Google to bring internet to Africa

the average retail price for basic broadband in sub-Saharan Africa in 2006 was US$366 a month, while in India it was US$44, in Europe US$40 and in the United States US$12.
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Says it all, really. O3B could be exactly what's needed to get some competition going here in SA -- but will the service only be resold by current providers?
 
3G + satellite, ugh, can you *imagine* the latency... it'll be as bad as Carrier Pigeon Transfer Protocol :)

I guess this is strictly to get bb penetration into places where local infrastructure is non-existent (and not-likely-to-ever-be-existent) though, kudos to them for that.
 
Am I missing something? What does all this bandwith help if the local carriers cant deliver it. As far as I understand Vodacom and MTN's network is already stressed with current demand. And yeah bandwith is cheap but local infrastructure providers will still charge an arm and a leg before it get to us.
 
kittychunk said:
3G + satellite, ugh, can you *imagine* the latency... it'll be as bad as Carrier Pigeon Transfer Protocol :)

I guess this is strictly to get bb penetration into places where local infrastructure is non-existent (and not-likely-to-ever-be-existent) though, kudos to them for that.
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Something tells me Google wouldn't stick with only cellphone companies.
I'm sensing Wifi or wimax zones/areas coming.
 
Google announced this week that it was involved in a radical new plan to bring internet access to the majority of the developing world.
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Sounds like the same always. plans, discussion, roadmaps... too bad nothing great does ever happen.

I remember microsoft wanted to do a low earth satellite thing also a few year's ago to blanket africa...
 
ah yes, Skynet comes to Africa first. maybe we should get some of our Egoli stars into a Sarah Connor Chronicles re-imagining?
 
armitage said:
Sounds like the same always. plans, discussion, roadmaps... too bad nothing great does ever happen.

I remember microsoft wanted to do a low earth satellite thing also a few year's ago to blanket africa...
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Perhaps they should re-name the project Pie in the Sky :D
 
Low orbit = affordable 2 way satellite connections for he masses - Forget latency - I'll take a few hundred milliseconds for a 10mbit connection at $50... The gamers can wait for the impact to hit the local operators who'd have to drop their prices to compete.

The more competition, the more options, the better for us. 2010 is the year Seacom also comes online so who knows what might happen if indeed it all goes ahead but generally if Google say they'll be doing something - they do it.
 
Wont help. Google satelites wont be allowed to send signals here as they aren't 50% african owned.
 
quovadis said:
Low orbit = affordable 2 way satellite connections for he masses - Forget latency - I'll take a few hundred milliseconds for a 10mbit connection at $50... The gamers can wait for the impact to hit the local operators who'd have to drop their prices to compete.
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Its not as bad as it sounds. These would be in a LEO orbit, not a geosynchronous one.

From Wikipedia:
Broadband applications benefit from low-latency communications, so LEO satellite constellations provide an advantage over a geostationary satellite, where minimum theoretical latency is about 125 milliseconds, compared to 1–4 milliseconds for a LEO satellite. A LEO satellite constellation can also provide more system capacity by frequency reuse across its coverage, with spot beam frequency use being analogous to the frequency reuse of cellular radio towers.
 
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