Wi-Fi B-M-X

From time to time I run across bits online about people using "low" technology to do supposedly high-tech stuff like internet connections. For example, there's been a school project to transmit TCP/IP via bongo drums, and a cave-exploration-for-tourists outfit in New Zealand that actually uses carrier pigeons to "transmit" digital images, more quickly than a wireless carrier would do it. Fun stuff.

But a bit more seriously, I'm impressed by a hybrid high/low-tech transport method in use in rural Cambodia: wireless motorcycles. This isn't just some geeky classroom project or a way to help tourists have more fun on vacation. It's bringing important contemporary technology to people who otherwise wouldn't be able to use it.

High-tech geeks gush about wireless, and understandably so. But it's really only practical (and secure) over short distances. The further you go, the geometrically weaker the signal gets, and then there's that curvature of the Earth that blocks line-of-sight transmission. So in rural Cambodia, where they have locally-generated electricity to run computers, but no telecom connection (not even plain old telephone service), they're using motorcycles for the medium-haul carrier.

The way it works is this: If you want to send a message, you type it up and tell the computer to send it. It sits in local storage until the motorcycle makes its daily arrival in town, at which point it's transmitted by short-distance wireless to a device on the bike, and stored there until he gets within range of the central device that's actually hooked up to the grid, and it goes on its way. At the same time any incoming e-mail is delivered to his bike, and the next day he delivers it to the village. Not unlike a... mailman. There's a "fleet" of five of these "Motoman" couriers doing this.

Conceptually speaking, this is how e-mail used to work on much of the internet in its early years. In those days even universities were sometimes limited to costly dial-up connections that they activated maybe only once a day. The transport layer of the network was different, but the technique was the same. Store-and-forward is a time-honored delivery mechanism, and it's a great idea to implement it in this situation - or any other - where a continuous connection isn't practical. 1970's ARPAnoids might not have envisioned the pairing of these particular technologies to implement it... but that's the genius of what these people are doing for the poor rural population of Cambodia.