UgoTrade

A business model of “four cows and a computer,” (see Spiegel for the full story) has only become possible thanks to a new local Internet connection known as Cordect.

“By European standards, this ‘Indianet’ is only a patchy and relatively slow provisional solution, a kind of digital dirt road leading to the information super-highway.  The basic technology is the same as that used in wireless phones — the only difference is that the base station isn’t next door, but several kilometers away. And since electricity shortages are common in the countryside, there is a battery to supply the Internet cafés for up to four hours in case of outages.”
“Cordect was developed by the Indian Institute of Technology and is developing into a veritable sales hit in the country’s backwaters.  Telecommunication corporations from other countries such as South Africa, Tunisia, Yemen and Kazakhstan are already betting on the new Internet technology. ”

Now the giants want in.  Microsoft announced last year they would invest “roughly $1.7 billion in order to cover the subcontinent with a network of 50,000 Internet Cafés during the next four years — a network that will not just connect the prosperous towns, but will deliberately designed to extend into the poor rural areas.  This means that there will probably be fierce competition between Microsoft and the local competitor Cordect, which has already provided 10,000 Indian villages with Internet access.”  And, “Microsoft spent two years conducting intensive market research that involved setting up 300 trial Internet Cafés, in order to get used to the specific features of the local market.” (Spiegel)

If you have any news for me how this story is playing out in different places, please keep me posted!