Wireless Meant To Be Free(ish)

While not really free, the idea behind FON is through sharing your network, you get access to others' networks, thus expanding your ability to be online. This is sort of the seti-at-home model for networks -- by giving up your 'excess/wasted' bandwidth, you can make the world better.

The latest in this push is in San Francisco, they are kicking off a Freedom Friday event to give away these standard Linksys routers with special firmware that provides the ability to offer up your network for others use while still protecting your internal network. In exchange, you can get access to others who are doing the same. I have my FON router, but haven't seen much usage, and haven't found any place where I've been that I could hook up to another FON network, but still hoping they grow!

I think FON should hook up with the actual PHONE companies to expand their smart phone offerings, like what T-Mobile has done with their dual Wi-Fi and Cell Service offering. You can learn more about it at www.theonlyphoneyouneed.com. Now, if you could expand the offering beyond their hot-spots through some kind of connection to FON...

The next few years should be interesting as Wi-Fi not only reaches critical mass, but we come up with more ways to open up private networks to exand the bandwidth and coverage available to users. I did read a paper on the use of open Wi-Fi networks for mobile vehicular access. The bandwidth/throughput is somewhat limited due to the acquisition rate and the mobile nature, but it is possible. Some applications will need to be modified to make it work in a discontinuous mode, but it will happen.

Kipp

Jerircho

I caught an episode of Jericho recently -- an end of the world TV show focused on a small fictional town in Kansas named Jericho. According to those who edit wikipedia, the best fit for an actual Jericho is Oakley, KS and was chosen for its realtive isolation from major cities.

As I've always said, I grew up in the middle of nowhere -- less than 100 miles from Oakley/Jericho! So I guess I should head back to the farm in the event of a nuclear war, especially since Atlanta was one of the first cities to go in the TV show...

Kipp

Home from Liberia

Well, I made it home again after a couple weeks in Liberia. The experience was amazing, and the people were incredible. Tere were aspects of the country which were better than expected, and some that were worse. There is an amazing amount of work to be done to get the country fully operational.

The total human capacity in the country is still devastated by the war, 15 years of broken educational systems, broken governmental systems, broken industry -- has left many gaps in the capabilities. It has also devastated any institutional knowledge that was present before the war.

There is an underlying current that seemed to have a push/pull against the international community. A couple of paraphrased quotes:

- The UN is helping, but all of the money goes back out of the country to these high paid consultants
- They want to make the country in their likeness (e.g. western)
- The WorldBank is trying to impose their ideas on us, but they don't understand the situation (e.g. we're different)
- We should ban export of raw materials (even go so far as to follow Bolivia's lead and nationalize resources)
- We want foreign investment and competition, but 'need' state owned entities with special priveleges (e.g. telecom, power, media)

There is also a sense of lost opportunity, especially noticeable in the telecom sector. The country missed several opportunities during the last decade with resepct to spectrum licensing and it seems they want to somehow turn back the clock to recoup those lost revenues. But going back is not the path forward. Dwelling on the past way of doing things, the misssed opprotunities, will only exacerbate the problem.

We need to some fresh thinking -- if you are building a country with a fresh start, what should you do? Unfortunately, as it currently sits, it isn't a fresh start, there is baggage all around that are left overs. Nonetheless, it is an opportunity to set things on a path forward not backwards. How should a country handle it's raw resources? How should the country attract foreign investment? How should the country build it's educational system? These and many more questions can be looked at with a fresh perspective.

The Liberian diaspora have an important role to play. As a cross between foreign investment and local investment, they are likely to be more able to understand and take the risks needed to invest in the country. They can assimilate ideas from other regions and apply them to the context of Liberia. They can provide anchors for other investments. But, they also must force out the culture of corruption and ensure that they do not contribute to the continuation of bribery and cronyism that can leave the country in a state of decay.

According to many who have been working in Liberia over the last several years, it has come a long way from the bottom. This may be true, but there is still a long way to go to get the country truly operational. I hope our work can contribute towards some of that progress by helping the government embrace technology as a lever for many of the other sectors that are being built/rebuilt.

