Revision as of 11:07, 30 May 2008

Work meeting of the WISP-in-a-box project

The WISP-in-a-box project

Date

June 2-3-4, 2008

9-17 h

Location

Meraka Institute, Building 43 C, Hummingbird Room (C128, ground floor)

Pretoria

Invitation List

People and organisations with an active interest in building a concrete product that helps bringing

connectivity to underserviced, underprivileged and overcharged communities in Africa.

Invitation list:

Steve Song / Shuttleworth Foundation (monday only)
Rael Lissoos / Dabba
Henry Marnitz / Ndlovu Medical Centre (1 day)
Mark Summer, Inveneo (with request to forward to Ubiquiti)
Elektra
Mike Jensen (not confirmed)
Kobus Roux, Meraka (NOT monday)
Karel Matthee, Meraka
Kim Gush, Meraka
David Johnson, Meraka
Chris Morris, Meraka
Grant Cambridge, Meraka
Shela Boshomane, Meraka
George James, Meraka
Johann Hugo, Meraka
John Hay, Meraka
Ajay Makan, Meraka
Sebastian Buettrich

More proposals are welcome!

Budgets for travel, if needed: Please contact us!

Contact

Sebastian

mail: sebastian@less.dk

skype: sebastian_buettrich

cell: (+27) (0) 79 915 32 92

Timeplan

The timeplan is draft level and will be adjusted to people's ability to join for limited periods.

The first day will be dedicated to the organizational layer,

introducing the various projects and teams, discussing the business models, identifying overlap of work agendas as well as the main challenges each of the projects are seeing.

The second day will move down to detail level, moving from business and organizational models to technology requirements/specifications.

The third day

Day 1 - Monday, June 2

Morning

Creating Context

Introductions, Presentations of participants

(Short 10 mns, informal project introductions)

Introduction and WISPiab Project (Sebastian Buettrich)
Dabba / Orange Farm / Village Telco (Rael Lissoos)
Ndlovu Medical Centre (Henry Marnitz)
Peeble's Valley Mesh (David Johnson)
Digital Doorway (tba)
Inveneo platform (Mark Summer)
WISPiab work status (George James)
Wireless Africa project (Chris Morris)
Freifunk, B.a.t.m.a.n. & Meraka Mesh Testbed (Elektra)
DIY Guide & Zambia LinkNet (Karel Matthee)
IP04 (it46, rowetel) (on behalf of the project: Sebastian Buettrich)

Afternoon

Business models

Introduction: Sebastian

Business models may be classified according to a number of different dimensions -

e.g. financial/economic layer, tech/network topology layer, applications layer, social layer, -

Based on the experience of the participants and projects, business models should be reviewed with the goal of reaching a downselection of models that should be implemented/supported in the first iteration of the WISPiab project.

Classical examples:

Voice services - The Village Telco
"Line sharing" - sharing internet access between organizations
Telecentre / Internet Cafe
Campus / School network

The goal is to go through all our relevant models, to classify them on all layers,

and to identify the technology implications (such that technology follows business models, and not vice versa), producing a clear results list.

Cooperations and Resources

There is significant overlap between projects on the technology layer. All projects are subscribing to free software models (GPL / CC, etc).

We are operating against a backdrop of

challenged (human) resource situation
brain drain / skills exodus
wanting to build local (i.e. african? ... southern african? .... south african?) capacity

Cooperation between projects seems appropriate and possible.

The goal is to conclude this meeting with a clear picture of modes of cooperation.

Advisory Group

We wish to form an advisory group / peer group, including partly the invitees of this meeting, but not limited to these.

Day 2 - Tuesday, June 3

Morning

Technical Requirements / Specifications - detail level

Examples of concrete detail issues:

Authentication - where and how
Billing in mesh networks
VoIP in mesh networks

The goal of this session is to fill the matrix of

technology requirements x project/business model

and then check this matrix against the various existing hardware/software platforms.

Hardware platforms aspects

A number of different hardware/software platforms are fulfilling subsets of our requirements.

The available platforms need to be discussed and evaluated, facilitating a decision on what to choose.

The platforms that our projects are currently working with are:

Afternoon

Status and planning of implementations

WISPiab status and work plan
Dabba / Village Telco work sprint, June 16-20
- Can we prepare and support that workshop

Day 3 - Wednesday, June 4

Morning

Productification / Dissemination / Rollout strategies

Strategies for the productification of software packages
- Sourceforge platform plans (Steve?)
- Ubuntu / UCK (Sebastian, Mark, Elektra)
Rollout capacity

Afternoon

Next steps

Dabba Worksprint
WISPiab work plan
Digital Doorway work
Wireless Africa, June meeting

etc

@@ Line 62: / Line 62: @@
 mail: sebastian@less.dk
 skype: sebastian_buettrich
 cell: (+27) (0) 79 915 32 92
 =Timeplan=
+The timeplan is draft level and will be adjusted to people's ability to join for limited periods.
+'''The first day''' will be dedicated to the '''organizational layer''',
+introducing the various projects and teams,
+discussing the business models,
+identifying overlap of work agendas as well as the main challenges each of the projects are seeing.
+'''The second day''' will move down to detail level,
+moving from business and organizational models to technology requirements/specifications.
+The third day
-==Note: This is Draft!==
-We currently still have unconfirmed participants and time collisions -
-the timeplan is draft level and will be adjusted to people's ability to join for limited periods.
 ==Day 1 - Monday, June 2==
@@ Line 95: / Line 107: @@
 * IP04 (it46, rowetel) (on behalf of the project: Sebastian Buettrich)
-* Other stakeholders?
 ===Afternoon===
@@ Line 105: / Line 116: @@
 Business models may be classified according to a number of different dimensions -
-e.g. financial/economic layer, tech/network topology layer, applications layer.
+e.g. financial/economic layer, tech/network topology layer, applications layer, social layer, -
 Based on the experience of the participants and projects,
@@ Line 111: / Line 122: @@
 in the first iteration of the WISPiab project.
-see e.g.
+Classical examples:
+* Voice services - The Village Telco
+* "Line sharing" - sharing internet access between organizations
+* Telecentre / Internet Cafe
+* Campus / School network
-http://wirelessafrica.meraka.org.za/wiki/index.php/WISPiab_specifications#Business_Models_.2F_Use_cases for a rough overview of topology implications.
+'''The goal''' is to go through all our relevant models, to classify them on all layers,
-In particular:
+and to identify the technology implications (such that technology follows business models, and not vice versa), producing a clear results list.
-* Voice services - The Village Telco
-* "Line sharing" - sharing internet access between
-* Telecentre / Internet Cafe
 ====Cooperations and Resources====
@@ Line 134: / Line 147: @@
 Cooperation between projects seems appropriate and possible.
-The goal is to conclude this meeting with a clear picture of modes of cooperation.
+'''The goal''' is to conclude this meeting with a clear picture of modes of cooperation.
 ====Advisory Group====
-We wish to form an advisory group / peer group, including the invitees of this meeting, but not limited to these.
+We wish to form an advisory group / peer group, including partly the invitees of this meeting, but not limited to these.
@@ Line 156: / Line 170: @@
 * VoIP in mesh networks
-====Hardware aspects====
+'''The goal''' of this session is to fill the matrix of
+''technology requirements x project/business model''
+and then check this matrix against the various existing hardware/software platforms.
+====Hardware platforms aspects====
+A number of different hardware/software platforms are fulfilling subsets of our requirements.
+The available platforms need to be discussed and evaluated, facilitating a decision on what to choose.
+The platforms that our projects are currently working with are:
+*
+*
+*
+*
 ===Afternoon===