Adam, listers. Interesting ideas indeed. Some on this list may probably remember a tethered helium balloon project which an American company was pushing in Kenya in the early eighties. The project was to cover rural areas around Kericho but failed to take off due to strong opposition from the engineers of the then telecommunications operator. It has been common knowledge for a long time that rural telecommunications is not profitable and hence the USF. Instead of waiting for grand donor projects for those areas, it would be more prudent, at least in Kenya, to use USF in a targeted manner to provide services to rural areas. Such funding tends to stimulate demand in such areas and they gradually tend to profitability. Appropriate technologies do exist for such areas and would work satisfactorily if well engineered. For Kenya, I am not aware of any place where a solution cannot be reasonably found to provide connectivity. Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android On Mon, Feb 1, 2021 at 18:10, Anuradha Khoda via kictanet<kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke> wrote: _______________________________________________ kictanet mailing list kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke https://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet Twitter: http://twitter.com/kictanet Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KICTANet/ Unsubscribe or change your options at https://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/options/kictanet/kariuki_jn%40yahoo.com The Kenya ICT Action Network (KICTANet) is a multi-stakeholder platform for people and institutions interested and involved in ICT policy and regulation. The network aims to act as a catalyst for reform in the ICT sector in support of the national aim of ICT enabled growth and development. KICTANetiquette : Adhere to the same standards of acceptable behaviors online that you follow in real life: respect people's times and bandwidth, share knowledge, don't flame or abuse or personalize, respect privacy, do not spam, do not market your wares or qualifications.