LowCost, HighLatency, UnlimitedBandwidth Communication - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Title: LowCost, HighLatency, UnlimitedBandwidth Communication


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Low-Cost, High-Latency, Unlimited-Bandwidth
Communication
Kentaro Toyama Assistant Managing
Director Microsoft Research India WWW 2007 Banff
May 9, 2007
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Technology for Emerging Markets
Microsoft Research India

• Research goals
• Understand potential technology users in
  economically poorer communities
• Adapt, invent, or design technology that
  contributes to socio-economic development of poor
  communities worldwide

Computer-skills camp in Nakalabande,
Bangalore (MSR India, Stree Jagruti Samiti, St.
Josephs College)
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Interdisciplinary Research
MSR India TEM
Aishwarya Lakshmi Ratan

Public Administration and
International Development
Jonathan Donner

Communications
Society
Society
Nimmi Rangaswamy

Social Anthropology
Rajesh Veeraraghavan
Group
Group
Computer Science and Economics
Impact
Impact

Understanding
Understanding
Indrani Medhi
Design

Individual
Individual
Kentaro Toyama

Computer Science
Technology
Technology
Randy Wang

Computer Science
Innovation
Innovation
Udai Singh Pawar

Physics
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A rural school in Chinhat, Uttar Pradesh, India
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Very Poor Communities
Traits relevant to information dissemination

• Meager economy
• High cost of hi-tech
• Terrible electrical and telecommunications
  infrastructure
• Poor real-time Internet experience
• Low literacy
• Multimedia helpful
• Slow pace of life
• Real-time interaction rarely critical

Kodia village, Madhya Pradesh, India
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Low-Cost, High-Latency, High-Bandwidth?

• Alternatives to real time
• Delay-tolerant networking
• Data trickling with
• satellite communications
• mobile phones
• point-to-point wireless
• Vehicles and WiFi
• DakNet / First Mile Solutions
• DVDs via physical mail
• This talk!

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Digital StudyHall Problem

• Poor teaching quality in rural schools

Rural school in Chinhat, Uttar Pradesh
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Digital StudyHall Problem

• Good teachers drawn to city with higher salaries
  and better environments

Urvashis StudyHall private school in Lucknow
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Digital StudyHall Solution

• Goal transfer of good pedagogy to rural schools
• Content DVD recordings of classes taught by good
  teachers
• -- Sent via post on DVD --
• Usage Rural teachers use DVDs as base material
  for interactive lessons.

A DSH class in Uttar Pradesh, India
Randy Wang, Researcher, Microsoft Research India
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eSagu
Prof. P. Krishna Reddy, Intl Inst. of
Information Technology, Hyderabad

• Goal queryless delivery of agriculture advice
  to farmers
• Content Digital photographs of farms and crops
  collected by paid workers in villages
• -- Sent via post on DVD --
• Usage Photos are analyzed by agriculture experts
  who diagnose and prescribe remedies

Some photographs of a cotton crop (and written
notes) collected by eSagu
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Netflix
DVD over post works elsewhere

• Goal painless movie delivery to households at a
  low monthly rate
• Content full-length movies
• -- Sent via post on DVD --
• Usage DVDs watched by families in the comfort of
  their homes trips to video rental stores
  eliminated.

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Jim Gray
Data over post is fastest and cheapest

• Storage capacity doubling each year
• - 1970 20MB disk cost 20K
• Bandwidth improving only 10 a year
• For large stores, FedEx-ing harddrives cheaper
  and faster than any other method.
• The biggest problem is customs.

http//www.acmqueue.org/modules.php?nameContentp
ashowpagepid43
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Not the right model if there is

• Zero electricity
• Poor postal service
• Not enough financial resources for supporting
  DVD/VCD playback
• No need for high-bandwidth

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Summary

• The Internet may need non-standard channels for
  poor rural areas.
• Data transported physically can provide the
  highest-bandwidth, even in communications-rich
  economies.
• DVDs by mail offer a low-cost, high-bandwidth,
  high-latency alternative!

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Thank you!

• http//research.microsoft.com/research/tem
• kentoy_at_microsoft.com