@jrforster17 Profile picture

Jim Forster

@jrforster17

Passionate about extending the Internet. At Cisco from 88-08,now independent.Working to extend comms in rural Africa and India. Ex-techie, now learning finance.

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Jenny Internet is doing great stuff. "Connecting Africa to Information". @ConnectivityCap has been helping plan their expansion strategy.

Bridging the digital divide and building an inclusive, secure, and resilient digital ecosystem, is a key challenge, particularly in rural areas of Southern Africa. I visited @USTDA partner Jenny Internet to see how we are expanding internet access in communities across Africa.

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.@mikepuchol - I think StarLink is limited by spectrum power density to xxMbps in each 'cell' of YYkm**2. Is that correct? If so, roughly, what are xx and YY?.


Possibly caused by #Bufferbloat. What do you think, @mtaht?

Thought I’d test the public cellular connectivity in the #6Gsymposium conference room at @Surrey5GIC again Not exactly URLLC, is it @VodafoneUK ? 3 seconds uplink latency?! Genuinely embarrassing result in the key UK centre for 5G / 6G research

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Also, in the case of Starlink, etc, all the revenue must leave the country as hard currency. Terrestrial network revenue largely stays in country

Which is a problem. As I keep saying, SL and a bunch of other satellite solutions offering a lot more bandwidth at approx same price as existing GEO Ku and Ka solution will be useful new products into the market but will NOT a magic pill for universal meaningful connectivity



It’s the appeal of Deus ex Machina

Amazing that established companies in Rwanda are currently going through a tender process to connect 500 schools and then out of the blue an announcement that a new company with no licence has a ‘done deal’ to connect 500.



I’ve seen similar results in various other places/companies — uncapped always on broadband typically enables 10x data consumption over mobile.

When we deployed residential broadband over wireless in Kibera, a 4 Mbps service with no caps, average consumption hit ~140 GB/mo and right away, and now sits at over 200 GB/mo. It’s very hard to consume these volumes on mobile devices alone. (2)



Jim Forster Reposted

I think that it’s v clear that the ‘mobile internet’ and the ‘fixed home internet’ are v different internets. It’s tempting to compare the 2 when you are a user that only has access to one (mobile first has become mobile only), but they are not the same.


Jim Forster Reposted

🌐 It's 2023, and 2.7 bln people don’t have internet access. Join @catherinecheney to learn why we are yet to close the digital divide – with: 🔸@Gigaglobal co-founder @chrisfabian 🔸@GDInclusion founder @SoniaJorgeICT4D, and chair @nsengimanajp twitter.com/i/spaces/1jMJg…


$45M, wow, that's a lot of money and for 7K homes? About $6,500/home. Seems like a lot, but assuming mean home price is $2.5M, that's 0.3%. Hmm, that's pretty small %. (Well, yeah, $6,500 is much less than a bathroom or kitchen upgrade).

Palo Alto, California votes to improve and expand its fiber network by 7,000 homes for $45 million: #communitynets paloaltoonline.com/news/2022/12/2…



Does anyone know of a plug-in/extension for Twitter that will hide from my weary soul any posts mentioning certain high profile and prolific accounts? I normally don't like such thing they tend to require care and maintenance. But in this case it would be worth it.


I’ll be there! I’ve learned so much from Russell over the years.

CAPE TOWN, 8 November, 18.00. Register now (invite below) for Alison Gillwald, Executive Director, Research ICT Africa talking to Russell Southwood about his book Africa 2.0 - Inside a Continent's Communications Revolution #Africa #mobile #internet

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Excellent talk by Farouk Ramji, Mawingu CEO, explaining how they are connecting the unconnected with uncapped, always on service. Great progress since I first got involved in 2014!

New Podcast: Mawingu Networks' CEO Farouk Ramji On Delivering Internet Services To Underserved Markets In Kenya @ Audio Podcast: bit.ly/3gASGMo YouTube Podcast: bit.ly/3SrSPin @MawinguInternet #Internet #Kenya #Africa #BroadBand

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.@ConnectivityCap is pleased and honored to be part of USAID's Digital Invest Program, part of President Biden’s Global Infrastructure Initiative. We've already invested in a dozen ISP's; now we can do more. @benmatranga explained our approach. usaid.gov/news-informati…


Jim Forster Reposted

Join our CEO, Farouk Ramji, as panelist for @ForeignPolicy today. How can the public and private sectors collaborate to expand #InclusiveFinancing for sustainable development? Event time: April 19 at 10am ET #BlendedFin4LDCs. Event page link: buff.ly/3xa7sQv

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Really great speech!

If you're gonna listen to any speech about #Ukraine 🇺🇦, let it be this one. The Kenya ambassador to the UNSC perfectly explains how people across Africa understand Ukraine, and what the Kremlin's acts of aggression mean in our post-colonial world.



I like this approach: give the subsidy to the end user, and let them choose which service to buy.

Just give $50/mo to everyone who can’t afford access & let those who can serve them. StarLink is $100, maybe someone else can do it for less, or at higher speed or lower equipment cost. Go for it! A universal service subsidy makes rural and low-income areas more viable for all.



Universal Service Funds are a nice concept but are usually ineffective, or ultimately just return funds to incumbents, minus fees for lawyers, etc. for modest Connectivity benefits. Governance is not easy!

Spoiler: they want to tax internet access.



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