WISPiab work meeting 200806

From WirelessAfrica


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

Building 43 C, Hummingbird Room Meraka Institute

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
  • Rael Lissoos / Dabba
  • Henry Marnitz / Ndlovu Medical Centre
  • Mark Summer, Inveneo (with request to forward to Ubiquiti)
  • Elektra
  • Mike Jensen
  • Kobus Roux, Meraka
  • Karel Matthee, Meraka
  • Kim Gush, Meraka
  • David Johnson, Meraka
  • Chris Morris, Meraka
  • Grant Cambridge, Meraka
  • Shela Boshomane, Meraka
  • George James, Meraka
  • Johann Hugo, Meraka



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

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

Morning

Creating Context

Introductions, Presentations of participants

(Short 10 mns, informal project introductions)

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

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.

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.

see e.g.

http://wirelessafrica.meraka.org.za/wiki/index.php/WISPiab_specifications#Business_Models_.2F_Use_cases for a rough overview of topology implications.

In particular:

  • Voice services - The Village Telco
  • "Line sharing" - sharing internet access between
  • Telecentre / Internet Cafe

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 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

Hardware aspects

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