http://www.balancingact-africa.com/news/en/issue-no-584/top-story/despite-high-costs-i/en

Balancing Act interviewed me last week asking about the work we do at iLab. It’s pretty exciting to be featured in publications that are so specific to ICTs in Africa.

Lonestar Cell:

Data Service on your phone:

Access Point Name: internetlcc
Everything else: leave blank

You can also dial *353*4# to check your data subscription status and *353*0# to terminate your subscription. Lonestar is also selling USB EDGE Modems for your computer for $40.00.

Fixed Wireless

Lonestar offers the following as part of their iConnect WiMax network, which is only available in Monrovia:

Note that it’s not specified how the bandwidth is split upstream/downstream.

Lonestar sells the following devices that you would have to buy to use the iConnect service:

• USB Dongle – $99.00
• Tower Max – A stationary receiver, as I recall it can operate at higher speeds than the USB dongle – $159.00
• WiFi Max – Same as Tower Max but with a built in WiFi access point – $199.00

All of this information was gathered from handouts and fliers at the Lonestar office and talking with Lonestar staff.

Also of note, Lonestar has Liberia’s first mobile money system. Check it out here: http://www.lonestarcell.com/download/Mobile_Money_User_Guide.pdf. For more on Mobile Money you can read a blog post from one of my Liberian colleagues. I also asked Lonestar for a list of the places they had cell towers. I thought this was a reasonable request. Like what if you’re stuck on the road from Fishtown to Harper and need to know which direction to walk in to get a signal. At first they thought I wanted lat,lon coordinates and they acted like this was a big deal, such information seemed super sensitive to them, as though with this knowledge I could bring down their network. Which all seemed rather silly to me. They said they’d send me a list of the towns the towers were in, but never did. I found this on their website which, more or less, answered my question: http://www.lonestarcell.com/page.php?pid=4. According to that page they have 77 villages and cities covered, cover approximately 82% of the Liberian population. They’re list of villages/cities covered is: Careysburg, Brewerville, Kakata, Harbel, Salala, Weala, Gbarnga, Suacoco, Gbatala, Totota, Palala, Bong Mines, Botota, Gold Camp, Ganta, Bahn, Kample, Kissipli, Kpen, Yekepa, Zuwuloo, Sanniquellie, Saclopea, Loguatuo, Tappita, Zwedru, Buchanan and Buchanan LAC, Voinjama, Foyah, Zorzor, Kolahun, Greenville, Yenwhen, Tubmanburg, Robertsport, Medina, Gbah, Sinje, Bo Water Side, Lofa Bridge, Sinoe, Harper, Pleebo, Zweinta, Karweaken Salaye, Vahun, Cesstos, Pleebo, Harper, Fish Town. You might have noticed that they only list 55 places here, and some of them are kind of the same, like listing “Sinoe” and “Greenville”, so I can only assume that this list is not comprehensive of all 77 locations they have.

Cellcom:

Data Service on your phone:

Access Point Name: web.cellcomnet.net
Everything else: leave blank

When I was at Cellcom they were running a deal where you would get a EDGE USB modem, that the flier said, “3G+ ready”, presumably indicating the modem could handle 3G if the network were also 3G, and one months worth of data for $49.00. The flier also said you get a “20% discount on all data packages”, so that’s nice.

I know the limits Cellcom enforces have caused problems for my friends who use the USB Modems for internet on their computers, but if you’re just checking email on your phone, maybe looking at a map or two, and looking at basic, websites, you should be able to stay under them.

Fixed Wireless

Cellcom offers the following as part of their fixed wireless network, which is only available in Monrovia:

Just like Lonestar, Cellcom does not specified how the bandwidth is split upstream/downstream.

Cellcom charges $390.00 to setup and install their fixed wireless service at your location.

All of this information was gathered from handouts and fliers at the Cellcom office and talking with Cellcom staff.

I also asked Cellcom staff for a list of the places they had cell towers, and they reacted just like Lonestar, first acting like that was a major security breach and then promising to send me something and never doing it. I looked over their website for a listing of places covered and couldn’t find anything.

Things to Keep in Mind

With lower costs and no usage limits it would seem that Lonestar is the clear winner here. However, as anyone who’s lived in Liberia knows, the real issue is reliability. How many hours and days of the month will your service be down, how often will it be so slow that it’s unusable? On this trip I didn’t have time to perform any tests to determine these factors.

