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 1072. 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. This lab nical part of the network. serves as the main hub for the wireless net- works that connects more than 120 villages in 3.1 The Telecommunication Infrastructure the 13 districts of Nepal. Several reporters from around the world such as BBC [BBC, Nepal Wireless network was built step by 2004], ABC News [Harsany, 2004], PC Maga- step and expanded to many villages over a time zines [Harsany, 2003], and The Sydney Morning span of about ten years and it is still growing. Herald [Levett, 2004] and many more have writ- The villages that are connected to the network Vol.20 No.3 Bridging the Digital Divide 109 get Internet and intranet services via a server stations provide DHCP services to the end in Kathmandu or in Pokhara. The servers in users and interface between the backbone LAN Kathmandu and Pokhara are linked through a and the local distribution LANs. leased optical fiber line. A series of mountaintop repeater stations relay the signal from Kath- 3.2 Objectives of the Project mandu and Pokhara up into the mountain vil- The goals and objectives of the project have lages. There are also access points at the moun- evolved over time. At the initial stage of the taintop relay stations to distribute Internet to project, the goal was to connect just a few end users in the neighboring villages. Villages neighboring villages of Nangi and provide com- are connected to the access points using point- munication services such as IP telephony and to-point wireless links or by connecting to a email communication. The founders of the proj- wireless access point that serves many villages ect did not know what other purposes the wire- at once. The table below shows the progression less technology could be used for. New ob- of users through 2011. jectives and services have emerged after sev- The high-speed backhaul radios at the relay eral years of experience and collaboration and stations operate on a dedicated core local-area interactions with similar community wireless network (LAN) that reaches from the base sta- networks. For example, it was found that the tions [Pokhara and Kathmandu] to different minimum intranet bandwidth in local wireless districts through relay stations. The longest network was around 2Mbps, which was enough point to point link the project has made is 42 km to run simple video conferencing application for from a mountain top to another mountaintop. teaching and training purpose. Therefore the The distance of the villages from the Access current objective is not to bring only the In- Points ranges from 2 km to 18 km. The districts ternet and computers in the rural areas but to that are connected to the network are divided maximize the benefits of wireless and infor- into different subnets in order to manage the mation technology for the rural population in network smoothly. Thus the villages in each of remote areas. Nepal Wireless is trying its best the networkʼs coverage areas from the relay by introducing useful applications and services stations operate on separate local LANs through in the field of education, health, communication, VLAN switches. Routers at each of the relay e-commerce activities and climate change mo-
Progress of Nepal Wireless Networking Project-From 2002 to 2011 Year 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 No. of Villages 1 2 5 13 22 35 60 82 102 122 No. of Rural Schools1258192440587480 No. of Rural Clinics00023556810 No. of Individual Users0000000154065 110 JOURNAL OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY APPLICATIONS & MANAGEMENT nitoring activities. The project is even working tem (VoIP)1), make Internet available for on helping national parks of Nepal to set up IP email communication, and help villagers to based surveillance system to monitor the move- discuss by using Nepali language bulletin ments of poachers in that park. Using the wire- boards for community discussion. less technology, we hope to make the life of rural 4. Local e-Commerce : Help villagers to buy people easier and bring some socio-economic and sell their products in the local market transformation. Besides, the long-term goal of and international market through local intra- Nepal Wireless is to become one of the biggest net and Internet. rural Internet Service Providers in Nepal to help 5. Job creation : Create jobs in the rural areas bridge digital gap narrower. The digital gap in for younger generation through ICT related this context expand beyond physical access and services such as communication centers, VoIP agree with the reconceptualization of digital gap phone services, remittance