2nd Village Telco Workshop - July 20-24, 2009

Dates

The workshop will be held from July 20th to 24th, 2009 inclusive.

Venue

The workshop will be held in the same venue as last year, namely the meeting facilities at the Shuttleworth Foundation. Shuttleworth Foundation
12 Plein Street
Durbanville
7550
Telephone: +27 (0) 21 970 1200
Steve Song - direct line: +27 (0) 21 970 1221
Steve Song - mobile: +27 83 482 2088
http://www.shuttleworthfoundation.org
Directions to the Shuttleworth Foundation

Accommodation

We will probably book the same guest house as well (Kolpings Guest House). Stand by for confirmation of that.

Participants

  • David Rowe (Rowetel)
  • Elektra (FreiFunk)
  • Rael Lissoos (Dabba)
  • Kobus Roux (Meraka)
  • George James (Meraka)
  • Edwin Chen (Atcom)
  • Steve Song (Shuttleworth)
  • Alan Levin (Vanilla)
  • Lionel Harris (BanziNet)
  • Joshua Denila (Microchip Technologies)
  • Antoine van Gelder (Afrimesh)
  • David Carman (Scarborough Mesh)
  • Jeff Wishnie (Inveneo)
  • Sigqibo Pangabantu (Silulo Technologies - Khayalitsha Computer training and Internet cafe operator)
  • Lerato Rani (Khayalitsha Business chamber)

Agenda

We are currently brainstorming the agenda at UserVoice.com. Feel free to suggest ideas at

http://villagetelco.uservoice.com/


Monday, 20 July 2009
AM Getting Started
  • Introductions of participants
  • Confirmation of expectations
  • Logistics
  • Demonstration of Mesh Potato - Q&A
  • Demonstration of Afrimesh - Q&A


PM
  • Brainstorming of working groups and establishment of teams for the workshop.
  • Live testing of the MPs by workshop participants. Each participant to configure their own MPs.


Tuesday, 21 July 2009 – Thursday, 23 July 2009 – Working groups
Readying for Prime Time – Mesh Potato
  • What is required to be able to distribute the MP so that it can be set up and tested by the average user?
  • Packaging goals for the week. Establishment of packaging team for week.


The Self Configuring Phone Network
  • Discussion and development of a framework for Mesh Potato self-configuration of phone numbers and directory. Options for public access? I.e multiple phone numbers on one MP.


Core Technology Maintenance
  • What is required to maintain the Mesh Potato firmware? What further development is required? How will this happen?


Commercialising and distributing the Mesh Potato
  • Exploration of business models
  • Costs, markups, distribution channels


Housing
  • Discussion of Mesh Potato housing design considerations. Ruggedness, aesthetics, cost.


Billing
  • Update of work on billing systems so far and consideration of priorities for the future.


Friday, 24 July 2009
AM The Five Minute Telco Challenge

Workshop participants will race to set up a working phone mesh from scratch in 5 minutes. We'll video the whole process and put it up on YouTube.

PM Reflection and wrap-up

Scenarios

Key issues: power, antenna, housing

Densely populated SA township
  • village, lots of users not too far away from each other
  • low technical knowledge
  • differing levels of line of sight
  • MPs deployed by operator
  • townships, peri-urban
  • mostly powered environment but quality variable and unstable
  • up to 1000 homes in a 300m radius
  • majority deployed internally?
Rural Village
  • possibly hilly
  • less dense populations
  • clusters of huts 500-1000 metres apart
  • grid power
East Timor
  • power on for six hours per day - battery buffer system
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