Kipp

View from the top

View from the top
Originally uploaded by kippster.

There used to be a 5 star hotel up here, but no more. From here, everything looks quite normal. But as you've seen, and as we've experienced, it's far from normal, but not as bad as some would have you believe.

The Masonic Temple, which is quite impressive even in it's post-war state, is also located up here. The building is actively used by the lodge members here (one of which which we met).

So long from my last full day here, tomorrow should be bit more calm with only one meeting before flying out....

Kipp

Boys will be boys

CIMG2020.JPG
Originally uploaded by kippster.

Edem and I spent part of the afternoon walking between meetings. As we were walking by, these boys had discovered a tire and were working on taking it someplace.

Today, it's rainy. Started raining last night, and hasn't let up -- some great thunderstorms this morning and there is flooding around the city. But we don't let that slow us down, 5 meetings on the docket today, but so far tomorrow looks light with only 2 so far.

Our Internet connection at the compound was not working, so I'm working from an Internet cafe -- about $1.20 USD for 30 minutes of time, but the connectivity is pretty darn good (278kbps down with 32 kbps up -- Vital Technology is the name of the place).

It's amazingly low price considering what they have to go through to get access here. All of the equipment is expensive and taxed rather heavily. The license fees for VSAT add to the burden as does the cost of burning diesel to keep the power going. Satellite bandwidth is just plain expensive.

The mobile market is doing very well here, with some providers now offering GPRS, others with money transfers, and others offering fixed wireless Internet access.

Kipp

Hot spot

Just to make sure I wasn't an entire weanie with respect to the weather, it really is quite warm here. According to one report (boston.com), while the temperature was only 29 degrees celcius (about 84 farenheit), with the humidty running at 87%, the 'RealFeel' temperature is about 99 degrees F.

Kipp

Laundry Day

Laundry Day
Originally uploaded by kippster.

Well, most days are laundry days around here. Most people don't have electricity, so laundry along with a lot of other things involves manual labor.

For a country just slightly larger than Tennessee [1] and a population of somewhere around 3 million (about half as many as Tennessee [2]), they sure do know how to create big problems! Without power (excepting for a small area around the Presidential complex which is served by a grid), the only power is via generators (and boy does the smell of burning diesel add to the joy of the sound of those generators). Of course, all fuel has to be imported, so fuel here is about $3/gallon in the city, going up to around $5/gallon in the bush.

I heard some stats regarding the cost of kvh here, but I'd probably get them wrong if I put them here...suffice it to say, the cost per kvh is a lot higher here than in most places. Very few buisiness are 24 hour, even most of the radio stations are run on a 2-shift block so as not to burn diesel during the non-peak listening times.

Without consistent electricity, the act of preserving foods is dealt a blow. This limits the available options for sustenance. Speaking of sustenance, rice is a huge thing here, and rice is expensive ($32/bag, which apparently is normally around $19). There, at least in the past, and perhaps presently, some kind of monopoly on rice production/importation. This apparently doesn't help reduce the price that people end up paying -- go figure!

The roads are torn up, from the war and general lack of repair capability. I'm sure the UN tanks rolling around on the roads don't help (I actually got to witness one of these patrols the other night as we were heading home from Ellen's place -- a bit of surprise to see a couple of tanks roll by -- I was so enthralled with watching, I forgot to grab my camera!). the repairs that they do, don't last long due to the heavy rains, plus I think the equipment they use to patch the roads are not the most up-to-date. (see pic.).

The state of the roads causes what almost appears to be a video game style of driving, weaving around both sides of the road to avoid dropping a wheel in the potholes. Meanwhile the pedestrians are in their own game, playing a version of frogger trying to get across the road...

And that's just the beginning...

[1] https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/print/li.html
[2] http://www.npg.org/states/tn.htm

New friends

New friends
Originally uploaded by kippster.

