Internet pioneer links Nepalese villages

NEXT TIME you have a hissy fit about your broadband connection being a bit slow, or not being able to pick up your emails from your laptop when you're out in the sticks, spare a thought for Mahabir Pun.

The tenacious Nepalese teacher, worried that rural villagers in his remote mountain community were missing out on the World Wide Wibble, decided to bypass the usual routes by creating his own satellite connection to the Internet.

Realising that the cost of a commercial connection was way beyond the means of the remote farming communities, Pun wrote an article for BBC News Online asking for technical help in setting up the ad-hoc system.

Seven years later and Pun finds himself part of a thriving online community thanks to the help of private donations and grants from universities. Forty-two villages with a total population of 60,000 people can now contact city hospitals when they have medical problems, trade goods, and talk to other villages and relatives abroad.

And the biggest problem is that someone has to climb up a tree every now and then to realign the dish. µ

L'Inq
Beeb