit >netblazer to the satellite transceiver and you have instant TCP/IP to >the Internet? It's definitely feasible right now, if a bit costly. No need for a satellite transceiver and netblazer to achieve TCP/IP to the Internet. Just the PSTN, and an ordinary Trailblazer or other high speed modem (perhaps even a relatively cheap fax modem with lots of forward error correction, though the high cost of international calls makes it more economical to lay out the capital for a better modem). People are doing it now with FidoNet and UUCP to developing countries. Satellites could dramatically reduce costs, especially for large newsfeeds and there have already been extensive experiments with SCPC satellite receivers that are just a PC card that costs about as much as a high speed modem for a 9600 bps downlink. (Uplink may as well still be via PSTN). However satellites are not essential for getting started. Nor is TCP/IP internet access - batched file transfers are adequate for email and news. If TCP/IP internet access WAS required it can be achieved much more cheaply than with a netblazer, just using SLIP or PPP software on an ordinary PC. >As an aside, it might be productive to spin off a separate thread on >proposals for how something like this could be put together using >existing technology. Costing would be interesting. Useful for IMPROVING things in that area, but feasability has ALREADY been proved. The problems are in administering the email and news system GIVEN an adequate communications link. >Email still suffers from its heritage as something that started in high >tech computer shops, where networking was a means of interactively using >a mainframe to run some or other program, and only comparatively >recently branched into news/mail - the syntax and mechanisms still show >traces of IBM 360 Job Control... with the support infrastructure that >had to go with it. > >What you are looking for is the next step up the evolutionary ladder. EXACTLY. But it isn't just a matter of "heritage". Email is STILL primarily used where technically oriented sysadmins or sysops are readily available and therefore ease of use and especially ease of administration have not been critical issues. They immediately become critical issues when you want to move outside academic and computer literate circles. >And don't say X.400! X400 in no way prescribes the user or system administrator interfaces and in that sense is irrelevant. Current implementations are even more "research" oriented than ordinary email and add the confusion of gatewaying between X400 and internet standards. However I believe that by providing a well defined and reliable underlying message handling service and directory service, with all the functionality needed, X400 and X500 certainly will play a key role in the next step up the evolutionary ladder. At least in designing improved User and Administrator interfaces we will have a clear specification of precisely WHAT the interface is interfacing TO. >Communication via 'sneaker-net' - i.e. physical transport of floppies, >is a possibility, sure, but it imposes other requirements - efficient >courier services for example, and lacks the immediacy of the type of >discussion we are now having. You may as well write a letter. That severely limits the usefulness of email without telephones. But it still leaves open considerable possibilities for news without telephones. "You may as well publish a circular and send it to everyone who might be interested" is the alternative option to newsgroups and transporting floppies may well be more attractive. Even a delayed one way news feed by airmailed floppies and tapes could be useful as a source of technical information for developing countries. Supplemented with email for asking questions it could be very useful indeed. >>>- support from internal management or administration for the concept of >>> WAN, for footing the bill or dealing with those who will be footing >>> it. > >>Desirable, but PCs sneaked in behind the backs of unsupportive management and >>actively hostile MIS departments. If the PCs and telephones are in >>place, and modems are reasonably cheap, why couldn't email and news >>software as convenient as typical wordprocessors and spreadsheets >>infiltrate despite unsupportive management too? > >Because an international newsfeed, even a small one, costs lots of >money. :-( It is impossible to 'hide' such costs in any realistic way. >Also, look at the recent furore as regards the pros and cons of BITFTP >closing down - there are plenty of guys in the developed world who can't >handle the type of running costs involved. International email is significantly cheaper than international airmail (let alone the costs of telex and fax that are widely used in developing countries). Inwards news is more expensive but the costs are not dramatic compared with the benefits. Internal phone costs within developed countries are so low that often there are no proper administrative arrangements to minimize and share costs by properly organizing feeds. Since international phone costs are several times higher (though not an order of magnitude higher), such arrangements become more important for developing countries and satellite broadcasting becomes more attractive. But it is always possible to add some news whenever it is possible to use email. There are lots more situations that cannot handle the administrative costs of providing a sysadmin or sysop than situations where the telephone costs are prohibitive. >Well, both you and I see the benefits, but isn't this tinged (and here >my heritage as a South African comes into play) by a desire to impose >something 'worthwhile' in a western sense on countries and people that >quite possibly have a different world view? Are we justified in >assuming that say Zaire would in some way be a better place because it >had network access? I know that this is straying from the point a bit, >but perhaps it is not totally unrelated to the reasons why many >developing countries don't seem to be too bothered. If they don't want it they will reject it. Only a westernized elite can benefit initially but offering access cannot be less justified than neglecting to offer it. Colonialist/imperialist railways and schools were a "good thing". There is a wide consensus that providing international telecommunications to developing countries is a "good thing" (and there are even special Intelsat discounts etc to encourage this). Adding email and news seems a trivial extension. News can become something like providing access to current serials and libraries which are also generally regarded as a "good thing". A general discussion on Eurocentrism and cultural relativism etc probably belongs elsewhere. If such a discussion were unavoidable here, I would take a position similar to Marx in "The British Rule in India". >The way networking is now, you have to 'pay your dues' and serve an >apprenticeship by struggling to get to grips with a wide variety of >technological and political odds and ends, the end result being the >ability to conduct this discussion in this forum. But that is part and >parcel of computing evolution. A few years down the road, it may well >be possible to have a turnkey 'email engine' that can be plunked down >anywhere in the world without requiring local system and network >administration - but it will, of neccessity, be using a different >paradigm to the one we are using now. It will be using the paradigm we are constructing now. -- Opinions disclaimed (Authoritative answer from opinion server) Header reply address wrong. Use cmf851@csc2.anu.edu.au