Ellen (our host here) invited us, her team, and some of the folk from the Energy Forum over for a dinner party last night. Her team has been working 24x7 to get everything ready for what turned out to be an extremely well attended conference on Energy in Liberia. We'll see what comes out, but this certainly should kick up the activity -- but it still looks like it is up to the government to clean up it's legal and regulatory framework and figure out what they really want to do before the investors are going to be willing to step in.

There are some similarities between the energy and telecom industry regarding the legal, regulatory, and investment environment. Transparency and clarity are needed in order to move things forward.

Anyway, we spent Friday in meetings with USAID, Comium (mobile provider that was incredibly unhelpful), Search For a Common Ground (regarding community radio) and some folk from the Carter Center. We were able to gather a good bit of information on the industry and some of the policy issues. As I mentioned above, Comium was completely closed and would not discuss anything.

Saturday was some work around the office here, with Edem trying to get his crew ready to do the personal survey work. I spent some time playing around with Google Earth and showing some of the folk at Genesis a few geographic details (like where the heck is Nebraska!).

We closed the work day with an excellent meeting with Boutheina from the World Bank. Great stuff, and I think they are doing some incredible work here and elsewhere -- she was off to Freetown today to mark the first engagement with the Telecom sector in Sierra Leone. Good luck on that one!

I was jonesing for some college football yesterday -- caught a few early scores online while hanging out at the Mamba Point Hotel, but just not quite the same. At least the Huskers won (sorry about the Tigers Greg).

Today is a day to catch up on my notes and get the week nailed down. Should be pretty quite, and it looks like the rain may have moved on for the day or at least the moment.

Kipp

Scrubby time

Scrubby time
Originally uploaded by kippster.

This was one unhappy little boy! Getting clean is no fun!

I was sitting in the office when I heard him crying, looked up and just had to snap the shot...

I'm rather tired now after a long day filled with meetings. I'll fill you in on it tomorrow.

Kipp

Monrovia in B&W

Monrovia in B&W
Originally uploaded by kippster.

It seemed like a good day to switch to black and white. The cloud cover made for some soft light but stil plenty of contrast (in more ways than one).

I made a bonehead move today and ended up at the wrong building for a meeting this morning. Doh! Had to apologize profusely and reschedule for Monday. I'm a dork...

I did get a chance to see more of downtown Monrovia. We stopped by the National Engergy Stakeholders' Forum which is being sponsored by USAID and all of the logistics are being done by our host here, Genesis. Some 350 participants from all over are coming with the event being kicked off and closed by the President.

Speaking of electricity, I spoke with one gentleman who spends some $30 a day on fuel for his generators. Not too many people can afford that around here, so there are a lot of places without. The generator in our compound provides good power, but the noise is deafening, especially since the windows are open due to no a/c. But, not complaining, have electricity and Internet connectivity which is pretty darn good.

Kipp

Brain Gain

This article, Liberia's elites leave American comforts for war-torn home in the Christian Science Monitor echoes what I have witnessed, both on the trip over, and since I've arrived.

There is a very noticeable number of highly trained and skilled professionals coming and staying in Liberia. Many that I met on the trip over are on 'exploratory' missions, but others have decided this is where they want to be. Take my hosts for example, Genesis, they have some massive brain power -- executives from wall street, Goldman Sachs, E&Y, etc. that have all come back and made this their home again. With their return they bring not only vast experience, but a means to help build the local capacity by training and educating those they work with.

These are very positive currents, but there is always this undercurrent that is present, especially in an area which lacks the institutional capability to fully police itself. The temptations and opportunities for unethical behavior abound, with both international and locals looking for opportunities to take advantage of the situation.

Kipp

Last one for today...

The sun has set over here, but back home, there's still time in the day to play!



Wednesday

Another good ‘n warm night of sleeping. No a/c, but a nice breeze going through. Nice thing was, had water in the morning, so got a nice cold shower to wake me up!

Had several meetings today, the chairman of the Liberian Telecommunications Authority, Dr. Vandi was gracious and took a lot of time out of his day to help us understand the process, the role of LTA, some of the needs, issues and challenges that he sees ahead.

After that, we spent some time with the General Manager of LiberCell, one of 4 mobile providers in Liberia. For a population of some 3 million, 4 providers is quite a few!

