History of the Internet - 6 minutes

I was wandering around a great telecom policy blog (CyberTelcom) and stumbled on a video of Ethan Zuckerman ( -- who, btw I spent some time with at a technology for reconciliation conference event last year). The video has Ethan going through the history of the Internet in a very entertaining fashion and getting through some 40 years in just 6 minutes and covering such things as the emoticon and MMORPGs in the process.

Oh, and just to tie it in with an event I'm planning on Net Neutrality, I got to CyberTelecom via the Google Policy Blog talking about the topic...





Kipp

Minutes as Money

Since my travels to West Africa, I've definitely been pondering the impact of mobility on not just communications but life in general. With mobile phones as the only means of two-way remote communication (unless you can afford a VSAT installation) in Liberia and the lack of financial infrastructure, I've been looking at how to leverage the mobile infrastructure to make remote banking and remote microfinance a possibility.

This blog from Om Malik discusses how minutes have become currency in some areas -- and how it has become a business for many. The article references an iAfrica.com entitled "Africa's cyber currency".

The idea of using mobiles to reach the unbanked is taking root, but my sense is we are very much at the cusp of understanding the impact, capabilities, and issues -- which is why I find it an intriguing topic for further research.

$100 Laptop or $15 Mobile?

Motorola's chairman David Brown thinks they will have $15 mobile phones available by 2008. The impact of this is likely to be quite large. As the article states, they think this could add another 100 million people to the wireless world a year.

Another interesting statistic is the one cited from a 'recent study by the London School of Economics' which states that a 10% increase in mobile penetration leads to a .6% increase in GDP (also mentioned back in July in an article on the Economist). After doing some digging (don't you hate it when 'journalists' cite studies but don't actually have any reference to said citation!), I believe they are referring to a paper entitled "The Impact of Telecoms on Economic Growth in Developing Countries" which was written by Leonard Waverman, Meloria Meschi and Melvyn Fuss [1].

Anyway, it looks like the wireless world is benefitting from a number of efforts which include the OLPC $100 laptop and the MOT $15 mobile. Both efforts are good and will have impacts which we can't predict just yet. The $15 price tag sure makes things even more interesting in the developing countries where connectivity is still the major stumbling block even if you were to give away computers. GSM providers have continued to expand their coverage, and with the pre-paid model of network access, they have a huge advantage over any deployment of laptops (unless the laptops come with GSM modems)...

Kipp



[1] Waverman, Meschi and Fuss, The Impact of Telecoms on Economic Growth in Developing Countries, Africa: The Impact of Mobile Phones, Vodafone Policy Paper Series 2 (March 2005)