services, and vir- by Warschauer [2003] as social, political, and tual ATM machine. economical gap. According to the final report of 6. Research and Field Testing : Help re- APT ICT J3 project in Nepal presented to Asia searchers of climate change monitoring pro- Pacific Tele-community, Nepal Wireless speci- jects to collect data remotely and provide re- fically aims to achieve the following goals, div- al time weather information about air routes ided into six main areas [E-Networking Re- in the Himalayan valleys during bad weather search and Development, 2009]. and the monsoon season for airlines. More- over, provide technical support to the De- 1. Education : Increase better educational op- partment of National Park of Nepal to install portunities in the rural communities by cre- surveillance system at the parks to monitor ating tele-teaching and tele- training pro- the movement of the poachers to save the gram, and by making e-learning materials in endangered species in the park. local language available to students, teachers and villagers through e-libraries. 3.3 Funding resources 2. Health : Connect rural health clinics and health workers to city hospitals in order to After the successful completion of testing provide quality medical assistance through a phase of the long range Wi-Fi link in May tele-medicine program and make available 2002, Nepal Wireless Networking Project start- highly needed healthcare in rural commun- ed getting modest financial and some in-kind ities by virtually bringing medical doctors to support from individual supporters and donor villages. organizations from around the world. Some or- 3. Communication : Increase communication ganizations supported the wireless project di- facilities in rural areas by providing tele- 1) Voice over internet protocol gives a platform for voice phone services through Internet phone sys- communication with the use of internet as a medium. Vol.20 No.3 Bridging the Digital Divide 111 rectly and some did it through Himanchal veloping an open-source multi-destination au- Education Foundation in Nebraska, USA. The dio/video conferencing system for tele-teach- donors who helped the project at the initial ing, tele-medicine and tele-training purposes. years are International Center for Applied Stu- Nepal Wireless is working with E-Networking dies in Information Technology (ICASIT) in Research and Development for developing the Virginia, Huguenin Rallapalli Foundation in Cali- video conferencing software and testing it in fornia, and Poverty Alleviation Fund Nepal. twenty five high schools in seven districts of Moreover, International Telecommunication Union Nepal. (ITU), AMD, and Asia Pacific Tele-community Rather than being dependent upon external (APT) also provided financial support for buy- support, Nepal Wireless encourages local stake- ing some more equipment in order to expand holders such as community members, local schools, the network to reach more villages and for do- not-for-profit organizations and local govern- ing a pilot project for tele-medicine. Even while ments to donate money to build wireless net- the project was still in its learning phase, the works in rural areas and to bring ICT services team leader of the project, Mahabir Pun, was for the benefit of rural population. As a result, awarded one of the most prestigious awards in the district governments of Myagdi, Makawanpur, Asia, the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Com- and Mustang invested significant amounts of munity Leadership, in 2007 from the Philippines money to build wireless network in those dis- for connecting Nangi and its neighboring vil- tricts. Similarly, several other local governments lages to the global village through the Internet. are contributing funds every year to buy com- International recognition for the team leader puters for schools and wireless equipment to of Nepal Wireless helped to get some more connect villages to the wireless network. support for the project from more individuals The received financial support was not enough and organizations. Used computers and wire- to build a wireless network across the entire less networking and communication gear and country. Therefore, Nepal Wireless started a accessories were received from several indivi- campaign in July 2008 called “Donate One Dollar duals and international companies like KDDI a Month to Help Build Wireless Broadband Japan, Cisco USA, National University of Sin- Information Highway in Nepal” with the help of gapore, Polycom Australia, and Swiss Re, Swit- some Non-Resident Nepalese (NRNs) residing zerland. In 2009, the project got financial sup- the USA. The project has received more