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Bridging the Digital Divide : The Case of Nepal Wireless Mahabir Pun* Abstract Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has become a vital instrument for delivering a number of services such as education, healthcare and public services. Community wireless networks are community-centric telecommunication infrastructure developed to provide affordable communication for those who live in remote areas. This chapter discusses the role of Nepal Wireless in achieving socio economic development of rural communities by facilitating affordable Internet access. We analyze the challenges Nepal Wireless faced and articulate on the approaches it took to address those challenges such as lack of technical skills, appropriate technology and funding, difficult geographical terrains, unstable political situation, and expensive devices. In addition, we address the success and failure factors of this community-based ICT4D approach in order to guide similar endeavors. We con- clude the chapter by some suggestions for policy makers, community developers, and academicians. Keywords：ICT4D, Wireless Networks, Wi-Fi, VoIP, Digital Divide 1) Received：2013. 07. 13. Revised : 2013. 09. 25. Final Acceptance：2013. 09. 26. * Social Enterprise for Community Development, e-mail：[email protected] 106 JOURNAL OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY APPLICATIONS & MANAGEMENT 1. Background net. As shown in <Table 1>, the MIS report of June 14, 2011 of Nepal Telecommunication Governments and individuals in developing Authority, which is the telecommunications countries usually give higher priority to fun- regulatory body of Nepal shows the percent- damentals of living such as healthcare, edu- age of the people of Nepal using telephone cation, agriculture, clean water, roads, and and Internet services [NTA, 2011]. The fig- other public infrastructures. It is greatly ures in the table show that about 55% of overshadowing the concept of the develop- Nepali people do not have telephone services ment of information and communication tech- and almost 90% of them have no access to nologies (ICTs) in remote areas where ma- the Internet. jority of the population of developing countries However, the statistics of the telephone and live [Aitkin, 2009]. As a result, IT services are Internet users in October/November 2003 [NTA, available mostly for the people living in big 2003] and June 2011 (See <Table 2>) can help cities and their peripheries. In other words, readers to guess how the situation was like in access to information and online resources in 2001, when Nepal Wireless was born informally most of rural areas in developing countries is to connect some of the mountain villages of difficult [Heeks and Kanashiro, 2009]. This is Nepal using wireless technology. one of the reasons why there is a huge digital divide between people living in rural and ur- <Table 1> Percentage of People Using Telephone and Internet ban areas in developing countries. Services Nepal is a small country located between Voice Services being China and India. It has about thirty million Penetration provided by Users Rate % people. It is mostly a mountainous country different operators with majority of the highest mountains of the Fixed 837,705 2.93 worlds. Politically, Nepal is the youngest re- Mobile 11,299,735 39.53 publics of the world, which is officially called Others (LM, GMPCS) 695,893 2.43 Total 12,833,333 44.90 the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal. Note : Projected population for 2010 was 28,584,975(Source : A brief overview of IT and telecommuni- cbs.gov.np). cation services that are presently available in Nepal has been given in order to make the <Table 2> Telephone and Internet Users in 2003 and 2011 readers understand clearly the reason behind Telephone and Internet Users 2003 2011 the evolution of Nepal Wireless in 2001. Even Fixed Telephone Services 379,235 837,705 if the mobile penetration rate has increased Mobile Telephone Services 88,551 11,299,735 Others Voice Services (LM, significantly in recent years in Nepal, many 5470 695,893 GMPCS) people in rural areas are still deprived from Email Subscribers and 180,000 2,940,623 communication services including the Inter- Internet Users Vol.20 No.3 Bridging the Digital Divide 107 2. Setting the Stage ferent kinds of antennas had to be built by team members and tested at different ranges. Be- Prior to the initiation of the IT project in the cause of lack of knowledge and lack of funding mountain villages by Nepal Wireless in 2001, no the project had to adopt cheaper solutions using villager had any idea as what an Internet was donated Wi-Fi equipment, normal hubs and or what a computer looked like. There was no homebuilt antennas including large recycled telephone or electricity in the villages. The vil- television satellite dishes. As for the power lagers had to walk five to eight hours to the needed at the repeater stations, solar panels and nearest city just to make a telephone call. As wind generators