Here's a great example of hand-out aid being given in a location that
doesn't need it. The next day I went back and there were even more for sale.
And they were selling bed nets given to the local hospital, marked 'not for
sale.'

Oh, and did I mention a certain NGO handing out 'grants' to local business
men? My org was doing mirco loans. Trying to promote good business
principles, the kind that are helpful for long-term solutions. The community
turned against us. Think the NGO will be there with a hand out the next time
someone needs a cash infusion for their business? A loan would have been,
but not any more.

               

While Erick Hersman of whiteafrican.com & Afrigadget was in Kenya last month, he offered me one of the Portable Light Kits to test in Sudan. Armed with my PLK, I trekked back off to South Sudan (my new home) to find a willing participant in the FLAP bag project.

The FLAP bag project is a collaboration between PopTech, Timbuk2 Designs, and the Portable Light Project. Read more at FastCompany.com.

After looking around, my Sudanese friend and I found that no strong materials were available locally, however, there are plenty of imported bags available. Insisting that this was to be his bag at the end of the day, I requested that he pick out the most useful bag for his needs. He chose a canvas backpack. Before purchasing it, I gave it the once over and brainstormed with him how the 'portable light kit' could be integrated. We decided it could be sewn onto the front with Velcro on one side so that the front pockets could still be accessed and the light would be installed in one of the shoulder pads.

With no Velcro available locally, we decided a zipper would work just fine and might be more appropriate, as it would last longer.

Prior to installation, I tried my hand at hacking the portable light kit so that this one would have a USB port. After doing the necessary installation, I came to the conclusion that the battery included with this kit must not be a high enough voltage, so I removed it before the kit was installed on the backpack.

We have yet to fit the reflective material to the back, but I think we will sew it onto the back of the solar panels or the back of the backpack. It's quite possible that it's best use may just be to leave it loose. I will leave that up to my Sudanese friend.

While my friend was quite bummed that he would not be able to charge his cell phone with the kit, he was still excited to have the light. I'm not sure if the bag is something he would actually use regularly as most men who do carry bags, prefer a brief case of some sort. It's a status thing.

More pictures and feedback to come...

KND has fiber available to many places in Nairobi now. Fiber is a physical line that has to be installed but has likely already been run right to your door, now you just need to get it onto your property and into your home/office. The actual connection comes through a DSL line. It's like a phone line and is widely used in the US.

Since this is fiber, there are expensive up front costs to wire your building into the fiber infrastructure.

* UPDATE: The contention ratios have been added.

* UPDATE 2: Unless otherwise noted, all speeds listed are for download and the upload speeds are half that.

While these plans are considerably more expensive than Africa Online, the
important element is that they are in fact dedicated lines and not shared at
all. Also, they have not mentioned any kind of bandwidth caps, which I
specifically requested. So I am to understand that there are none. I have
asked for clarification to that fact.

Personally, I had no idea that the contention ratios were as low as they
were with AOL. I was thinking they¹d be in the order of 1:20 or even higher.
I¹ve also been told, however, that advertised contention ratios are not
always honest. So I am skeptical. If there was a way to test this after
ordering a service, I would definitely want to do that and take the ISP to
task if they were lying.

All that to say, be sure things like this are in your contract. If you care
enough about bandwidth to be reading this post to being with, you care about
your bandwidth and want exactly what is being sold to you, just like myself.
If I¹m signing a contract, I will write in hand on the contract the details
of the plan as I have been sold and have the provider initial next to those
notations.

PS. It¹s a lot harder to fudge the numbers when there is no contention and
it is dedicated. If you don¹t get your full bandwidth, you better believe
I¹d be on my ISP like white on rice.

On Iburst which is a shared connection we have 4 packages:

I'm quite frustrated that ISPs are not more forthcoming with this kind of
information (more on that below). When I first saw these offerings on their
web site, all I knew was the speed and cost. The share ratio and monthly cap
play a HUGE part in deciding between one ISPs offerings and comparing them
to another ISP.

In this case, I could not understand why the Pro package was 2.5x more with
only double the speed. Now, with more information, you can see that the
share ratio is quite a bit less and the monthly cap is also much larger.

Personally, these caps are still way to small. If it were double that, I
would be happy. I have little doubt that most users are well under that cap
and the ISP should allow flux in the system.

After emailing sales, I got an immediate reply that she was out of the
office for a week. I guess they are not interested in drumming up much
business. So then I emailed all the email addresses. I got a fairly quick
reply but it was not helpful, after a few back and forth emails with zero
additional information, I finally got the details I was asking for to begin
with, which you can now see above.

Sent to me by the 'godfather'. I'm trying to find out where I can buy these
things. Let me know if you find them....