Re: [school-discuss] This could work...

["Charles Cosse" <ccosse@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Daniel,

i'm following your thread here with keen interest.  At the moment,
however, am just writing to mention the possibility of cellphone service
for internet connectivity?  Cellphones are pretty ubiquitous in Africa 
these days, i hear.  Just throwing it out there, fwiw, and sorry if you
already mentioned it and i missed it.

Charles

On 7/9/07, Daniel Howard <dhhoward@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Actually, my teacher has been working with a Malawi guy who has a
foundation there, and has receives funding from a variety of sources, so
I'll leave which school and how it's funded up to him.  A key mission of
his foundation is helping orphaned kids (typically from AIDS), and he's
built houses and schools for them.  Even if we can only do one school,
it would be great for his program.

Best,
Daniel

Doug Loss wrote:
> 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.
>


--
Daniel Howard
President and CEO
Georgia Open Source Education Foundation