19457: (Craig) NYT: As Phones Falter, Haitians Find a Communications Lifeline (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Dan Craig <hoosier@att.net>

As Phones Falter, Haitians Find a Communications Lifeline
February 29, 2004
By SETH SCHIESEL

Even in peaceful times, the Rev. Joao Duarte, a Roman
Catholic priest and an aid worker in Labadie, Haiti, must
leave the town by boat and then travel a mile or two
overland in order to find a cellphone signal.

These days, even that is not an option. As rebels intent on
ousting President Jean-Bertrand Aristide have swept across
Haiti in recent weeks, cellphone and conventional telephone
systems have gone dead in their wake, leaving millions of
Haitians unable to communicate with relatives abroad and in
government-controlled areas.

In scattered locations, however, relatively affordable new
systems that transmit phone calls via satellites and the
Internet have provided a communications lifeline.

"In this emergency situation, this telephone has become a
very important part of helping this community," Father
Duarte said on Thursday over a satellite Internet phone
from his home in Labadie, on Haiti's northern coast.

"Right now this is a safe haven, and the telephone is being
used by any person who is in any kind of danger or who
needs refuge," Father Duarte said. "Right now, the entire
north of the country has no telephones. This may be the
only one for, I would say, 100 miles."

Father Duarte said 20 to 30 people had used his phone
recently, with about 60 percent of those calls going to
relatives in North America and the remainder to
government-controlled territories where conventional
telephones still work.

It was unclear just why most cellphones and land-line
telephones in the rebel-controlled north were not working.
Some Haitians speculated that the rebels had disabled the
systems out of fear of government eavesdropping. Others
suggested that the Aristide government had used central
switching stations in Port-au-Prince, the capital, to shut
down communications in rebel-held areas.

A spokesman for the AT&T Corporation declined to speculate
Friday on the cause of the problems, but said Haiti used
only one international switching station, in
Port-au-Prince.

Whatever the cause, satellite Internet links remained one
of the few practical ways for Haitians in rebel territories
to let others know that they were alive.

Pierre, an engineer in Port-au-Prince who agreed to be
identified only by his first name, said Thursday that his
friends were communicating with relatives in the north
using a service from an American company called Net2Phone.

"Net2Phone is the only way for us to get phone calls from
the countryside, from the north," Pierre said. "I have some
friends who have a daughter who is an intern at a hospital
in the north. They had not heard from her for two days, and
they got a call from her this morning."

The new systems cobble together three different
technologies: satellite, the Internet and telephone.
Through independent distributors, companies like Hughes
Network Systems deliver high-speed Internet service to a
satellite dish. In turn, companies like Net2Phone offer
services that allow an Internet connection to be used for
phone calls. The user plugs a telephone into a special box
that connects to the Internet. The sound quality is
inferior to normal calls, but usually remains decipherable.

It appears that at least some public Internet cafes in Cap
Haitien, the rebel stronghold and the nation's
second-biggest city, remain in operation, using satellite
Internet links for e-mail services and systems like
Net2Phone's for phone calls.

Patrick Cardozo, president of Newcourt Systems, the
Toronto-based company that packaged the satellite and
Internet telephone service for Father Duarte, said a
satellite dish might cost up to about $1,000 up front, with
the Internet service costing perhaps $60 a month and calls
costing a few cents a minute. By contrast, traditional
satellite telephones, which are often used by news
organizations and relief workers, can cost thousands of
dollars, with calls costing $3 a minute or more.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/29/international/29NET.html?ex=1079044422&ei=1&en=359ed6eb75b73523
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company