Zambian Wireless Hotspots

Don't go near the edge

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 11:02:00 GMT

Wouldn't it be nice if everything went according to plan. My last morning was spent on less than half power again - 50V instead of 230V apparently. It seemed apparent that there were issues, the generators were running and the lights were glowing dimly. However, we were still visited by plenty of people asking if the Internet was working.

This state is a true test for any network. Power surges and constant flapping between on and off. One of the benefits of our system is that there's no configurations stored on the devices; this all sits on our authentication servers in the UK. It's therefore simple if equipment is destroyed to get the network up and running again. But it was holding up just fine :)

While the power was out we headed to the water tower, on which you'll find an access point serving the Ubuntu campus. I hadn't realised we'd actually be climbing it. Oscar shot straight up the rusty ladder that ran straight up the centre of the tower to an iron trap door at the top. I followed him as dirt fell from his shoes into my face - the safety cages had been re-purposed and by the time I reached the top, my hands were aching.

At the top, we were rewarded with an unbelievable panoramic view of Macha and the surrounding hills. The torrential rain had stopped and we could see for miles and miles. Flat, green, and tree lined land, with a few houses dotted here and there, Greg, Oscar and myself stood for ages enjoying the peace and quiet. We even had Internet up here!

After descending, we headed back to Macha to check the network and discuss a few last details. It wasn't long before I had to leave and there were many goodbyes to say. Sorry to all of you that I missed. It was sad to leave the team but I was happy with our progress and I'm sure I'll be back soon to see them again.

My flight to Lusaka was at 15:00 and we headed off to the airfield to pack the plane - a full flight, we had to hurry as a storm was closing in. En route we stopped off at a recently cleared piece of land, approximately 500 hectares (about the size of Wales). They're planting 1,000,000 Jatropha trees to provide a bio fuel for the local generator. Each tree on average will produce approximately 1 litre of oil twice a year. Leaving plenty surplus to power local vehicles etc.

Taking off with the rain behind us, we were on our way to the Flying Mission in Lusaka where I would be staying for the night. I had a meeting at 16:00 to discuss a possible implementation of the Linknet / PolkaSpots Wi-Fi Service in the Zambian Mission.

We landed in a downpour and I was greeted by Richard with whom I was meeting. We sat for 2 hours talking about the hotspot system and how it worked. PLugging in a controller, Linknet Number 2 was up and running! At the Mission, the biggest problem wasn't bandwidth but a monthly usage cap. Exceeding this limit means not just a slight reduction in service but a total exclusion and a hefty fine to reinstate it.

With the PolkaSpots system, guests can buy vouchers to help finance the project and the mission can be sure that the bandwidth limiting controllers and quarantine queue stop a single person blocking the connection for a month. What's more, those with a Linknet Wi-Fi account from Macha can use their login details in Lusaka and vice versa.

After 10 days living with bugs, cold water, a bucket as a shower (I'm not complaining, I loved it), the sight of an indoor toilet and hot shower were too much. A night of luxury before returning to London the following day.

Was it worth it?

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 11:19:00 GMT

10 days after I left, I'm back in my London flat wondering what's just hit me. The last ten days have changed the way I look at the world around me. It was such a challenge and more rewarding than I'd ever hoped. I only hope the team have got as much out of my visit as I have.

So, was it worth it? Well, we didn't complete 5 villages and we still have a lot of work to do on the mesh to get it working. But at least we know what the problem is. 95% of the site now runs on the PolkaSpots Hotspot System, we've increased their ip range from 255 available addresses to over 2,000, the Macha Works offices have Internet again, each user's connection has been throttled and a quarantine queue introduced for heavy users enforced. Cables have been properly labelled and a proxy server installed to help the connection. The team have been trained to use the system and finally, nagios monitoring has been installed. At last they have a realtime view of their site; what's up and what's not. And, we installed a second Linknet Hotspot in the Flying Mission Lusaka base. I think that counts as a yes!

Not all work in Macha! Having fun with Elton and Charles.

The penultimate day

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 14:37:00 GMT

Landing in Macha for the very first time is like being plunged into an ice bucket. It's so shocking that your brain can't tell what's happened. In most situations, this doesn't bode well for any trip... In Macha however the shock's soon over as soon as you are welcomed into the community by new friends.

My last full day was spent, as ever, with the team in the dimmed lights of the IT room. When I'd arrived 10 days before I had to pinch myself every time I opened the door to leave - it didn't seem real being transported into the searing heat and red soil. Now it seemed strange thinking of London, the unfriendly people, the congestion charge and my house.

