Mobility

February 23, 2007
Wi-Fi for rural connectivity

R. Narayanan

CHENNAI --  Dayanidhi Maran, Minister of Communications and IT, is focusing on wireless networking to enable rural connectivity, be it Wi-Fi or Wi-Max. Projects have succeeded in implementing cost-effective Wi-Fi technology to provide wireless access to rural areas, to enable broadband connectivity for untapped rural regions. Conceived as means of short-range communication over 100 m or less, Wi-Fi can be leveraged to extend to 100 km.

Wi-Fi (2.4/5GHz) is a brand licensed by Wi-Fi Alliance for WLAN based on the IEEE 802.11 specifications. It was developed to be used for mobile computing devices, such as laptops, in LANs, but is now increasingly used for Internet, VoIP phone, gaming, connectivity of TV, DVD players, or digital cameras.

WiFi hot spot in Lebanon country side

Wi-Fi goes rural

Initially a life-fashion niche and available only in 5-star Indian hotels, Wi-Fi is appearing in rural India. Media Lab Asia (MLA) a joint venture between Indian Government and MIT, has established Wi-Fi corridor between Kanpur and Lucknow, using directional antennas and amplifiers to extend its range. Villages in this corridor are linked to the Web. IIT-Kanpur has developed bicycle rikhsa-mounted mobile Internet kiosk (InfoThela) installed with PCs capable of high-speed Internet connection, and battery bank charged as the user pedals between villages.

Many villages have no power supply, resulting in low Internet usage. Powered by pedal-charged batteries, Infothela PCs do not rely on grid power. They move around villages, provide medical advice and diagnosis to remote villages through video-conferencing, update farming information, and enable Internet browsing.

Wi-Fi is moving outdoor

Praveen Singh, CEO of Arada Systems, narrates that his company focuses on emerging Wi-Fi applications in India and worldwide. Arada is an official partner of Atheros in India. Singh has been with Atheros for over five years. Arada is based in Bangalore and carries out cutting-edge product development around Wi-Fi applications such as outdoor, enterprise and automotive applications.

As regards suitability for rural connectivity, Wi-Fi is moving from indoor applications to outdoor applications. There are more and more deployments of Wi-Fi in the outdoor arenas. These networks trends are in vogue in the US, such as San Francisco, Philadelphia, etc. Wi-Fi offers up to 54Mbps with 2-4km range and 10-20km with 1-2Mbps. Given that Wi-Fi is extremely low cost and uses the same components as used in PCs and other devices, there are cost advantages to using Wi-Fi in rural applications. Some applications include last mile connectivity to rural areas. The trend in India and abroad is definitely towards using Wi-Fi for rural connectivity, due to cost advantages. Given that India has a rural telecommunications initiative, there is a strong push to make this happen soon.

Broadband Gateway router with WiFi card

It’s different!

Wi-Fi technology being used is often different from Wi-Fi networks which are popular in U.S. cafes, universities, and homes. Wi-Fi networks use towers and antennas to extend range and are deployed in conditions of unreliable power supplies or inhospitable terrain. With the cost of equipment falling, Wi-Fi-based wireless Internet is a promising prospect to close gap between urban and rural areas by obviating removing need for expensive cables.

Wi-Fi is energy cost effective compared to cellular networks. Energy forms a sizable chunk of operating expense (OPEX) for cellular operators. High-data-rate mobile broadband access and hikes in utility power motivate wireless service providers to shift from cellular to WiMAX and Wi-Fi approach. From coverage perspective Wi-Fi is fifty times more energy-effective than WCDMA.
 
Tele-medicine on Wi-Fi

K. Saravanan, head, information technology, Aravind Hospital, Theni, Tamil Nadu, narrates use of Wi-Fi network for eye treatment of rural villagers.

Globally, India shoulders the largest burden of blindness, estimated at 15 million people. Cataracts, glaucoma and diabetic retinopathy are causes of blindness. Aravind Eye Care System offers affordable eye care. Nearly 70 percent of its patients live in rural areas, where there is an acute shortage of ophthalmologists. Rural areas are sparsely populated and inadequate telecom coverage. To address these challenges, vision centres with eye clinics were established in rural areas, where patients can be remotely diagnosed by doctors via high-speed wireless videoconferencing; get prescription glasses, eye drops and blood tests; be referred to hospital if surgery is needed; and receive post-operative care. Villagers no longer have to travel miles and forego a day’s wages to visit the hospital. eye clinics.

At the eye clinic patient at remote village clinic is examined via high-quality video conference system on Wi-Fi wireless networks, by eye specialists at Aravind Eye Hospital at Theni in Tamil Nadu. A simple, inexpensive software, hardware, and directional antenna system provides villages with a high-bandwidth connection at 6 MB/s speed to PC networks in cities as far as 40 miles away. Once this system is installed there is little ongoing cost for operation, in part because each end requires very little power and can even run off of solar.

Long-distance (LD) Wi-Fi is a fixed point to point wireless technology, like microwave links, that enable organisations such as the Aravind Eye Hospital to develop their own wireless network in remote rural areas. They modified the software, specifically, the Wi-Fi Media Access Control (MAC) protocol. The result: a unique wireless network that can handle high-speed communications over distances as great as 40 miles.

