In the development world, getting a project profiled in The Economist is a bit like a rock band being profiled in Rolling Stone. This week’s Economist has a profile of Dabba. Pretty cool.
Tag Archive for 'dabba'
Last week in Berlin at a Forum on Social Entrepreneurship hosted by German venture capital company Hasso Plattner Ventures, Rael Lissoos and Dabba won the Social Entrepreneur of the Year 2008 award. The event, sponsored by Deutsches Bank and MAN brought together 250 social entrepreneurs together with investors.
This is great news for Dabba and by extension for the Village Telco. The concept of Social Entrepreneurship has recently had some push-back in the form of a critique of philanthrocapitalism called Just Another Emperor. While the publication justly criticises the broad generalisation that non-profits should operate more like businesses, it seems clear to me that there is a lot of development mileage to be had from enterprises that operate on the principles of enlightened self-interest.
Equally, it seems clear to me that Open Source and Open Hardware offer a great intersection point between philanthropy and entrepreneurship. By supporting the development of software and hardware that help Dabba operate their social enterprise but doing it via open licenses, we can lower the barrier to entry in a market which is dying for more competition. Too often, donors make the mistake of funding an interesting pilot thinking that it would find sustainability once it got on its feet. I certainly have been guilty of this often enough myself. Sadly, more often than not, that initial funding, against all intention, creates a culture of dependence.
Philanthropists need to make it easy to do the right thing without doing the right thing. We need to do more leading of horses to water and less making them drink 
Dabba relies on a variety of Open Source software application to enable their network. Here is a profile of some of those applications.
Wireless Access Point
Every local connection starts with a wireless access point (AP) that connects phones and computers alike to the Dabba network. These APs rely entirely on a suite of Open Source programs. I should point out that what I am about to describe is the latest in an evolution of strategies for access points for Dabba. In this latest iteration, a clever antenna enclosure made by poynting.co.za harbours a Linksys router.
Each Linksys router has had it’s firmware (its internal operating system) replaced with an Open Source alternative called OpenWRT. This software expands the range of control that a user has over the device and offers the potential for installing additional software. A large developer community has developed around initiatives such as OpenWRT and there are many similar initiatives such as DD-WRT, Tomato, and others.
Now that the router has a flexible, adaptable Operating System, the next installation is B.A.T.M.A.N. This is a mesh networking algorithm developed by the Freifunk community. B.A.T.M.A.N. which stands for “Better Approach to Mobile Ad-Hoc Networking” is an improvement on the OLSR protocol developed by the same community. It allows wireless nodes to seamlessly and automatically configure and re-configure themselves into a cohesive network. This is transparent to the user connected to the network. Meshing offers the potential to dynamically deploy wireless networking by simply and transparently adding nodes to a wireless network.
Next there is OpenSER (Open SIP Express Router) is a high-performance, configurable, Open Source, SIP ( RFC3261 ) server which can connect, authenticate, and route calls from SIP phones. It has the advantage of having a very small footprint and being quite efficient which makes it ideal for use on Linksys routers. It also means that each wireless node can route local calls directly from phone to phone without needing to refer them to a central server.
Finally, there is Coova. Coova makes captive portal software which allows each wireless access point to authenticate data users i.e. people who connect to the network with a laptop or smartphone browser. The portal ensures that users authenticate via pay-as-you-go data cards. SIP phones are passed through directly and authenticated via a separate system. More about that later. One of the challenges of automating and simplifying the function of these wireless nodes is to have voice and data systems authenticate against a common database of users so that clients can have both voice and data credit in a single account.
It is remarkable to think that all of these Open Source applications can reside on a single inexpensive wireless router like the Linksys WRT54GL or GS. You can see here at the left Rael is demonstrating how the antenna with embedded router can be connected to a small solar panel to create a completely self-sustaining wireless access node.
In a future post I’ll talk more aobut the software that runs on the back end of Dabba’s systems.