I left early as I had been invited by Fred Mweetwa from Macha Works and a local resident to learn more about real Zambia. We were going into the countryside to see some traditional villages. In the back of a beaten up Toyota Hilux we headed out of Macha on dirt roads. The villages consist of huts, scattered in the bush and usually house extended families. We met one farmer with 20 children from two wives - they live next to each other although in different huts.

According to wikipedia, poverty is defined as "the shortage of common things such as food, clothing, shelter and safe drinking water, all of which determine the quality of life". What the people of Zambia lack in terms of electricity supply, running water and money they make up for in so many other ways. Community, relationships, family, their land, country and culture. Here it doesn't matter if you don't have money as you're rich in other ways. More importantly, this is one of the few places left in the world that you don't need money to survive. They live off the land and eat mangos, lemons and avocados fresh from the trees. Not a bad life if you ask me.

However, they are getting left behind and the onset of electricity and communication networks is certainly helping. Seeing the effect the internet connection has had on this community has changed the way I look at the world. They may be remote and live in 'poverty' but they're now connected and I get the feeling that they love it!

Dinner with the van Stams and an electrical storm finished the day off nicely. Back to wooden house, amazingly, the electricity was still on. The only problem was the lack of voltage - it took ten minutes for a light to switch on. With such vigorous weather, we were destined for an interesting day sorting the internet on Friday...

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Thu, 19 Nov 2009 07:41:00 GMT

As I rode back from Macha, the sun was setting in the distance over the Zambian horizon, the road was empty and the air cool. A good day was had by all and much was achieved: we'd finally got the whole site up and running.

Working with the team has been a great experience and I have learned much from all of them. I hope they can say the same about me although I suspect they'll just consider me as the English man that does without thinking.

Time is less of a problem here than it is in the UK. I've enjoyed this immensely and certainly feel more at ease with the world. While my visit has been short, I've made some good friends and built some relationships - the only downside to this is that it becomes increasingly hard to go anywhere without becoming engaged in a long debate about the most bizarre but interesting topics. Topics covered today include (but not limited to):

Why planes don't land at night here anymore - cows on the runway.
The general state of Margaret Thatcher's health.
Elton John; the fine line between lifestyle and talent.
Whether we should use a transparent proxy.
What my favourite ice cream is and do I have any pets.
Whether there will be enough rain to plough the fields this weekend.

In between these conversations, we just had to take action and worry about the consequences later. So far, no-one had dropped dead from the complete disconnection of a network although a few people were unable to browse for a few minutes.

There's some tidying up to be done tomorrow (today by the time you read this) and no doubt some customers to pacify but I believe we've solved half the problem - we've successfully introduced a system that can control the bandwidth per user. Not block, control. The next challenge is to solve the problem of the mesh and I'll be taking this up in London when I'm back next week.

Upon leaving this morning, I bumped into Fred, Gertjan and Edmee outside wooden house. The question was, did I want to go for coffee or to the role call at school? A difficult choice, and I settled for the school visit. Never before have I felt so welcome, we were greeted with traditional Zambian songs sung by the children around us. Invited to the front to talk about who we were and what we were doing here (and what ice-cream we liked). Then while singing, all the children and teachers came to shake our hands. Then onto some dancing - an Englishman abroad should not be allowed to dance in front of a crowd. That's how you say hello in Zambia.

Keep your mouth shut...

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 15:31:00 GMT

I found Elton searching for me in the restaurant this morning - I'd caused a bit of a stir by showing up two hours late. I'll blame Gertjan for distracting me with entertaining chat for an hour :) Nice to know that I was missed and my name's now become "The English Man who keeps getting lost and shows up for work two hours late". If I'm late by Zambian time, I must be really late.

The day was mostly spent with fiddly little jobs, labelling the mass of cables in the switch that fed to various access points around Macha. Time well spent but these things never feel productive. Then onto converting the mesh between the IT room and the Ark - more problems, with Austin waiting 10m up a tower while I tried to recover another bricked Linksys.

We were pleased to get things going finally and increased the power output of the access points so the signal now reaches Zimbabwe. On the positive side, they don't need a microwave in the office anymore - you can heat a cup of water to boiling point in three minutes from over 4m away. Sorry Elton if your hair falls out.

The Ark was then ready for the PolkaSpots system and we quickly migrated things to the new system. 1 down, several to go… Progress.