Mr. Alawie was also very gracious and hosted Edem and I while we discussed the capabilities and plans for LiberCell in Liberia. Very interesting business, especially given the level of competition.

An interesting side note regarding the effect of this competition. The model of cell phones is quite a bit different here than most people, say, in the US look at cell phones (e.g. mobiles). Here, people actually buy a phone (without subsidization from the service providers). Because they do this, the phones are unlocked, i.e. they work with any service provider given the right SIM (Subscriber Identity Module) card. What appears to happen for some, is they will buy a SIM card from each provider (~$5 each). Then, they wait around for some kind of special on minutes from one of the providers and then stock up….I tell you…

Speaking of locked phones, we went downtown to try to get Edem’s t-mobile phone unlocked….$95 to get it unlocked! Nuts I tell you. Of course it was only $25 to get my cingular phone unlocked (which, btw, they were supposed to have emailed me the code last week, but it still hasn’t arrived….grrr). We got a couple waters and headed back to the office…

Set up a few more meetings, try to get organized for tomorrow, struggle with the bandwidth, and that should about do it for the day!

Images of Monrovia

Here are a few shots from around Monrovia, you can catch more of them on my flickr account.

Connectivity in Monrovia

So, I’m getting about 43Kbps download with 16Kbps upload – which would explain why I only uploaded a few photos and then used a smaller version of them…


kipp-jones-powerbook-g4-78:~ kippster$ ping www.yahoo.com
PING www.yahoo-ht2.akadns.net (209.73.186.238): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 209.73.186.238: icmp_seq=0 ttl=53 time=742.164 ms
64 bytes from 209.73.186.238: icmp_seq=4 ttl=53 time=3041.214 ms
64 bytes from 209.73.186.238: icmp_seq=9 ttl=53 time=750.923 ms
64 bytes from 209.73.186.238: icmp_seq=10 ttl=53 time=700.803 ms
64 bytes from 209.73.186.238: icmp_seq=11 ttl=53 time=1240.628 ms

So, a bit tough, but better than being disconnected!

Kipp

Tuesday in Monrovia - Energy and Telco

It’s now October 3 – After a nice little dinner and a drink last night, I was the first occupant of the newly renovated Chateau De La Genesis. The AC wasn’t hooked up, so I hope my Deet was protecting me as I had to have some air in the room. The location is pretty amazing (see photos if you don’t believe me). They’ve done a lot to restore this set of buildings, the previous occupants, apparently soldiers, had subdivided every room into tiny rooms. As you can see, from the pics, the area around the compound is still in a bit of disrepair. With unemployment running at around 85%, you can understand why.

I awoke early and had a chance to snap some photos as the sun was coming up. The ocean is some 50 m away, so I slept last night to the sound of the waves crashing. Very pleasant, but I’m just not used to it! That, and every time I had an itch I couldn’t help but think about mosquitoes…

This morning met a nice young lady who is a junior at the United Methodist University, majoring in accounting with a minor in economics. She is from Liberia, but spent a number of years in Nigeria (near Lagos) during the war. She’s very optimistic but knows it will take some time to rebuild the country. She hopes to be able to pursue a graduate degree overseas and be able to come back and use what she learned to help out.

I also spent some time with Abraham, a young man who is in networking – primarily sounds like he deals with satellite networks. As with a lot of people, he also spent some time elsewhere during the war and is back.

Both Abraham and Joisei(sp?) are very interested in technology. I ran my Phonopoly idea past them and they seemed genuinely interested. There are times where having access to an account of some kind would be very useful. For example with the universities, many web sites require some type of account. It truly is amazing how prevalent the mobile phones are. They confirmed this, noting that they use them for both voice and texting.

Phones here are not cheap since the phone companies don’t subsidize them. This in turn helps propagate the cell phone thievery. Sam (the economist fellow) mentioned that it is the number 1 item for theft in the country. The young lady showed me a scar (it was on her neck before you ask!) where a thug had cut her to get her cell phone.

