On Mon, 2007-07-09 at 18:02 -0400, Daniel Howard wrote:
Well, turns out Eutelsat covers Malawi:
http://www.bcsatellite.net/eng_vsat.html
I've emailed them to get price and technical specs on the satellite
modem. Modem price is under $2000.
Satellite receiver and modem: $2300
200 W Solar array and battery (in case a hand covers up the solar array
accidentally): $1000
K12LTSP server: $700
Thin clients: $150 each, 4 total for $600
5 LCD monitors: $150 each for total of $750.
Ethernet Switch, cabling, power strips: $150.
Total without the monthly charge for Satellite Internet Service: $5500.
Check with the schools themselves before going too much further, Daniel.
The schools I talked to in South Africa had total yearly budgets of
something on the order of $12,000 for *everything*. This would be far
outside the range of anything they could afford. In fact if the service
runs to very much per month they might not be able to afford even that,
if all the equipment was donated to them gratis.