The Reg explores technology in a remote aboriginal community

Great article!

And about the network speed...

I know this may be a long shot, but you could try this:

http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/info13581-LeatrixLatencyFix.html

This page explains the theory and provides a download link.

Basically, this little program stops your network card from waiting for a given number of packets before sending them together. I think this -waiting for several packets- could cause issues with the way your satellite box sends the packets.

Testing it shouldn't take you more than five minutes, and I think it has a chance to fix the issue. The program can be used to change this parameter, or to set it back to its original value.

Oh, and don't forget to look for bittorrent clients inside the network, or computers connected by WiFi from other buildings in the town. :0)

not quite on topic but

I have to question your statement that integration off homelands leads to problems ? After 30 plus years of something describable as a human reserve approach has failed to improve health or self esteem. The Torres Strait Islanders approach might be instructive. Culture and self of identity remain strong as they remember home islands and language, but mostly live on mainland where there is work. They go home on holidays. Interestingly I have heard racist rants against aboriginals followed by cheerful praise of islanders from locals in FNQ. Being seen to be self supporting helps broad based acceptance more than any PR driven mutlicultural day.

There is is not much to do on those remote places, unless some kind of locally based industry or small business such as tourism on Bathurst Island. Some support for local business and getting better comms into the bigger of those communities would help. Fully agree that web access would reduce isolation while opening up a wider world. IHMO, something like Sype would be immensely popular once setting up sessions could be arranged with adequate bandwidth. Keeping contact with extended family fits I need I saw while reducing travel in dodgy vehicles on worse tracks.

On the technical side, given the probability someone will want to grab violent pr0n, would a Smoothwall community edition firewall with some site blocking allow the kids to do their stuff without the inevitable "hey look at this" material getting in? ISOs available for free. Willowra and a few outstations had a reputation for being orderly, but other locations have an appalling rate of violence of all kinds. I suggest community leaders, where they exist might want this to be discussed at least.

Avoid "managed" infrastructure

I'm sure that the following is not an issue in this case, but it might be worth dissemination.

I'm retired now, but have spent (a lot of) time getting our software working in remote and regional communities. A common problem is that of the "local expert". Typically it is someone from the very small local IT shop, who can smell public money and over-specs the job to an unbelievable degree - Or a council or community centre manager who has a main network up and running in their local offices, library, or community centre. Their "consultant" will tell them that they need to consolidate everything from the remote community into their main domain, citing that this is necessary for ease of management and security.

Typically they will connect the remote systems to the local Windows AD forest using an ADSL or ISDN link. Surprisingly when nothing works, because they are waiting for a directory token down a flakey 1<Mb link, they will call out the expert consultant again, who will often suggest that their problems will be solved if they set up local replica servers. That does not help either.

Generally, if the local politics allowed, we tried to help the end-user by simplifying everything such that they could be empowered to be self sufficient - Otherwise using Terminal Services/Remote Desktop Services would often work.

I would recommend that everything is on an UPS, as power to these communities can be very flakey, and that consumer grade equipment is chosen as repairing/replacing professional kit is usually a nightmare. As a rule Windows 7 based stuff was OK-ish. Linux support locally is generally poor, as the council type guys almost exclusively know Windows. I have no personal experience with Windows 8, other than with seniors who only seem to use IE and mail. In a couple of Aboriginal communities that I worked with, Apple stuff was generally liked (It just works - Provided they kept the doors and windows shut to stop the local red dust getting inside their iMacs, where it was not generally feasible for them to clean it out themselves). Mac Minis were OK.