Anyway, the generator isn’t on yet, sometime during the night it stopped. I’m on my second battery so I have a bit of time left. My cell phone, however is on it’s last leg – stupid charger doesn’t seem to be working, and my other phone *still* isn’t unlocked! And my IP phone won’t work until they get the network back alive….



Now, preparing for a press conference on Energy. Met a gentleman, Will James from IRG in DC. He’s an energy lawyer. I promised him to send him an article on the Dark Land, about the forgotten land of Africa. Will has a slide of the nighttime view of the earth.

Also met Dunstan L. D. Maculey, the Chairman of the Board of Directors for the Liberia Electricity Corporation (LEC). He spent a number of years in Atlanta (circa 95) and led the Liberian delegation at the Centenial Olympics.

A discussion ensued about the upcoming National Forum. Hydro power (~60%) was the key generator pre-war power source (413 Megawatts ish). Now they have about 4 Megawatts. Rural electrification has always been an issue in Liberia. Petroleum production stopped many years ago. 2004 Energy workshop came out with some options. Issues to tackle include:
1) sector reform and restructuring – liberalized with competition
2) market development – measures to establish market structure within electricity and petro subsectors
3) increase access to rural – renewable energy resources
4) establish independent regulatory bodies
5) strengthen legal and regulatory framework


Several members of the press followed up the speeches with some hard questions about implementation, not just policy. The answers were a mix of ‘we’ll try’ and ‘we know’ about both the perception and the reality of the scorecard on implementation. Pledges to do better…

Sam Jackson drove me to the National Investment Commission building. I’m to meet with Ben Wolo (head of LTC) who will also be meeting with LTA and World Bank.

I was able to meet with Ben Wolo of the LTC briefly. I was more of a fly on the wall during a discussion between LTC, LTA, and World Bank. I can’t say more, but I was appreciative of the chance to participate.

I then made my way over to visit with Zotowan Titus, the Assistant Minister of Telecom. The Ministry of Post and Telecommunications building has a dual image…many areas are in disrepair, yet the offices are in good shape albeit spread around on several levels. Unfortunately, the office does not have Internet access – but I was thoroughly debriefed by Mr. Titus who graciously walked me through the policy process as well as the process by which the provisional government had enacted certain bills.

Back to the office, a number of scheduling calls and debriefs, some note taking, then to a quick dinner and back to bed….

A day on the road

Monday

JB stopped by to say hi, Ellen will be stopping by at 10:00 to pick me up and head to the office. Eager to get going…

Oh, and my pathetic GPS (Teletype SBT-1000) unit seems quite worthless. I was unable to get a fix in Brussels, at the airport in Monrovia or at my hotel room. I’ll try outside, but not holding my breath.

Maintained my isolation, reviewing the current proposals for ICT policy in Liberia and writing a document on Phonopoly – a means to transfer money via mobile phones. It appears upon review that this really could be a way to open the cash only economy up to a new form of monetary transactions.

I am supposed to be picked up now by JB around 1PM…


Well, JB didn’t end up picking me up, rather Saey came and gathered me up around 1PM. After checking out, we made about a 15 minute drive up the main road to Genesis. The main road is in pretty bad shape, very large areas where traffic slows to a craw as people try to weave around the minefield of potholes. The destruction from the war is present everywhere you look.

The Genesis compound is near the presidential and other government offices. Since the fire in the Presidential compound, the President has been staying in a different building, I think it is the Ministry of Foreign Affairs building.

I spent the rest of the afternoon meeting the rest of the team: Sam Jackson an economist with a long list of accomplishments, Mr. Woods who has been spearheading the OSIWA project, Ellen Crayton the owner and the brains behind Genesis who also has an impressive background of accomplishments.

There is some buzz around, as the group is very involved in a National Oil & Energy Stakeholders Forum later this week. This is a pretty big deal as they are working on various aspects of the energy issue including the possibility of oil along the coast.

I spent the rest of the afternoon on into the evening establishing contact with the various communications service providers and government officials. After about 40 calls, had several meetings scheduled and several call backs to make to confirm a time. The key this week is getting to as many of the providers and government people as possible.

