I found this article about wi-fi access points on motos cruising around rural Cambodia (via boingboing).
While I was there and in the rest of SE Asia about 4 years ago I sensed that the locals were doing all they could to boot strap themselves online. In the two months between successive visits to Bangkok the number of internet cafes along Kho San Rd had doubled. While that’s admittedly touristy and not reflective of the general public I did seem plenty of Thais there. While I was in Udon Thani I only saw a couple of white people and I hung out in some internet places and a PSX arcade and was the only white person.
One of the lasting memories of Vientiane is the spaghetti of multicolored wiring strung between buildings. In some places the phone, power and whatever else almost lent a festival air to the roads with their decoration.
But speaking about old skool methods of physical transport… Heather and I joined lovefilm.com. For £10 pounds a month they send us DVDs as fast as we can watch them. There’s a bit of a lag due to the British postal system, but the turnaround is good. It beats trying to download them via the internet, not that I would try and do that of course. And it’s less than half the price of a broadband connect.
Just like tape swapping or keen file rippers swapping DVDs through the post. Personally safer, reliable bandwidth, cheap and easy.
