First-class access for developing-world environments

Abstract

Improvements in connectivity and the cost of laptops will soon enable widely-available Internet access in parts of the world where access ranged from rare to unavailable. While such steps represent tremendous progress, we believe that the next barrier to adoption will be to convince providers that the gap between "good enough" access and first-class access, while quite large, is possible to bridge. This paper presents our views for the creation of a networking software stack tailored toward developing-world usage. With this stack, we believe that developing-world users will have a participatory Internet experience, similar to that of users in the US and Europe. The stack is also geared toward a low resource footprint, making it deployable in cost-sensitive environments. We have completed some portions of the stack, and believe that the total system represents a three to five year effort.