Next week, we are working on putting together a workshop that brings together representatives from various sectors of the economy to discuss ICT. We think this will be the most effective way to get information from a broad spectrum of the economy.

The realities

CIMG1815.JPG
Originally uploaded by kippster.

This gives a view out the front of the Genesis compound. It provides a bit more view into the devestation that the years of war have had on the country -- a local figure putting unemployment at 85%...

The possibilities

CIMG1793.JPG
Originally uploaded by kippster.

The great view from the Genesis compound. This is a view out of the room I'm staying in.

The journey continues

10/1

Okay, continuing day 2, I spent the morning doing some more readings for the qualifiers. This to add a bit of variety to my reading diet of ‘The Travler’ by John Twelve Hawks and a paper on spectrum allocation…you really wish you were me don’t you?!?

I did run into Boutheina (World Bank), who is on her way to work with the gov’t of Liberia on the telecom act and then to Sierra Leone to work with their government as well. It is her team’s work that we are building on for this Liberian project and I owe a lot of thanks to both her and Judith Hollerstein for the generous sharing of their contacts.

The trip to Monrovia was very interesting. I ended up sitting next to a gentleman, Roland who works for the UN. He’s responsible for the UN fueling stations (some 40+ of them) in Liberia – for land and air vehicles. He had a lot to say about the UN, the countries in which he had been stationed (Bosnia, Sierra Leone, Kuwait…) and his home country of Austria. A quite vocal fellow with a passion for Italian cars, he described how he seems to have a knack for building and fixing things interspersed with a couple of choice curse words and an ‘I tell you what…” in an Austrian accent. In particular his descriptions of some of the waste within the UN machine (both by the bureaucracy as well as by individual and group corrupt behavior of graft and theft of UN resources. I could give you a pretty good history of his life and a fairly detailed description of his favorite things to do (fish) and dislikes (lazy bleeps).

We had a short stop in Freetown, Sierra Leone to pick up and drop off some passengers. I snapped a couple of pictures (but received a good wag of the finger by the flight attendant – apparently my blurry pictures of the airport represent a security threat). I also had a chance to meet Jeff, another UN person who contracts for the UNDP (food). He goes into locations and devises security mechanisms and methods to protect the food chain. He also has done stints all around the world, recently coming from a couple months in Bangladesh – a place that he says is the worst place he has been with respect to quality of life and prospects for improvement. A very interesting fellow, one who just exuded a confidence and had such a commanding voice that you just felt comfortable hanging around him.

There seems to be a lack of consistent understanding of what happens with the technology when the UN retreats. Does it stay or does it go? How much stays and is there training on the use of it? According to Roland, it all goes when the UN leaves, the radios, the towers, the equipment, but Jeff had another take, stating that it all stays...

We then made a quick jaunt from Freetown to Monrovia (about 1 hour/ 700 km). The airport in Monrovia iss minimalist, the main terminal had been destroyed by the war, so all people traffic now goes through the freight terminal (as described by a local a bit later in my day). The process of going through security was quite painless and pretty well organized (especially if you go back to my nightmarish experience in ATL!).

I was able to retrieve my checked bag, but since I didn’t have my luggage tag (doh!), I had to politely beg a lady to let me have my bag. But then, I borrowed Roland’s phone (I didn’t have a local sim just yet) and called my driver who was supposed to meet me at the airport. Well, JB had suffered a vehicular fan belt failure and was 45 minutes away from the airport.

Talk about a stir. There is no place in the airport itself to wait – get your bags and out the door. I talked to one of the ‘workers’, and he had me stand by the terminal. Well, that worked for a bit, until somebody else spotted me and wanted me to move. I informed them that my driver was on the way, so they said okay…until somebody else noticed me and then we all moved down to the edge of the airport building. There is an interesting mix of UN folk on the perimeter, with officers and airport security mixing with what I can only assume are non-employed ‘helpers’. After about 30 minutes of this, I had a veritable army of people surrounding me, 4 officers and a couple of others who were helping get my phone working and get back in touch with JB, as they seemed more worried about me being there than I did. JB finally showed up and I paid $20 for my police escort….

