[OLPC India] XO Connectivity: Some Ideas

[Ankur Verma]

Hello,
  I found out that XO uses SoC Wireless Adapter for providing networking locally. In the present system 56k modem with fixed telephone line connection or WiFi connection is provided for network connectivity. One laptop connected via USB to a GSM/GPRS Modem could serve as a mesh portal point. The XOs present in the mesh could access the internet from this XO. 
  Otherwise, External Mobile Phone (GPRS enabled) can be connected to the XO via infrared (IrDA), Bluetooth (Not a feasible option! It may cause disturbance with WiFi) or via a USB cable.
  Some Advantages that I thought of:
   
    
   In today’s fast paced world where everyone is running short of time, parents generally do not have time to keep check over their ward’s activities which may lead to falling in the bad company or indulge in undesirable activities. Parents can get location information from their child’ laptop after sending a request to it. 
   Sol: Parents can directly SMS (as in rural areas internet is not available) through even a cheap mobile (which is available) to the School server where a running application would find the location of the laptop in the mesh and reply the parent back with a SMS.
   
    
   Students in the schools can write their queries on laptop and then send them via SMS to teachers at distant places even after school hours which would result in a better and cheap way of communication.
  Sol: On mesh network Student can send SMS to teacher’s mobile regarding any query one has. 
   
    
   Many of the students remain uninformed of important notices and circulars etc. issued by the institution authorities and thus face problems, leading to waste of time and energy. Teacher can send real-time messages to students providing them information regarding all happenings (e.g. results notification, attendance record, assessment deadlines, feedback from tutors and other urgent administrative details) on their laptops. Sol. Teachers when away from their students can send urgent messages to mesh portal point via their mobiles.    
   Wireless Internet can be achieved without any distance constraint by incorporating GSM/GPRS Modem. This enables the student to attend online classes and tutorials without any distance limitation.   
   GSM/GPRS Modem can also serve the purpose of internet in areas where no internet facility is available, but GSM coverage is there.  (E.g. Remote Rural areas, which are the targets where we want to, deploy XO).
  Design and Development:
   
  For interfacing external GSM/GPRS Modem, we need to communicate to it via Serial Port programming. A Driver is already available in Fedora 4 for PL2303, a chip used to convert USB to Serial. We just need to put SIM card into GPRS Phone, then plug it. If / dev/ttyUSB0 is there, that means Fedora recognized this Modem. Then using minicom, we can test the connection using Hayes AT commands. The GPRS Modem setup finished! And then Internet could be shared among the mesh nodes. 
   
  Further, for Sending and Receiving SMS, an application needs to be built, starting from low level details by using AT Commands for communicating with the GSM modem. Apart from this, GSM Modem could also be interfaced with the school server giving it all the networking capabilities and then via wireless all the laptops could get internet connectivity. 
   
  Please give me your views and suggestions regarding it. I would be very interested in contributing to it. Earlier, I had worked for OLPC as Summer of Content Intern. 
  I had put what I explained above on this page along with some more elaboration.
   
  Ankur Verma 
  Junior, Undergraduate Student
Electronics and Communication Engineering,
NSIT, New Delhi
Website: http://ankur.nsit.googlepages.com/

       
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