Having lived in Africa, I have experienced first-hand the challenges, frustrations, and not to mention the immense negative impact on efficiency experienced with shaky internet connections, primarily due to frequent power outages and flaky ISPs.
But with BRCK, which is described as the “backup generator for the internet”, this could according to themnow be in the past. Shortly explained, BRCK allows for you to define a range of ways of connecting to the internet, such as ethernet, Wi-Fi, 3G or 4G, and will shift between them depending upon the status of your existing connection. It can support up to 20 computing-devices at once and has an eight hour battery life, which should allow you to stay online until the original connection has been restored.
At the moment, the BRCK is at prototype-stage, but Ushahidi (the makers of the BRCK and not-for-profit that built a crowdsourced mapping platform as a consequence of the Kenyan post-election violence in 2008), is raising funds using Kickstarter, and is well advanced to reach their fundraising goal.
It will be interesting to continue following the development of the BRCK. At the moment it is priced at $200, which is a little steep, but I am sure the cost will be reduced as they reach economies of scale.
What do you think? Is the BRCK it?