Someone asked me a good question about my last blog post. 'Why is this a problem this year and not previous years?"
more new people = more people who are used to "always on" internet
higher res equipment, newer cameras, smartphones, laptops, all are now assuming you live in a place with always on, high speed internet. Even though, several ISP's across the world still charge Per MB.
More and more technology is geared towards using more internet access, and it is harder to retrain the folks that come from fast 'always on' internet.
One of the places we use to train our 'new recruits' is called Pacific Orientation Course (aka jungle camp). It is an emmersive course which teaches language, culture, food, environment and survival skills in the village. Until recently it also had the added side effect of cutting people off from technology. No television (people overcame by watching dvd's on their laptop when hard pressed), no internet (people used modems if the phones were working), but all in all, you really do get disconnected or 'unplugged'. As a result, you begin to feel rather isolated if you're from the Facebook/Twitter generation. The isolation works in your favor, because when you finally get through the training, and arrive here on this network.... it won't seem 'slow' to you anymore it'll seem fast. BUT alas, recently with new improvements, that adaptation hasn't happened.
Fewer people know how to operate in a low bandwidth environment. And there really isn't that much training for it, other than what we have posted online for people to read, and the occasional training sessions we might conduct. It's counter intuitive and people without computer skills really don't want to be bothered with learning how to make their computer go against it's nature.
6 years ago:
-during jungle training camp there was no internet access, no way to communicate from the village (not even hf radio because new-arrivals hadn't been set up yet)
5 years ago:
-during jungle training camp there was modem access, which was at 56k, and we had 2 hours to share daily among 20 people, so you downloaded email, read it at night, replied, then uploaded the next day. If someone in the village got sick during training, the trainers scheduled a mid-stay visit to be sure you weren't dying of denghe fever.
3 years ago:
-there was modem access and people had cell phones in the village, so they could call when they got sick, and then get pulled out.
2 year ago:
-there was modem access and people had cell phones with digital EDGE subscriptions and could get internet access that way
1 year ago:
-there was usb EDGE modems and everyone plugged one into their laptop, no sharing, no more 56k modem.
Today:
-there is a 5.8ghz Wireless N bridge link with high gain polarized antenna, at 11mb per/sec supplying all of the camp with internet.
Why this evolution?
Because the technological demands of how we do work is increasing. As you can see, we're at a point now where people don't have a huge technology culture shock when they get here, and as such never get the training on how to survive in a low bandwidth world, even though, relatively we're still low bandwidth.
