A professor in Brazil is helping to bring solar powered wireless internet to communities in need. The low-cost “access point in a box” he has created needs no internet connection, electricity, or assembly to function. It is being tested on lamp posts in a number of locations. Innovations such as these are becoming more common around the world, and are leveling the economic playing field and creating countless benefits for people who could otherwise not pay for the internet.
For many of us, the internet has become as basic of a utility as electricity and running water. With globalization transforming the economies of nations around the world, the internet can play a significant role in helping people to find jobs, make connections, learn, have fun, and improve their lives. Now thanks to numerous innovations, wireless internet is becoming cheaper and more accessible for everyone in countries like Brazil.
The BBC reports that Professor Marcelo Zuffo of the the University of Sao Paulo is an innovator who has developed a solar-powered access point that needs no further assembly when bought– only a good place to grab some sun. Zuffo explained to the BBC that:
We came up with the idea of taking energy that is most plentiful and cheap, ie the sun, and try and transform this in bits. We have a solar panel, a cheap motorcycle battery and a circuit that is responsible for energy management. We can have up to two days of full internet coverage and our goal is to increase that to 10 days – so that in the rainy season and the winter – you can have the internet for free. The natural plan is to miniaturise the system so that we can save on costs. So by the end you can imagine these wi-fi solar mesh devices being the size of a cellphone or playing card.
Sounds great, right? Zuffo said that one of the primary motivations to start his project in Brazil was to help a school with no electrical outlets to have internet access. Zuffo isn’t the only person, however, to have had this terrific idea.
- The Christian Science Monitor reported over two years ago about a similar idea and invention that was acted upon and designed by the Green Wifi Project for use in Rwanda.
- You can also read a story about the world’s first solar powered wireless internet rickshaw, known as the iTrike.
- A contest sponsored by an organization in India recently asked for inventors to develop a solar-powered wireless internet device. It will be an important component in helping to train the children of sex workers and the victims of the sex trafficking industry for technological jobs. In this way it is hoped that they can escape from such terrible circumstances (a software engineer from Texas won the contest if you are curious).
- Another older story describes a unique system involving motorcycles and solar-powered computers that has allowed doctors in Boston to consult with patients in a remote area of Cambodia via the internet.
I can’t wait to read more of these stories about how solar power and other clean energy innovations are improving the lives of people around the world. What about you?
Photo Credit: edkohler on Flickr under a Creative Commons license
What a creative innovation! My next question is, I wonder if these will make it to the same places that the $100 laptop has been distributed. It would be great to have wifi without need for electricity, but if there’s no computers to use it, then what?
Thanks for all these other examples of innovation. I as a green consultant would love to support companies such as these.
What good is a solar wifi access point if it “needs no Internet access” to set up? Isn’t Internet access kinda the point of wifi?
Not to mention “mesh” systems are incredibly inefficient, slow, and have extremely minimal capacity (for every ‘hop’ from your internet gateway, you typically see a further 50% reduction of speed)
Solar-based 802.11 access points have been around for years and are hardly an innovation. Kits can be purchased cheaply from many WISP distributors.
Actually no, this was in St. Louis Park, MN, USA over 2-3 years ago. It used EXACTLY the same thing. The exact same white wifi boxes with 2x antenna, along with the exact same solar power setup, as pictured were used.
Absolutely amazing! Brilliance. I hope others will follow and these spots start popping up everywhere.
JIff
http://www.privacy.es.tc
Good work, but I think the future for undeveloped rural areas is in cell phone internet access or Wimax.
Thanks BrazillianProfessor for inventing the solar powered wifi access point. We could never of figured that out without you! You’re a legend!
Wireless? Solar panel? Batteries? Internet? Oh wow!
Good Luck to All involved in bringing this to market everywhere. I am all about removing utility expenses. Greatness will come from tiny villages!
Yeah, they’re in SLP, MN, and I’ve recently heard they’re taking them out because they don’t really work that well, (or maybe it’s reliably, who knows) and because the people in the neighborhood hate the look of them and generally have their own broadband lines into their homes anyways.
-r
Hahahaha! This comes at the perfect time because guess what? Me and my buddies have been “inventing” this exact same device for years! We “invented” it by reading plans that have been “invented” for years before and “bought” it from this “internet” that was “invented” 30 years ago!
