Public space and accessibility

The article this week brings up some interesting topics. It is amazing to read about the breakthrough technologies allowing areas in the world access to networking. Especially the free radio frequency possibilities and the “lilly pad” concept of overlapping networks. The digital divide is certainly getting smaller. The article mentions something that I don’t think can be overlooked or brushed off in the glow of all of the technological advances in RLANs, VANs, and CorDECTS: Once the networking is in place who will have the computers and software to use them? The costs here are staggering for an underprivileged area. Remember how expensive the technology is in western countries or even Asia where this technology tends to be cheaper? Even a stripped down non-hard drive computer at $300 is just not feasible. This can mean only a single computer or similar device for an entire village like the one described in the Dominican Republic. The idea of bringing the value and benefits of the internet to the third world is far from “there” if there is no way for the individual to have the time and space necessary to learn the ways of the internet, the computer, and what it may do for them socially and economically. Real progress needs to made here in equal strides to the networking. This does not diminish in anyway the remarkable things written about in this exciting article. In fact, one of the more innovative possibilities mentioned is the free-ness of the MHz networks. This is where accessibility as a topic becomes salient. In the third world, network accessibility is treated more like a human right being somehow regained. We don’t have that in the U.S. Like everything else here, nothing is free and you get what you pay for. For them, it’s a giant step in the right direction. I know this article is already five years old and so I can only imagine just how far they’ve gone since.