Climbing high to capture signal
THE novel coronavirus pandemic has necessitated various lockdown measures around the world so as to minimize physical contact among members of the public, thereby hopefully “flattening” the infection-rate curve. To date, more than 10 million people from around the world have been infected by the coronavirus and for some places where the lockdown measures have been recently lifted or relaxed, threats of a second or third wave of infections are reported to be looming on the horizon. Until some form of vaccine is finally rolled out which could suppress the “rage” of the coronavirus, people the world over will probably have to get used to the “new normal” of physical distancing and various other forms of sequestration.
Lockdowns, as the term suggests, would in the strictest formats require people to essentially confine themselves at home with as few trips as possible out of the house, to perhaps make necessary purchases or conduct essential tasks. As these lockdown measures are gradually relaxed as the relevant infection curves appear to be flattening, people are then typically allowed to leave their homes and move around their immediate vicinity. In Malaysia, the lockdown came in the form of the “movement control order,” during which schools and universities were physically closed. Some educational institutions devised long-distance learning measures, with instructions or even examinations to be conducted online. A prerequisite for such online teaching methods would, of course, be broadband, high-speed and stable internet connection.
In my home state of Sabah, as with most other developing locations around the world, data-signal coverage is somewhat wanting even in urban areas and definitely uneven between urban and rural areas, with sometimes sporadic and not so high-speed coverage for the latter. Recently, a local university student posted online photos of herself — she was back in her rural home during the pandemic lockdown — having to climb up trees in order to hook on to better data signal that would enable her to dial into her university’s network in order to participate in the online instructions offered. The posts went viral, and were picked up even by renowned international media, making her and her plight “famous.” Offers of help and at least one scholarship poured in from all corners, hopefully empowering her to continue with her studies with less difficulty.
As her story was the talk of the town or even region, I happened to mention it to a Sabahan friend who runs a professional-service firm of his own. Although his firm’s business can in theory be continued during the lockdown, he initially decided not to conduct it during the interval, as most of his staff were understandably not keen on carrying out business at the height of the pandemic.
But some “business- minded” clients of my friend appeared to be undaunted by the onslaught of the pandemic and repeatedly urged him to continue with providing his firm’s professional service. When he explained to them that his staff were all sequestered in their respective homes, some clients actually and, in my humble opinion, rather heartlessly retorted that they could in that case pay even more attention to the clients’ projects!
Extremely reluctant as he was, my friend had no choice but to accede to these clients’ demands, as he did not want to lose them, the business environment having been gloomy even before the pandemic. So, he went ahead and tried to arrange for his staff to work from home, albeit mostly over the internet. As he did so, the aforementioned data-signal coverage problem almost immediately presented itself.
One of my friend’s staff lives in a public housing estate, which is located in a suburban stretch, but not as remote as that of the student mentioned above. In any case, the 4G data signal which most of us who stay closer to city centers find common was in no way to be found at that staff member’s housing area. In fact, even 3G data-signal coverage is at best sporadic in that area. The staff member would have to remotely log in to the firm’s computer server in order to retrieve files for his work, and to upload completed work files to the server. Confined at home, he simply could not do so during most hours of the day.
Instead, it was only very late at night or in the wee hours when there are fewer users in the area consuming data bandwidth, that the staff member could finally manage to log on to the firm’s server, but even then, downloading and uploading of files proved to be at snail speed, driving him almost to despair, as he had to nail-bitingly make use of those rare and precious minutes to accomplish his online “mission.” My friend also made use of teleconferencing platforms to conduct work meetings with his staff during working hours, but that was of course impossible for this staff member. Instead, for the teleconference, my friend had to call him up conventionally by mobile phone, and put on the speaker phones for both the mobile phones and the laptop in order for him to have a semblance of a meeting over voice alone with his colleagues.
My friend told me that in fact another staff member jokingly suggested to the “coverage- disadvantaged” staff member could perhaps climb up to the roof of his public-housing building in order to “capture” better signals. Of course the distressed staff member did not take up that suggestion, as he was, like many others, too preoccupied with the menace of the coronavirus to step foot outside his home. When the university student’s recent tree-climbing news made its way around the internet and beyond, the distressed staff member’s colleagues teased him that if he had taken up the roofclimbing suggestion, he might have become famous too.
The various gratuities showering the university student were of course both generous and helpful to her. But at the end of the day, these are just measures to treat the symptoms but perhaps not quite the root causes of the problem, which is the lack of adequate infrastructural development in many developing countries. The pandemic and the consequent lockdowns simply laid bare this and similar problems the world over.