One MegaBit Per Child/Community

It appears that the One Laptop Per Child (aka $100 laptop) continues to push forward. I think it is a great idea and the effort is likely to push the limits of technology and costs to a point where it will at least become more accessible.

However I tend to agree with the comments on ZDNet (http://comment.zdnet.co.uk/other/0,39020682,39257951,00.htm) regrading the fact that it's not necessarily the best place to start. I'm starting to get a better understanding of the dynamics, and adding a hand crank to a laptop will not solve the issues for everybody who wants a laptop. As the author notes, "one power socket per village and one megabit per community are much surer foundations for building a future."

Infrastructure is stil a critical issue in making these devices useful, and while the FAQ on OLPC (http://www.laptop.org/faq.en_US.html) declares:

What about connectivity? Aren't telecommunications services expensive in the developing world?
When these machines pop out of the box, they will make a mesh network of their own, peer-to-peer. This is something initially developed at MIT and the Media Lab. We are also exploring ways to connect them to the backbone of the Internet at very low cost.

Good thought, and I think mesh networks will play an important role -- necessary but insufficient. These islands of mesh-pods still need to make it to the outside world. and while local networks without international connectivity can have some interesting applications, I don't think it is sufficient to have only local access without full Internet connectivity.

Concurrent with the deployment of devices, we need deployment of network infrastructure and power. How far can wireless mesh networks take the developing world? Is the premise that we need power and network infrastructure true? What density of deployment is needed for the mesh network to become fully connected? Is it even feasible and what happens to people until it does happen?

I think there's a lot more work to do than relying on the fact that mesh-networking between the laptops will solve it...

Kipp