Connecting from here to there

I recently joined BOPSource.com to gain additional insight into working on BoP topics. The site developer posted a video of an interview with a Nepalese man who worked in the Middle East. Curious, I just watched it at work (where I get YouTube connection). Sure, enough- the man worked in Qatar and did not have a good experience. The video brings a face to many of the stories my former colleague Silvia Pessoa and her Immigration Studies students discovered in their research. My own students in my 'Design for People and Planet' course investigated issues facing labors and documented further challenges they faced- high connectivity/transportation/living costs, contract disputes, health issues, abuse, and boredom.



I often wondered about what sort of life these Sri Lankan, Indian, Nepalese, Bangladeshi, Phillipino and other workers left behind (in terms of Sri Lankan, I can't imagine living with with the horror going on the island). Last week in Ehklaspur, I met two women whose husbands were off working in Malyasia or in another part of Bangladesh. Recalling that my students discovered that communication for workers back to their home is often expensive and they imagined that the worker's home village or family wouldn't have a mobile or computer. I found out that yes, it's cheaper to call from Bangladesh to Qatar than vice versa (~17 taka or .25USD a minute, vs. about 3 riyal or 1 USD a minute from Qatar). However, my students would be surprised to see how connected a village could be. This one woman had a mobile, as did multiple other villagers. She spent about 300-500 taka (4.35-7.25 USD) on her phone bill (or if she's BoP [earning <$2 a day] about 3-6% of her entire salary). The woman also quoted the per minute price to Saudi Arabia and Singapore, indicating that she had some familarity of situations with people working in those locales.

Much BoP communication work resides in mobile phone work, as they are portable, can be cheap and can provide built-in infrastructure for other initiatives, such as e-Health or e-Agriculture projects. GCC cites a study where mobile phones are only owned by ~26% of the population but a large of the population uses a phone. (will cite stat later when I can confirm it). How? People have businesses renting out their mobile for others to use- allowing more of the population access to mobile technology. In design school I wasn't as interested as mobile service design and application designs (especially so the privileged can more easily meet up with someone for a cup of coffee) but this mobile work intrigues me. Additional challenge of BoP mobile work: the issue of non-literacy or low-literacy. What to know what it's like to operate a mobile phone without being able to read? Change the settings on your phone (or iPod) to a language you don't know and see how well you do. Limiting, eh?

I'll take the local breakfast...

Photo above is 6 pm view outside the front of my hotel in Dhaka.

No updates on the project, as we haven't actually discussed my work. Today was figuring out the shower, discovering breakfast (local breakfast equals roti-like bread with turmeric potatoes and peas, fried egg, and milk/sugar chai), ATM, getting to Grameen Bank main office, meeting folks & the GCC team, experiencing power outages*, walking outside the office for lunch, crossing the street (no easy feat and they drive on the British side of the road), walking home, purchasing a shalwar kameez (3 piece Indian sub-continent suit), working out in the USSR-era workout room and discovering Bangladeshi censorship of YouTube (I can't even Google the word). We discuss my involvement in the GCC project tomorrow.

*I'm staying at the Grand Prince Hotel in Dhaka and while it's no Ritz, it's clean, cheap, safe and works for my needs. The only review I could find prior to arriving in Bangladesh was one disgruntled person who complained that each day, 3 times a day, the power would go off, then on and then the AC couldn't be used for an hour. He thought it was ludicrous and just the hotel trying to save money.