were used to charge the stor- a social worker, the author of this chapter was age batteries. involved since 1993 with several community For the first year of the project Internet con- development projects such as building schools, nectivity was provided through a dial-up proxy starting income producing programs, building server based in the city of Pokhara. Five vil- health clinics in the villages, and being involved lages shared the dial-up Internet link. In 2004, in nature conservation projects. Some of the in- the Internet link was upgraded from dial-up to come producing projects that were started then 64/64 kbps dedicated wireless link from the and still running successfully is yak farming, Internet service provider based in Pokhara. cheese making, yak and cow crossbreeding farm, Now Nepal Wireless subscribes to a 5 Mbps fishery, paper making, camping and lodging fa- Internet link from the Internet Service Provider cilities for trekkers, jam making, and mushroom to its base stations in Pokhara and Kathmandu. farming, etc. In the absence of modern commu- The base stations are running a web server, a nication and transportation means, villagers had proxy server, a network management server, an to use human messengers to send messages Internet bandwidth management server and an from one village to another, which is the oldest audio/video streaming server. form of communication used in remote corners Step by step, IT services through different of the world. Nangi was using the same age- applications such as e-learning, tele-medicine, old communication means until 2001. tele-teaching, tele-training and e-commerce Thus Nepal Wireless was born with the des- were introduced. Moreover, Nepal Wireless is perate need of a modern communication system working with different research groups for for local use to help villagers communicate and monitoring glacial lakes, weather and climate run community development projects in diffe- change in the Himalayas. It is also working on rent villages effectively and successfully. How- developing a surveillance system based on IP ever, the political situation at that time was not cameras at Chitwan National Park to monitor favorable. Wi-Fi equipment had to be smuggled poachers and to help save endangered animals with the help of international volunteers. Dif- like tigers, leopards, and rhinos. 108 JOURNAL OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY APPLICATIONS & MANAGEMENT 3. Description of Nepal Wireless ten about the role of Nepal Wireless in connect- ing and improving the economic conditions of The idea of using wireless networks to pro- such rural communities. Several academic re- vide affordable local communication services to search articles have been published about the some mountain villages evolved few years be- project, for detail read references [Thapa, 2011; fore the real start of Nepal Wireless. In partic- Sein, and Sæbø, 2012; Thapa and Sæbø, 2011]. ular, community developers informally imple- In 2001, when the plan was made to connect mented testing phase of the wireless network Nangi village to Pokhara city to bring the In- in Nangi village of Nepal in 2001. Nangi is a ternet through Wi-Fi, the responses from sev- small mountain village of 800 inhabitants. It is eral communication engineers and experts in located in the foothills of the Annapurna and the communication field were negative. Their Dhaulagiri Himalayas of western Nepal at 7,300 main concern was the lack of proper equipment feet elevation. It takes pedestrians about 7 and the long distance the radio signals from hours to climb the mountain from the nearest simple Wi-Fi equipment had to cover. In spite highway to Nangi. The low population and harsh of the negative feedback, the team members of geography of Nangi make it less attractive for Nepal Wireless had decided to go ahead for do- telecommunication companies to invest in it. In ing field experiments to find if a long range addition, Nangi is an isolated and remote village wireless link can be made using simple Wi-Fi that lack infrastructures and economic oppor- radios and homebuilt antennas. The experiment tunities other than farming. More specifically, was successful to the surprise of many techni- its residents are subsistence farmers who use cal experts who had been skeptical of the pro- primitive farming tools such as wooden plows, ject. As a result, Nepal Wireless has now ex- iron spades, axes, and sickles etc. There are no panded its network to more than one hundred roads in the area. Therefore, villagers carry all twenty villages in thirteen districts of Nepal. It kinds of loads such as supplies, fire wood, is expanding its network to more districts of building materials, composts and others on their Nepal in coming years. A brief description of back, which they have been doing for centuries. network design, technology used, and server Currently, Nangi has a robust wireless net- setup has been given below to explain the tech- work and a community computer lab.

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