But, we still had to wait for Edem to show up. We then parked and hung out in an outbuilding by the airport for a couple of hours, again attracting a bit of a crowd again. About the time Edem’s flight was arriving, we get a call. He had been delayed and was still in the states and was going to try to make it to Liberia by Monday night…I’m not sure it’ll happen, but good luck!

While hanging outside the airport, I was introduced to the Deputy Director of the Ministry of Commerce, Pete Norman. He was on his way to Miami. Like many here, Pete is a recent returnee to Liberia who appear to be coming back with dual goals. 1) to improve their homeland and help out where they can, and 2) participate in what many see as a huge opportunity for personal gain.

Regarding commerce, it appears the Rice Scandal is weighing heavy on people. My take on this, and apologies if I get it wrong, is the Lebanese (and one family in particular) have maintained a monopoly on the rice industry in Liberia for 3 generations. This issue has become a major problem, and sounds like it has caused several months of delay in the process to apply for WTO membership. Frustration at the speed with which change is taking place can be felt by some folk such as Pete who is struggling to get the momentum going in the right direction.

I also learned that there are about 3 radio stations, Star, Free (UN?) and some other one. The Free station operates 24 hours and, at least according to one youngster, doles out accurate information about events.

So around 10:30, JB and I hop in the 157,000 mile Trooper for the 70 minute ride back to the city. The road at times was in great shape, and at other times, you could lose your axle in the washed out pot holes. People were walking along the dark street, and periodically, there would be some type of shop or stand that had a gathering.

And to continue the adventure, our original plan of staying at the Genisis facilities was modified and I’m now at the Royal Hotel room 303 for the evening. Tomorrow, we’ll get a kick on things and get our plan mapped out for the duration of my stay…

Stay tuned for some pictures...

Kipp

Amsterdam and the Internet

Caught this article on the Internet exchange in Amersterdam ( on Yahoo). The AMS-IX is the world's busiest Internet exchange according to the article. It also boasts that it is the world's first mobile Internet peering point -- I wonder what exactly they mean by that.

According to the home page "the 5 minute average high of the aggregate traffic now reaches 120 Gbps for a total of 234 members" which is pretty impressive.

This is another take on the still raging Net Neutrality issue, or at least they work it into the story, even quoting the venerable Tim BL in the process.

Kipp

The Journey begins

Saturday, noontime arrive at ATL Hartsfield airport for a 2:45PM flight out to Washington Dulles. Silly me, my checked luggage came in at over 50 pounds (brought some extra gear, a veritable electronics store of goods including a couple of phones, a VoIP phone, a wireless network, gps, palm, computer, camera…and all associated power accessories). After waiting in line for 45 minutes and reshuffling the load, was all checked in. Another 45 minutes in the security line and I barely made it onto the flight.

Established my first Liberian contact while on the flight. James, an electrical engineer by training and now a software developer for Turner was sitting next to me. 12 years since he’s been back to Liberia.

We reach Dulles with no problems, where I meet a couple other Liberians who are returning – another electrical engineer from Charlotte that is going back after 12 years in the States. I speak with several others and there does appear to be a theme – after the long years of the war, people are very optimistic about the opportunities back home. Several of their relatives have established or are in process of establishing some type of business. They are looking at all types of business – sports, Internet, investigative agencies, construction, education…it appears like a gold rush of a fashion.

Flight from Dulles to Brussels was a long one…thanks to great flight booking skills, I had the middle of the middle on the big ol’ plane. Luckily I was between a couple of young ladies on their way to Brussels for a marketing summit – they and a couple of their colleagues from eBay were headed over for the week.

Arrive in Brussels around 7:30AM Sunday morning, flight out at 11:15. I think I spotted Boutheina in a check-in line, but was too far back to make contact…I’m sure I’ll catch up with her soon.

Used the airport pay for Internet service (10euro for 1 hour). 1516 kbps download from DC, with a 313kbps upload speed…not too shabby!