Hi Frank,

Would you not just use HTTP over the network? WAP became obsolete because technology (mainly screen and battery advancement in the last 10 years) allowed the devices to be capable of having an embedded browser - that and bandwidth went up massively. WAP was a very simple compressed text format that takes me back and makes me shudder at the early Nokia applications I used to put out in 1999...

Do you know if we could use any protocol which could be installed on top of a Web-Service to use a GSM network as carrier for Internet information?

So basically the traditions "comms stack" looks like, TAPIR as XML over HTTP over the cell network (GSM, CDMA etc)

I would assume that the network would be both costly and low bandwidth though. Given that a lot of this data does not change on a very rapid basis, have you considered snapshot dumps (as we have been discussing) and then regular postal service? Even google ships hard drives around the world - stick a few 10 terrabyte drives in a fireproof jiffy bag and do a DHL overnight shipping, and work out the bandwidth of DHL ;o)

Thanks

Tim

Hello everybody,

I recently subscribed to the mailing list and read the last messages about the possibility to dump data from GBIF by using csv format.

This type of questions interests me a lot because I'm currently contributing to a new project called "SABIN" (Sub-Saharan African Biodiversity Information Network) , which could lead (in the medium-term) to the installation of a "cache" copy of the GBIF main database hosted by the Kinshasa University. This copy could act as a relay-server for GBIF data in Central Africa.

We would also like to encourage institutions from Central Africa to install TAPIR providers if they have they have the technical capacity to do so, and then provide data to GBIF.

I contacted people working in Congo, who told me that the Internet facilities are good in Kinshasa but rather poor in the Eastern part of the country (in the Great Lakes Region).

For that reason, nine Congolese universities are currently studying the possibility to use the cellular-phone network to exchange electronic information, within the framework of a project which is called Eb@lé.

Do you know if we could use any protocol which could be installed on top of a Web-Service to use a GSM network as carrier for Internet information?

-I would like to know if it's possible to use a protocol and/or a tool that could be installed on top on a web service to connect to a cellular network. I've heard about WAP 5/6 years ago but it seems now an obsolete technology.

-Have you hear about this kind of infrastructure (cell phone network) involving a TAPIR provider?

Thanks in advance

Franck

Franck Theeten Database Manager Royal Museum for Central Africa http://www.africamuseum.be/ Department of African Zoology Leuvensesteenweg, 13 3080 Tervuren, Belgium Tel.: +32 2 769 56 24

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