The rain's arrived and with it come ominous clouds. I spent much of the day trying to flee from the weather that was following my back wheel. By dinner time, it had only got worse and I was forced to cycle to the restaurant in a downpour with my new Dutch (another one) friend. Rain on it's own is no problem but in Zambia, there are always other things to entertain you. Puddles so deep you can fit a small baby in them, filled to the brim with deep red mud; frogs bathing in the road; but worst of all, clouds of flying termites that get in your mouth and down your shirt. Apparently they're edible…

(They thought I was nuts taking pictures of the clouds. I think they're nuts for celebrating rain but it's time to plough the fields)!

Winston Churchill and Cliff Richard Visit Zambia

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 08:38:00 GMT

Another long day in the IT room (see picture below), plagued with issues from the first minute but we must be getting somewhere.

Three bricked Linksys routers that need to be fixed, endless power cuts and problems with the new software I'm trying. Each time I get it working, it breaks and I have to start again; frustrating to say the least - I can't even find the cause for the breakage. If I were in the UK, I'd get in the bath and work it through in my head. That's not an option in Macha, much like the other things that happen.

The challenge here is where we are. Ordinarily in the West we might throw the kit out of the window and buy something new. Or, just order a new box on the Internet. Here we have to create something out of what we have and make the most out of what we have. It's possible, just not easy. But wouldn't life be dull if everything was!

Sunday and everything's closed, including the toilet. No food all day and a 30 minute round trip to the toilet makes things tricky. 15:00 arrives and the power goes out but I make friends with someone in the street and we talk for an hour about friends, family, Winston Churchil and Cliff Richard.

Finally off to the van Stams for a barbecue, roasted crocodile (no kidding) and other delights were warmly welcomed. Better still, a cup of coffee - something that's not easy to find over here… It was nice to unwind with everyone. Then, home in the back of a pickup truck, watching the cloud of red dust illuminated by the dim moon.

The power's still off - hopefully not for long...

How do you type so fast?

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 08:48:00 GMT

Monday brought an enthusiastic bunch into the lab this morning. Oscar was off to fix the Ubuntu campus point to point Ubiquiti link so that half the site had connection again. Austin was going to sort the connection to the 'ark' out (the ark is where most of the Linknet staff work and sleep.

Austin climbing a tower to fit a new cable:

There was even a grand plan to convert 75% of the non-mesh network to PolkaSpots. 25% would remained meshed until a solution could be found for the problems with open source firmware.

A conversation with the Meraka Institute in South Africa is really gaining momentum and I'm hoping together we can solve the problem of providing low cost, scalable Wi-Fi access to Rural Africa. There's a strange mix of commercial and open source technologies in use and nothing's what it seems. Just because we've done it in the UK doesn't mean it will work here - everything has to be adapted to make it fit.

This project isn't about making a quick buck for any of the people involved. This is about doing something real that will genuinely enhance the lives of those that live in these remote parts. This is a community project that everyone can be part of and everyone can benefit from. It just has to work!

The continuous power cuts cause problems but I'm starting to work around them. A 15 minute outage means I can find new friends to talk to on the street. The daily worry of where to eat, what to drink and how to get home have dispersed. I am currently know in Macha as "The English Man who keeps getting lost". I'm quite fond of that - especially as I was entrusted to get a newcomer home this evening! I managed just fine, although I suspect more by luck than judgement.

Tomorrow brings a lot of work again and I hope we can fit it all in. Time's no issue over here and that still blows my mind. I can't wait to get things done - here you have to wait for things to happen. Even my typing has caused a few comments this week. How do you manage to type so fast Mr. Morley? I've explained that we have no time in the west because we're too busy missing trains and spilling take away coffee down our trousers - I usually get a blank response… You'd get institutionalised here if you raced around or die of heat exhaustion. Just like you would if you put a bucket of water on your head in London.

Going to try and escape from the kamikaze bug that's just entered my room...

Freifunk Not Performing

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 09:52:00 GMT

After many hours playing with different versions of freifunk firmware, I am close to giving up and finding something else.

After a reassuring conversation with Karel from the Meraka Institute in South Africa at lunchtime, I'm glad that I'm not the only one having issues. The Freifunk firmware is open source and designed for building scalable, resilient and very low cost mesh networks. Linknet and the Meraka institute have been using it for several years now but have recently run into a problem with bandwidth. That's why I'm here.

Bandwidth is expensive in the middle of Zambia and costs thousands of dollars a month. Because of the shear number of users that need to use the connection in Macha, there are times when their system slows to a halt. One or two users can take the whole system down because it's totally open.