than port from ISIF Asia for building its human US$50,000 so far as contribution from countries capacity. The project got financial support from like the US, the UK, Japan, Hong Kong, and Juniper Foundation, USA to provide training for Malaysia donated by NRNs. the wireless networking operators and com- One of the reasons the NRNs want to con- puter teachers. Most recently, Asia Pacific Tele- tribute to the project is that the wireless broad- community provided a research grant for de- band information highway can open opportuni- 112 JOURNAL OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY APPLICATIONS & MANAGEMENT ties for them to connect to relatives or family 2. Open Learning Exchange-Nepal : it develops members in their home villages in Nepal using contents in Nepali language for the elementary low-cost VoIP phone services, and live au- level student and makes the contents acces- dio/video conferencing systems such as Skype sible online for the students in community or Google chat. Therefore, it is a good invest- schools. It has also developed e-library con- ment for the NRNs as well. Because of such in- tents in Nepali language for the students and terest of NRNs living in different parts of the villagers. Nepal Wireless is working with this world, Nepal Wireless has helped NRNs to con- organization to connect the schools and make nect more than fifteen villages to the wireless the contents available (http://olenepal.org) in network and build computer labs in the schools. the rural areas. 3. Nepal Research and Education Network : it 3.4 Business Partners uses the network as a platform for research and development (R&D) and is supporting for Nepal Wireless was started entirely with the technical issues like network designing, equip- help of technical volunteers from abroad. It still ment testing, routing, server building and main- does not have all the expertise it needs, or ad- tenance (http://nren.net.np). equate human resources to fully implement the 4. Kathmandu Model Hospital : Doctors in this goals of the project. Therefore, Nepal Wireless hospital uses the network as an electronic fa- works with partners that have different exper- cility for delivering tele-medicine services and tise. Now Nepal Wireless is working with sev- tele-training programs for rural health workers eral partner organizations and institutions to (http://www.phectnepal.org). implement the projects and to provide IT serv- 5. Thamel.com : This entity hascreated a virtual ices to the rural people. The names of its part- ATM system for implementing credit card ner organizations are given below to make clear transaction services for the trekkers in trek- how Nepal Wireless is providing services to king routes of Annapurna region (http://www. rural people. thamel.com). 6. Kathmandu University : engineering and com- 1. E-Networking Research and Development : puter science students volunteer to develop ap- This organization has been helping as a techni- plications needed for the project such as local cal partner since 2006 to build wireless net- e-commerce and phpBB applications, and cus- works in rural areas and to provide training tomizing them in Nepali. The students are also for local wireless technicians, network oper- helping to develop video conferencing software ators and computer teachers. It is helping the for tele-teaching and tele-training using open tele-teaching and tele-training program to source. rural areas through audio/video conferencing 7. Japan International ICT Association (JIIA) : (http://www.enrd.org). it is providing technical support by frequently Vol.20 No.3 Bridging the Digital Divide 113
sending their experts to Nepal. JIIA is also able switches, normal switches and IP phones. providing support to collect used computers Some of the Omni directional antennas were and networking gears for the project (http:// built by volunteers and staff. Thus the wireless www.jiiasec.com). network has used a variety of wireless devices to maintain connectivity between the nodes. Moreover, Nepal Wireless is continuously get- Conceptually, the network has been divided into ting technical support from many national and two parts, as follows: international volunteers, who either come to Nepal for a short stay to provide technical sup- 1. Network backbone, which connects base sta- port or provide online support from abroad for tions in Pokhara or Kathmandu to a series of managing the wireless network, and for devel- mountaintop repeater stations oping applications that the project needs. 2. Client connections that connect villages to the relay stations. In some cases, a connected vil- 3.5 Technology Used lage has also acted as a relay station.
