Rebuilding Haiti
The Washington Post reports on an innovative idea to help rebuild Haiti’s infrastructure following the country’s devastating earthquake in January:
John Stanton, founder of Voice Stream and former chief executive of T-Mobile USA, wants the Haitian government to forget about rebuilding its copper wire communications network. Instead, he thinks Haiti should go mobile.
“Necessity is the mother of invention,” Stanton said.
Stanton pitched the idea at the CTIA trade show in Las Vegas, and announced that his company Trilogy would be willing to contribute as much as $100 million to the effort.
Later in the Post article, a familiar name offers some insight:
Experts say any project to rebuild infrastructure in the nation should be open to competition. That would include laying down fiber for a stronger backbone to connect calls. Dozens of new cellphone towers would be raised to support traffic that will grow as Internet use takes off.
“It can be a fantastic opportunity, but all over the world there is also a push to have a mix of wireless and fixed-wire networks supporting broadband and communications,” said Bruce Mehlman, co-president of the Internet Innovation Alliance and former assistant secretary of commerce for technology policy. “And you must make sure that this doesn’t preclude any competition.”


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