The solution was to install the PolkaSpots Management System that can control individuals with SLA's and quarantine users if they use too much. The problem is, the freifunk mesh software was designed as a community platform and no thought has been given to authenticating users. Because of this, client devices are effectively hidden in the mesh and our system (and any other authentication system) needs to see either ip addresses and / or mac addresses.

After a long Saturday, we have to quickly sort an alternative to Freifunk or get their software fixed.

Onto dinner with some new friends - a welcome change to the restaurant having eaten there twice a day for three days. I even got escorted home by someone on a motor bike as I keep getting lost in the bush. Not good. It was exciting zipping through the trees in the pitch black following only the dim red glow from his bike.

Hello, How are you?

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 12:54:00 GMT

It's been a long couple of days to say the least. I couldn't be having more fun, everything's an adventure; everything a challenge.

After arriving at 630am local time, I met Gertjan and Ozbert at the airport for a coffee and chat. It was nice to be greeted by friendly faces and we spent a long time with our drinks. Raining and muggy, we headed into Lusaka for some last minute resources, although the only paint shop in town was out of yellow paint (they only had black and white).

Then back to the airport to catch another plane to Macha. You truly don't know the meaning of in the middle of nowhere until you've been here. Flying over beautiful dark soil speckled with trees for a hour or so, we eventually landed in Macha! For Zambia, this is not even remote - we have an airstrip, running water and electricity (sometimes) and obviously the Internet.

I was greeted by Elton and taken for some lunch near the village. Local food; tonga chicken and nshima eaten with fingers. Exhausted and full we moved on to Ubuntu campus to find my room in wooden house. Sparse, comfortable but charming, I was desperate to lie down but we were off straight away on push bikes, late for a meeting with the IT department. More smiling faces were waiting to greet me.

We discussed the network and made an action plan but I was too tired to work and so I headed home for some sleep.

Food again at 630 - more nshima but with meat balls this time.

In the West, we're far too used to everything being there, the water, sweets, toys, food. Here you have to plan… You can just grab a bottle of water or nip to Sainsburys. It makes you think and be grateful for every mouthful you get.

I met a Dutch couple at the restaurant and we cycled home together in the pitch dark. Pleased to see a bed again, the mosquito net was up and I was off to sleep; hot but content (and a bit worried about that spider)...

It could get awfully lonely out here if everyone you met on the road didn't greet you with, hello, how are you?

Rush hour traffic

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 13:56:00 GMT

After 12 hours sleep, I felt refreshed and the Friday commute was better than usual:

Cycling in on a push bike, there was almost too much to take in and and too many people to see. Again, I was lost but a group of women were all too happy to help and sent me in three directions - all of which were correct.

What Linknet, but most importantly the people, have done here is truly amazing. One local told me the internet was more important that food and I actually believe him now. When you're so remote, it's easy to get left behind - the internet has bought so much joy and entertainment to a place full of intelligent, enterprising and enthusiastic people. They should all come over to the UK and show us how to do it, how to make the most out of not much and how to live.

We spent a day trying to sort the problems out and got far but not far enough. Frustrated, I headed home and en-route grabbed some food - this evening I was pleased to meet some more people and ate another delicious meal.

Cycling home alone caused more problems this evening because of the power cut. Whilst there are no street lights, I'd oriented myself around the lights of the buildings but that wasn't working… I was quickly lost…More friendly faces helped me out and then I found fred just outside my accommodation. Another nice chat; he'd had a great day in Lusaka and then I found myself locked out of my house…

Terminal 5 and Zambia's Getting Closer

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 17:10:00 GMT

Sitting in a cafe in Terminal 5, enjoying a beer while checking a few last minute details with the guys and girls in the office.

Zambia's going to be a little different... I can't wait for the change of scenery and culture shock. It will be great to finally meet the team at LinkNet and Gertjan again.

I'm finally off to Zambia

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 14:44:00 GMT

It's the 11th of November and I'm on my way to terminal 5 to catch my flight to Zambia.

I have a rucksack filled to the brim with PolkaSpots Wi-Fi Hotspot boxes, cables, laptops, cameras, mosquito nets and more.

Can't wait to get started. I'm due to arrive tomorrow at 630am and will be catching another internal flight to Macha where the first of the wireless mesh networks is installed.

We have ten days to set up Wireless Hotspots in 5 rural African villages. What's the point everyone keeps asking when we don't have it all over the UK yet? It seems like a luxury, but the addition of Wi-Fi will bring the kids, adults, schools, businesses and hospitals so much. At PolkaSpots, we're proud to be giving something back.

LinkNet is a cooperative organization providing a low cost tailored communications infrastructure and services for special interest groups in rural areas. You can read about them here...