Features

Fundesin: using wireless broadband in Amazonia

FUNEDESIN - The Foundation for Integrated Education and Development - uses a wireless mesh to distribute internet through their extensive site in the Amazonian jungle, linking the Yachana Technical High School, Yachana Lodge Ecotourism Centre, The Bio Science Centre, Medical Clinic, Offices and Visitors. FUNEDESIN is 2.5 hours by motorised canoe from the nearest small city where there is an airport. All power on the site is provided using solar panels.

Douglas McMeekin, Executive Director of the foundation, was recently in the UK with a party of four students from the Yachana High School attending an event on "Young People and Sustainable Development" hosted by British Council and the EU, where he reported his mesh networking progress to LocustWorld.

The mesh distributes broadband from a satellite link between the various sites on the river, including the Yachana Lodge Hotel, the High School, which is 1500 meters away and the Bio Science Centre, which is 5km down river. All of these locations get online through the mesh, which also provides the potential for local communication between these places.

The mesh has been designed and installed by Bruce Schulte, an American who has been working on wireless networking projects in Ecuador for many years. Bruce attended an IICD course in mesh networking organised by the IICD in Ecuador last year. Joe Roper was sent by LocustWorld from the UK to teach the course, with materials translated into Spanish by the IICD, and gave a dozen students from Ecuador and Bolivia a primer in setting up mesh networks.

The Yachana High School, founded in 2005, provides vocational training. The school operates year round, with two groups of students alternating for 28 days each as boarders, giving them time to work at home helping in their local communities. The school offers a degree in Ecotourism and Sustainable Development, specialising in Ecotourism, Conservation, Agronomy, Animal Husbandry and Micro-Enterprise development. Secondary education in Ecuador is provided free by the state, but the quality in rural areas is very poor and the students learn theory not practical skills.

The Yachana High School is serving students from four provinces and five ethnic groups in the Amazon, all of whom are very poor. Funedesin relies on donations to help cover the difference between the token $40 per annum the students pay for this education and the true costs. Being online provides an incredible educational benefit for the students and teachers in every subject and helps them to bridge the digital divide between the developed and lesser developed parts of the world.

The vocational training provided at the High School focuses on appropriate technology, with classes making water filter and led flashlight bulbs for marketing to local people. 7500 elementary schools in Ecuador have no potable water, so a locally made water filter provides a great boost to the health of students.

With such modest electric capacity it is amazing that the IT networks work at all. This is achieved using a 3.5kw solar panel array and very low power devices. The meshboxes use around 6watts, and the standard computer used is a laptop, with inbuilt battery to overcome power outages. The potential for using 12v low power PCs, containing similar technology to the meshbox, like the VIA Mini ITX, is very great. VIA's work on the PC-1 program is pioneering new markets for PC use such as this.

In addition to the Solar Power in use at Yachana and FUNEDESIN, there are also opportunities for other alternative power, such as fuel cell electricity generation. Bio-fuel, and methanol from the Ecuador onshore oil production and processing industry would both provide a potential fuel for fuel cell power, to supplement the Solar electricity already used at the Foundation.

The Medical Clinic that FUNEDESIN built in 1997 gets a great benefit from now being online. Through Tele-Medicine, the medical residents going their annual rural year of service can now have live tele-medicine consultation from this remote clinic to experts in the Metropolitano Hospital in the capital city of Quito, or throughout the world, through this internet connection.

Yachana Lodge provide a unique experience in ecotourism holidays in Amazonia. Profits from their business go towards funding the Yachana Technical High School, with 2,000 visitors annually and capacity for 40 at any one time, the lodge is busy all year round. Having an online connection is a great service for visitors, who can maintain their contacts with the rest of the world while they are enjoying the jungle experience.

FUNEDESIN owns 4380 acres of rainforest that is protecting biodiversity and the culture of the indigenous peoples of the Amazon rainforest. The purchase of much of this land was made possible through donations from Rainforest Concern

Funedesin aims to be self-sustaining through eco-tourism and micro enterprise, and is now getting recognition for their world-class pioneering work in these areas from many major institutions. Yachana Lodge was awarded the "Conde Naste Ecotourism Award" 2004 and was a finalist in the World Travel and Tourism Council award 2005.

The mesh network provides the opportunity to run voice over IP within the mesh, and to link the mesh users to the worldwide public telephone network through the internet. Satellite internet does give a little delay when used for voice services, but it is certainly a great improvement on no link. Personal voip products like skype work fine, and the foundation plan to set up their own VOIP server too. Using their own voip server local users could also link into the cellphone network, which is just accessible from the foundation's tower, allowing incoming and outgoing calls via terrestrial networks too.

Further down the river the Bio Science Field Station is run by Global Vision International. Recently a new species of frog was discovered at the GVI Bio Station. Being online allowed the centre to confirm their discovery and upload photos to the internet whereas without being online these activities would have taken weeks.

Historically FUNEDESIN and Yachana have run an office in Quito to handle their administration, bookings, accounts and other functions. Now that there is an internet connection throughout the jungle site all of these functions are moving from Quito to Yachana, saving money, time and travel costs. Having universal internet access lets the foundation run all of their office functions from Yachana.

The Foundation also provides potential to operate as centre for teaching others to follow this model of bottom up development, teaching wireless internet, voice over IP, alternative high school operations in the remote jungle, tele-medicine and ecotourism so that other communities can emulate the success at FUNEDESIN.

FUNEDESIN and Yachana are great examples of how internet services, delivered by wireless mesh, can bring benefits for so many different aspects of life in remote locations.