So When Will Mars Get Gmail?

When I was reading this week’s article, which was daunting by not only the amount of complicated diagrams, but also the big words they used freely within, like”WLAN” and “802.16″, I kept thinking of that guy who won an award this past year by bringing about the concept of micro-loans, in which he lent out little bits of money here and there, in order to help people buy tools to do business.

Just a sec, let me Google this.

OK, found it. Muhammad Yunus, the recent winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, introduced the idea of giving out micro-credit, which were these little loans that now days average to 200 USD, in order to help other people in Bangladesh buy anything to help them start up their own businesses.

Ah the powers of the Internet and National Georgraphic News Online.

Anyways, the point I’m trying to get to with that little tangent was that while I was reading this article, I was thinking of Mr. Yunus and his idea of micro-credit. I imagined that some entrepreneurs who wanted to do some good in the world were offering wireless networking to all these underdeveloped parts of the world for next to nothing, hoping that this would jump start something huge. Although their Internet access probably wouldn’t be nearly as good as UW’s network or even my Cable connection I have here at my apartment, it would still grant these people access to the Information Highway, which would open a whole new gateway for them to communicate and retreive information to help them develop at a faster rate. What’s kind of ironic (and I’m probably using this term either a) loosely or b) in the completely wrong context) is to think that because we’re giving these countries all of this technology, we’re almost having them skip decades of development in order to catch up to the rest of us. Not that I’m trying to make this seem negative or implying that this is wrong, it’s just interesting to see how these places will react to the Internet compared to us, who were slowly adapted to the technology. They are having this technology shoved in their faces, and I wonder whether all of them will freely accept it, or whether it might be shunned by some.

What’s kind of sad to think about is that as cheap as this wireless service may become, it still may be too expensive for a lot of people to afford. Meanwhile, our wireless companies are throwing away millions of dollars on advertisements and other things that they could easily be spending to help jump start whatever technology is necessary to have their services in underdeveloped countries. Now I’m more than aware that doing this is probably a hell of a lot harder than I’m implying, but I think that being as rich as some of these companies are (such as AT&T and Verizon), I think they could put some of that money to really good use. But we live in a greedy, mostly self-centered capitalistic society, so the chances of this happening are probably slim to none. Such is life.

Discussion Questions:

1) What part of the underdeveloped world do you think will be next to flourish with the introduction of the Internet?

2) If WMAN is made for cities, why have I only seen WLANs whenever I’m around Seattle?