Well...actually- it's not that uncommon. And yes, people are more aware that electricity costs money here. Yesterday as my friend Naumi (well, her driver) drove me to dinner she told me that shops close at 8ish to save power. Today in my meeting with the Managing Director of GC the power went out but after a moment the lights flicked on. As she opened the windows, she explained that the building has a generator for lights and computers (but not for AC) and that the city redistributes the available power throughout the city throughout the day, resulting in periodic power loses. The city can only supply electricity about 70% of the time and in the rural villages electricity is about 30% of the time. I haven't confirmed if the computers stay on or lose data each time. About half an hour later the AC kicked back on and everyone closed their windows. I was in the changing room at the store connected to the hotel with a top over my head when the entire place went dark. We hung out in darkness for about 30 seconds before the generators started up and the lights flicked back on. True to form, my room-AC wasn't working when I got back to my room 30 minutes later and it started up another 20 minutes later. So to Mr./Ms. Reviewer- it's a developing country. Deal. And think about all this next time you flip a switch in the US or Europe or anywhere else power isn't a visible issue...

More internet trouble?!

Emailed 5 hours ago:

"UNSCHEDULED EVENT:
Qatar Foundation Customer Service Desk today provided the following update
and request for our cooperation.

"As of this Morning (Friday 01/02/08) our connection carrying traffic out of
QF toward the Pacific Link suffered a failure. Please note that this is a
separate issue to the internet degradation being seen in recent days.
A backup link is in place; however, this link does have reduced capacity."

It is therefore important that until further notice, we refrain from using
network resources for personal use to minimize traffic on this backup link
and allow the business to continue without interruption.

This affects our campus and Internet Services as well. While local Qatar
access, E-mail, and web access are still available, until the Pacific link
is restored, real-time applications such as videoconferencing will not be
practical and may only contribute to the congestion.

QF is working with the international fiber providers to resolve the issue.
We will update the community once the incident is resolved."

Connection Interrupted...

So I was wrapping up another sports experience or two before planning to continue my Sports Weekend (Week)-Part 2 when 1) I forgot my laptop at school and couldn't blog and 2) the internet suddenly became very, very, very slow. Early-dial up days slow. Hit 'Next' on Amazon, walk away, brush teeth, wash face, return, and it's still not up slow. I thought it was my normally decent but sometime sporadic home wireless.

Today at school, where I use an Ethernet cable, it was still a little spotty. Then we received an e-mail, stating:"UNSCHEDULED EVENT:Computing Services would like to inform you that Internet access has beenslow since yesterday for all Q-Tel, Home-ADSL, and Business users. This is caused due to a major Fiber cable cut near Egypt."

Ok, that explains it, I thought. No biggie. Internet seemed to be working ok and I had no real reason to watch videos or stream audio anytime soon. Then another email:"Computing Services would like to keep you updated regards this incident.

Two cables were cut in the Mediterranean yesterday which bought down our Atlantic link. Traffic is currently routed via a second link (through the Pacific).

We are measuring 150ms latencies over this second link. Hence, some congestion may occur causing delays and backlog. Computing Services recommends that you plan tele-conference backups for your video-conferences as the service could face high delay under the circumstances. [CM-Q faculty and staff regularly teleconference with the 8-hours behind us Pittsburgh campus. It's not unusual to walk by a conference room and see folks chatting with someone on screen in a recognizable room in Pittsburgh. The classroom I use is wired for video-conferencing; our lecture halls are designed for distance teaching; and all of our faculty/staff laptops/computers have webcams].

As we understand, it is anticipated that new fiber will be laid down within
approximately 2 weeks. [Not too shocking- I've come to expect that things take time here]."Thus I wasn't too surprised to go home after work and find my internet didn't work at all- at least for 6 hours. It was a welcome break-absolving me from checking email and forcing me to read some prior-downloaded recycling reports, listen to Anthony Bourdain read his 'Kitchen Confidential' on iTunes, and sketch a typeface.

With the internet back on, I saw an email from my mom discussing my Uncle's communication with his employer Aramco in KSA(Kingdom of Saudi Arabia) was interrupted and then I just noticed the Internet outage is one of the top stories on CNN.com. Yep. That's us folks. Far as I can tell- not quite the chaos here they describe in Dubai in the article but bothersome nonetheless. We'll see what sort of effect it has here in Qatar.