Later,

The Ushahidi Liberia team was all decked out in their election observer garb. I appreciated the one-size-fits-all size of a Liberian polo shirt actually fits me. However, after wearing it straight for 14 hours I wish it was made of cotton and not polyester. Though really I have nothing to complain about.

Today iLab Liberia played host to the Election Coordinating Committees (ECC) data entry clerks. The ECC has 2000 election observers spread through out the country and they’re calling the  data entry clerks who are then typing the data into a Google Form. It started off pretty slow, since there just wasn’t that much to report about, but right now everyone is filing their end of day reports as the counting at polling stations finishes up, so the phone lines are pretty busy. iLab was also visited by a smattering of journalist, election observers, and NGO workers.

Earlier tonight I went to see the votes being counted. It was as tedious and intense as it sounds. By no means was it fast, but I was very impressed with how deliberate, transparent, serious, and seemingly accurate the counting was. One by one each ballot was read, held up for all to see, and then place in the stack for the voted for candidate. Then the stacks were counted. At one polling station the observers demanded the polling staff recount the votes, which took a while. From what I saw at the polling station I was at, which in no way, shape, or form constitues a significantly significant sampling, CDC and UP were neck and neck.

After watching them count the ballots my colleagues and I headed over to the National Elections Commission for their end of day press conference. They pretty much said everything I said at the beginning of this blog post. Things went well, they thanked the donors and organizations that assisted them and then took questions from the reporters. I thought it was pretty cool to get to be a part of all of this. I was really impressed with the NEC’s swank press briefing room. Cold AC, flat screen TVs and lots of chairs, what else would you need?

Finally, I’ll end with this picture of the Liberian sun set from our balcony. Such a beautiful place.

I was pretty impressed with the order of the CDC march. It certainly disrupted traffic, but the police were doing a good job keeping things moving and stopping the marchers to let you turn and stuff. The marchers also seemed pretty orderly. I didn’t hear of incidents of misbehavior. I look forward to seeing how the Unity Party march goes on Sunday. Hopefully it will be just as smooth.

For my birthday I met up with a bunch of friends at Sajj restaurant in Sinkor. When I walked in the manager recognized me and said, “I hear it’s your birthday.” I love that about Liberia. Where else would you walk into a restaurant and some how they know it’s your birthday. It’ll be a while before I have this happen to me in Denver. A lot of my old friends form Liberia where back for the elections. It was really cool to see all of them.

Sajj has also installed a dance floor and had salsa dancing going on. It was really cool. It reminded me of La Noche, just less sketchy.

Finally, here are some pictures of the “how to guides” for the elections… toward the botton of the page. http://johnetherton.com/gallery/index.php/2011/October/2011-10-06.  Oh, and at the very bottom are some crazy pictures of the women at Air Field prostrating themselves in the dirt as they pray for God to help Ellen get re-elected. It’s a bit more humbling than a bunch of white people in a stadium praying for God to help a presidential candidate, but I still question if this is the most effective use of prayer.

Later,

John.

I’m sure these items will quickly become collectors items. Maybe even duplicates will be printed by the Franklin Mint. I just feel honored to have an original.

Some of the pictures of President Sirleaf are a little less than flattering, so I wonder if she did not approve all of the signs people have put up on her behalf. I do like how her signs use lots of Liberian English. I’m also curious what the 2 squares are that look like place holders for a missing image on some of her signs.

The sign for Edwin Snowe for the House of Representatives is memorable for its pun that your probably more likely to get if your from a slightly colder climate, but I got it, and I’m thankful for that.

Later,

John.
Link to high rest image gallery

You can find the post here: http://blog.ushahidi.com/index.php/2011/09/14/sms-and-liberia-a-love-story/

iLab Liberia, a project of the Ushahidi Liberia team, has been bustling since it opened this May.  iLab has become Liberia’s go-to resource center for local IT professionals, a training ground in open source software and has been known to throw a pretty mean mapping party.

We’ve told you a bit about iLab on this blog before, but now we have a visual aid to better introduce ourselves.  We started the space as a way to train people in the Ushahidi platform with adequate connectivity and equipment, and now we’re holding FOSS trainings for the Liberian legislature and serving as the data entry hub for national Elections Coordinating Committee. So many good and unexpected things start with a tool that serves to connect, and to ask people – what is your story?  Now we are asking, who is your community? And we get to be part of the answer.  It’s an exciting time to be in Liberia – with a presidential election next month, broadband Internet   landing offshore in 2012 and increasing overlaps between Liberia’s  development and tech communities.  We hope you’ll take a look at our video to learn more about what iLab is doing to promote IT access and innovation in Liberia.