[liberationtech] Will Afghanistan's Free WiFi Network Go Down?

[Yosem Companys]

QUOTED

“What kind of message will we, de-facto representatives of the
international community in Afghanistan, send when the network finally goes
down? A message of fatigue and abandonment.”

— Una Vera Moore<http://click1.newsletters.siliconvalley.com/bzgdfgztccdyqmlbyjkqlystvsydnkvqnjgkmngpdzlfbll_qpdvdsdvvhsg.html>,
a development worker in Afghanistan, on what appears to be the impending
demise of JLink, a free WiFi network in the eastern city of Jalalabad.
JLink — a DIY network<http://click1.newsletters.siliconvalley.com/djrghcjnddgfmwpsfrkmpflnzlfgbkzmbrckwbctgjphsph_qpdvdsdvvhsg.html>that
Moore says has enabled a “nascent community of tech entrepreneurs” in
the war-torn nation — was partly funded with a grant from the National
Science Foundation and is being supported by the Synergy Strike
Force<http://click1.newsletters.siliconvalley.com/mpywynpkbbwldvqsltgdqlzkmzlwjgmdjtngvjncwpqysqt_qpdvdsdvvhsg.html>,
a group Wired says is composed of tech evangelists and altruists. But as
the group looks for continued funding, San Franciscan Todd Huffman of the
SSF says “we have had zero luck in finding anyone willing to support
bandwidth costs for Afghanistan.”
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.stanford.edu/pipermail/liberationtech/attachments/20120515/8a42941c/attachment.html>