Seriously though, kits have been available to do this for years. Me and my buddies built a system like this from scratch so that the one of us that had broadband could share with the rest of us. This isnt an invention unless you have absolutely no clue about the current state of homebrew network hackers. This is very old news to most homebrew peeps regardless.
You can build a microwave radio antenna from a pie pan, bronze tubing, a regular old Linksys router, a small solar panel and a bit of soldering.
Now, lets wait for the next important article from Digg telling us all about this new invention called “lolcats” or “World of Warcraft” or some other internet meme that has existed for at least 6 years but just now reached the middle-aged bloggers who think theyre in-the-know.
This is the cancer that is killing the internet.
Oh by the way…
Just in case you need a little more proof, heres some plans that have been posted for about 8 years and guess what? A highschool kid made them.
http://www.saunalahti.fi/elepal/antenna1.html
Now go ride a bike to work and write an article on Digg explaining how you invented it. And while youre doing it, try not to make it so obvious that youre all middle-aged coffee-house techies who learn “everything they know” by reading every half-baked, uninformed, knee-jerk blog post made by anyone claiming to be an “expert” on the industry.
Im sure I’ll see one of you in Starbucks telling me all about “the laptop wars” and how youre in on the ground level. Yeah, sell me some motivational tapes you tools.
There’s nothing inventive in connecting a power source to something that uses power.
Even if it’s solar power.
I mean, look at the photo. He stuch a solar panel on a lamp post and connected it to a battery to power something.
Now there may be something inventive that occurred there, if so, please report it so we know what it is.
Sam
Hey, you young nerds are putting the blame for this article in the wrong place.
It is the author who came up with the headline word, “Invents”. The author is a history major and does not know technology. Some of us old guys do know what is going on. Here is the author’s background:
Levi Novey is a conservation professional who has received a bachelor’s degree in History from Tufts University and a master’s degree in Conservation Social Sciences from the University of Idaho. He worked for the U.S. National Park Service for 10 years, as a park ranger in 6 national parks, as a social science researcher in 5 parks, and as the science communicator for a Natural Resource Inventory and Monitoring Network that serves 9 parks. He has authored several scholarly papers as well as several guidebooks to U.S. national parks.
Levi also has taught an undergraduate Environmental Communication Skills course at the University of Idaho, won several photography contests, and regularly enjoys visits to parks, protected areas, historical sites, museums– and just about anywhere where he can learn something new about the world. He currently lives in Peru, with his wife Alicia, and their daughter Coral.
To think33, I was absolutely directing this 100% at the author and I did look at his credentials. I didnt direct this at the professor who did this project. Its the language and attitude of laypeople and those who really have no reason writing tech blogs that have my wrath.
This guy both obviously and admittedly has no credentials authorizing him to write about anything tech.
There seems to be lots of renewable energy sources springing up….This is a great idea, lets hope it makes it to the mainstream…..
These look exactly like the monstrosities all over the city of St. Louis Park MN. Supposedly St. Louis Park was going to have the first solar powered wifi network in the US. Did I mentioned it failed cause it didn’t work and there are hundreds of these eye sores in the city doing nothing?
Whilst I won’t go as far as some of the other apparently angry comment posters, I will say that you robbed credibility from an otherwise acceptable article by using the word ‘invents’ when you really meant ‘builds’. You might have even been able to get away with ‘creates’ – although you would have to note that this isn’t particularly novel.
However, I would have to correct the poster who said that mesh networks didn’t work well. Yes, the gains are small when you only have a few nodes, but as it grows it gets better and better. The very internet itself is very similar to a mesh! Meshes have the opposite of scaling problems, and I’m confident that they will eventually blanket the planet.
Well, I think that the more important thing besides to the “I did it first attitude” is that now poor kids can have internet access.
Congratulations to Marcelo Zuffo and thanks Levi to inform us about this. And gave us some other links to learn that this type of invents are all around the world.
I think that those nasty comments for other people are out of place, because after checking the links that they provide. It is clear that there are several ways to “create” “invent” a WIFI access point. Moreover, if you read the information of the picture it does not correspond to the invention of the Brazilian Professor.
I suggest to the author of this article provide us with a picture of the “actual” invention.
wow great invention.