Intel and UC Berkeley researchers collaborated to install long distance, high-bandwidth, Wi-Fi network to connect the vision centers to Aravind hospital.

Monkey-Proof WiLD Wi-Fi

Air Jaldi Wi-Fi rural wireless mesh network has been set up at about 7000 feet above sea level in Dharamshala. Air Jaldi partnered with Technology and Infrastructure for Emerging Regions (TIER) research group, a University of Berkeley's Wi-Fi research initiative, to offer high-speed Wi-Fi long distance connectivity network. It facilitates high-speed data transfers between mesh networks separated by miles, at a cost that users in sparsely populated communities can afford. This custom long distance, high-bandwidth, point to point Wi-Fi network can connect more villages and bring connectivity to wider areas.

Wi-Fi originally, never built to serve sparsely populated areas, was enhanced by TIER to developed WiLD, a simple and inexpensive software and hardware combination, for rural or sparsely populated areas with a high-bandwidth connection. TIER has deployed WiLD in an eye hospital in Tamil Nadu that connects with five remote villages examining 2500 cases per month remotely, and the other for Air Jaldi network in Dharamshala. It has also deployed them in Ghana, Cambodia, Rwanda and Philippines.

Emerging out of a laboratory in Israel, Air Jaldi was set up by an Israeli networking engineer Yahel Ben-David, in February 2005, following deregulation for outdoor use of Wi-Fi in India in January 2005. Presence of inquisitive monkeys posed serious challenges forcing Yahel to fix a cage around Wi-Fi routers to make them monkey-proof. The network had to overcome weather hazards like heavy rains and snow, as well as erratic electricity supply. These routers consume less than 4 watts of power and are solar-power operated.

This mesh backbone incorporates over 30 nodes, with the farthest about 30 km apart, offering broadband Internet services at 6Mbps. It connects over 2500 PCs and about 500 Internet access points. Besides, Internet access, file-sharing applications, and off-site backups, it also providers its users entertainment like playback of high quality video from remote archives and VoIP telephony, charging a small fee.

Wi-Fi buses and motor cycles

Honda motorcycles equipped with mobile Wi-Fi access points connect to the Internet when they approach 256 kbps satellite terminal of a provincial hospital in northeastern Cambodia. They fan out to thirteen rural villages. As they approach solar-powered fixed access points in villages, the MAP (mobile access points) exchange 20 MB of ingoing and outgoing e-mail. In the evening, these mobile couriers return with their digital saddlebags to the satellite uplink.

In rural Indian Gangetic plains, MAPs are installed in several buses to send and retrieve mails in the same way. It would be a good concept to install MAPs in 50,000 rural buses to provide mobile ad hoc connectivity to 750 million people in rural India. The DakNet system, an ad hoc network that uses wireless technology to provide asynchronous digital connectivity, was developed at the Media Lab. Its postal concept emphasises that low-cost asynchronous communication such as e-mail, voicemail, document transfer and offline search, is more viable for rural villages than landline voice telephony. Packet-based broadband costs one-ninth of what copper and fiber landline services cost, and can do at least one thing that rural villagers need and voice telephony can't provide, document transfer. It takes two to three day for villagers to travel to a city to obtain land records, driver's licenses or loan applications.

DakNet Wi-Fi, which will enable rural folks to obtain these records through this network, is economically desirable in rural India. DakNet was working on projects in Brazil, Colombia, Nigeria, Jordan, Kenya, New Zealand, Tanzania, Rwanda, the Congo, New Zealand and Eastern Kiribati.

Villages of Dodaballabpur taluka in rural Bangalore district plan to connect through Wi-Fi to administrative centers, for information exchange between villages and the taluka headquarters. Maps of villages would be used to ascertain suitable location for location of hub route for moving vehicle through which data exchange can take place. Wi-fi, the technology that wirelessly connects to the Internet, is being used by many rural centres across India to access information and facilities. Villages In Loni-Shirdi area of Maharashtra have formed a cooperative and raised Rs 2O million to leverage IT for benefit. They have set up 50 wireless hotspots to harness Wi-Fi systems so that villagers can get agricultural inputs at their doorsteps.

Rural Wi-Fi Kiosks

In Tamil Nadu, an innovative information kiosk operator has installed a Web camera on his PC. He took a photograph of some diseased vegetables brought in by a farmer. Within the day, experts at the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University had diagnosed the disease and suggested a remedy. In Madhya Pradesh’s Dhar district, rural folks are using Wi-Fi technology in a big way. Women, shy of going to information dhabas, are able to access information from their homes.

Integrated wireless

Combining satellite backhaul with Wi-Fi or WiMAX is an increasingly popular option for addressing remote rural communities. Airspan with iDirect's satellite routing system intends to deliver broadband IP service to areas where terrestrial connections are unavailable or too costly. The iDirect remote satellite router's ability to deliver speeds up to 18Mbps, combined with iDirect's support for real time applications like voice and video, will deliver broadband connectivity that matches the quality and performance of digital terrestrial circuits. Rhode Island plans to use combination of WiMAX and Wi-Fi mesh for last mile access.