[Chapter-delegates] Fighting Homelessness, One Smartphone at a Time

[Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond]

Dear Christian,

one of the paragraphs in your response particularly intrigued me and I
wonder if I can ask for clarification:

On 15/04/2015 11:16, Christian de Larrinaga wrote:
> My preference for promoting a platform that would be truly
> transformative over wireless would not be cell but wireless Internet
> services. That is the only effective way to bring the power of
> application and service innovation to the people locally. It's the
> difference between being dependent (on cell) to being in the driving
> seat (Internet data network) both from enabling new networks to be set
> up by people themselves to their developing and deploying applications.

What do you mean by wireless Internet services? Via WIFI?

I am personally "sold" on LTE. Having used it in extensively in
Singapore at 100Mb/s download AND upload, whether outside, in a hotel,
in a taxi, underground, on a subway train. I have no idea how they did
this but LTE worked everywhere. Implemented correctly, LTE really opened
my mind to understand ubiquitous connectivity. I stopped thinking "do I
have Internet?" and made constant use of my mobile to help me find my
way in an unknown environment - so much so that I felt like I "belonged"
there. I can see the benefit of such service for trade and exchange at
all levels, both in developed and in developing economies.
All to say that I have real concerns about another technology gap
opening: reliable, fast LTE or not.

To summarise, I really believe the mobile Internet is an opportunity for
all countries but in the current arms race where "faster is better"
whilst the principles are great, the infrastructure costs are going to
put a serious strain on developing country economies.
Kind regards,

Olivier

-- 
Olivier MJ Crépin-Leblond, PhD
http://www.gih.com/ocl.html