A major focus for the
Folly Consulting staff since 2005 has been participation in a project
to improve access to the Internet in communications challenged
areas. The Sámi
Network Connectivity Project (SNC) has been
researching ways
to use Delay
Tolerant Networking to
allow populations of Sámi reindeer herders in high Arctic Sweden
to benefit from the Internet in regions where reliable wired, wireless
and satellite communications are unavailable. The solutions are
intended to allow the population to maintain their culture and way of
life while enhancing their business opportunities and among it possible
for futiure generations to continue their education from their natural
environment rather than needing to migrate to urban centres.
Subsequently we have been closely involved in a consortium of 12
partners creating the proposal for
a European
Comission Framework Programme (FP7) project to
continue the work of SNC. This project has been offered funding
and is expected to start on 1 May 2008 subject to final negotiations
between the consortium and the Commission. The Networking
for Communications Challenged
Communities (N4C) project will develop an architecture which
integrates regions using Delay Tolerant Networking into the
conventional Internet. It will go on to demonstrate, through
large scale field trials, a number of applications that would support
business models for enterprises in regions that do not benefit
from conventional Internet infrastructure.
Folly Consulting is scheduled to lead the work package of N4C that
develops the architecture of the solution and also expects to
participate in several other activities over the three year duration of
the project.
Folly Consulting Limited is a company registered in England and Wales
with company number 6238664.