Meet Rael Lissoos, a economist turned geek entrepreneur. While I have been talking about Village Telcos, Rael has been out building one in Orange Farm, a township about an hour south of Johannesburg.
Rael’s company, Dabba.co.za, provides inexpensive voice and data services to residents, businesses, and community centres in Orange Farm. What is remarkable about this is that he has been able to set up most of his telecommunications infrastructure inexpensively using Open Source software and commodity wireless devices. Through this service he is able provide free local calls to anyone within wireless range of his network. Dabba interconnects with Telkom, Vodacom, and CellC offering Dabba callers the possibility of connecting into the national fixed and mobile networks. Dabba offers this service at the same cost as making a phone call from a community container, with the added convenience that users can do so from their own homes.
Payment is made, as you might expect, via pay-as-you-go cards. Dabba offers both voice and data pay-as-you-go cards. A voice voucher is seen at the right. Rael says that initially the pay-as-you-go system was as simple as printing access numbers on paper and sealing them in paper envelopes. Dabba is more sophisticated now and prints elegant looking vouchers which are heat-sealed in plastic envelopes.
Rael has been working on VoIP service delivery in Orange Farm for a couple of years now and has experimented with a wide range of wireless radios and antennae. He has now settled on simple commodity wireless routers such as the Linksys WRT54G range of routers. These devices can have their internal software (firmware) replaced with Open Source software that allows the router to run mesh networking and VoIP applications. This means that a R700 router can be turned into a powerful device for delivering local voice and data services. Each router is capable of networking (meshing) seamlessly with others nearby creating an inexpensive web of connectivity. Combined with software to manage access and billing, you have the seeds of a powerful local telephony and data solution.
Dabba delivers local voice access to the network through a pre-configured VoIP phone. The SMC handset to the left is an example of a wireless VoIP phone. As an example, it is still a bit expensive at about R1000 per handset. Rael reckons that wireless VoIP phones can be found (in quantity) for under R500 each.
Dabba have also been providing local phones by mashing up inexpensive SIP phones and wireless access points. The Dabba user at the right is using a typical SIP phone with wireless connection. Costs for this type of phone are also in the R500 range. It is an interesting question as to whether having a “fixed” wireless phone in one’s house is perceived to have lower or equal value to having something like the SMC phone above.
Dabba offers pay-as-you-go data vouchers as well. Anyone accessing the Internet via Dabba’s wireless mesh is presented with a login screen to validate their voucher. While this is pretty straightforward at the moment, local access control could be connected with local advertising, presence, or a variety of features tuned to the local community and economy.
Dabba also offers “Public Phone Username” cards (seen at right) which allow users to access phone services from any phone on the Dabba network. Last but not least, because Dabba is a value added network (VAN) service provider in South Africa, they are able to offer their users their own telephone numbers dialable from any telephone network. This is getting very close to a full-service yet low-cost telephone network.
Dabba have been extremely innovative in how they deploy access points in the community. In some cases, they have partnered with local business such as the funeral parlour, pictured at left. In other cases, they have hosted access points in local houses in exchange for free access for the householder. Most ambitiously they have negotiated with the local sportsplex to set up solar-powered access points on top of the lighting towers illuminating the sports field. I think this kind of organic, local engagement is critical to the success of initiatives like this.
I think the time has arrived in South Africa for this model of entrepreneurship to take off. In fact, we may be nearing a “perfect storm” for the growth of such business models. Regulation is on the verge of allowing any VAN to operate as a telephone company. Even as we speak Cisco is investing in training in technically savvy entrepreneurs in South Africa in low-cost wireless deployment. At the same time, the the Meraka Institute at the CSIR is working on perfecting mesh networking protocols that Dabba are planning to roll out in their network. Here in my roll at the Shuttleworth Foundation, I am both keen to see Dabba succeed in South Africa and keen to see the business model for a “Village Telco” commoditised into something that could spread virally very quickly. If you’re interested in helping build a Open Source low-cost Village Telco model that would help others get started like Dabba, please get in touch.
Recent Comments