The other side of the Digital Divide

Well I'm not completely on the other side. I at least have a decent Internet connection in my hotel room here at the Marshall Island Resort. It happens to be the only room in the entire hotel that is connected to the hotel's 128k dedicated connection. It sure beats the connection at the Ministry of Education which shares one dial up amongst 30 users. That is just about worthless.

Where we might take for granted broadband Internet, a dedicated 64K connection here in the Marshall Islands will cost you $800/month. A 128K dedicated Internet feed will cost $2000/month. There aren't a whole lot of people here who are going to connect in at those rates. It is quite a dilemma. There are many here that barely understand the impact of the Internet so as a result there isn't a big push to lower the costs or to get schools connected. There seems to be more of a concern over Internet abuse rather than the potential for learning with the Internet.

It's an interesting challenge to work in a place that is totally dependent on satellite communications as a link to the outside world. The week before I returned here, the Intelsat satellite serving this area malfunctioned causing a total communications blackout. Hard to believe in the 21st century. To work where there is no access to international calling (at least not in the MOE), no 1-800 numbers or to share a dial-up link amongst dozens of people. Things go at a much slower pace. I suppose as long as you understand that you can deal with it. But that's life on this side of the digital divide.