At the beginning stage, Nepal Wireless did Proprietary devices made by Alvarion and not have any funding to buy high end equip- Motorola Canopy at 5.8 GHz bands were used ment for building wireless network. It had to for the backbone connection due to their high use mostly used equipment including wireless reliability, robustness, and to avoid signal in- radios, switches, power sources and computers terference. However, several brands of 802. donated by individual donors. Now, the network 11b/g radios such as smartBridges, EnGenius, has grown bigger and better equipment and ap- Ubiquity, Deliberant, Mikrotik and TP Link plications have been added as mentioned below. were used for the last mile connections due to their lower cost and the compatibility between 3.5.1 Transport Technology manufacturers. All the wireless equipment in- A considerable amount of resources have cluding backhaul radios, access points, client been dedicated over time to the network infra- radios and wireless routers installed by Nepal structure and management. This includes wire- Wireless use de-licensed frequencies of 5.8 less devices, network servers and associated GHz and 2.4 GHz. software, and power generation systems at the relay stations. The transport devices that are 3.5.2 Access Technology being used in the network are high speed and Before the wireless network was built for long range backhaul radios, access points and Internet connection, most of the “computers at cheaper client radios that are available in the the schools were assembled in wooden boxes” market, directional and Omni directional anten- [BBC, 2001] using used computers parts brought nas with different capacities, routers, manage- by volunteers coming to Nepal. Now access to 114 JOURNAL OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY APPLICATIONS & MANAGEMENT the IT services is provided through desktop lages through the Intranet : computers and laptops. With the addition of an 3. File sharing service through the server as the Internet telephony system, the project added a central point of coordination for sharing tea- number of network telephones in the villages. ching materials and network maintenance The addition of Internet telephony equipment software for the network has enabled phone users to make international 4. Database for additional projects on the net- phone calls at cheaper rates. work, like the Haat Bazaar trading forum, which is hosted on the server. 3.6 Network Servers 5. Network name and route monitoring through which the system can resolve IP addresses Several servers such as web server, sip ser- to names and also maintains a table of avail- ver, proxy server, network management server, ability for each host on the network. Internet bandwidth management server and video 6. Video conferencing for tele-teaching and conferencing server have been set up for differ- tele-medicine ent purposes. For example, the network server in Pokhara facilitates network monitoring and The server also contains dozens of custom management. The video conferencing server is scripts to tie all the functionality together in a dedicated for tele-teaching, tele-medicine and usable interface. Administering such complex tele-training purposes only. All of the server functionality, even from a GUI interface like computers are branded computers. The servers WebMin, is too difficult for the average users. run Ubuntu with additional third party software Thus custom scripts written in Perl and PHP and are configured for maximum redundancy to have been implemented to provide a user frien- guard against failure. Ubuntu was chosen for a dly server management system. multitude of reasons, primarily due to the large abundance of high quality Open Source software 3.7 Delivered Services included with the standard distributions and easily available online. It is well tested and pro- Nepal Wireless delivers a wide range of ser- ven in production environments and thus made vices. The following section discusses the most a perfect choice for the server. important ones :
Currently, the servers provide the following 3.7.1 E-Learning services : Nepal Wireless is providing e-learning con- 1. Voice over IP Phone system for local use tent produced by Open Learning Exchange through SIP server and Internet telephony. Nepal (OLE-Nepal) in the schools connected to 2. Community (Nepali) bulletin board service the wireless network. The students of grade and locally hosted home pages for the vil- two through six are using the interactive learn- Vol.20 No.3 Bridging the Digital Divide 115 ing materials based on their textbook. So far Kathmandu for tele-medicine purpose. The OLE-Nepal has developed content for English, health workers in the villages can consult with Math, Science and Nepali. Moreover, OLE- medical specialists at a city hospital whenever Nepal has also created an e-library (http://www. they need help to treat patients. With this serv- pushtakalaya.org) with contents in Nepali and ice, Nepal Wireless has assured a virtual pres- English for the students and villagers as well. ence in remote areas of doctors who otherwise Nepal Wireless is teaching villagers how to use would never have made it physically. Moreover, those contents. Teachers and students now can it has been realized that it is a much cheaper have access to the contents through intranet. and faster way to deliver basic health services Nepal Wireless has also created a Wiki in in the remote rural areas than building clinics Nepali language for the villagers with more and hospitals, which takes several years. than four hundred useful articles on health, ed- ucation, agriculture and technology. The villa- 3.7.3 E-Commerce gers can access the materials through the in- With the emergence of Internet in remote vil- tranet. This opportunity creates a new para- lages, people are also using it to communicate digm in the education system of Nepal as there with other villagers to tell about products they is always the problem of accessibility of printed have to sell. Villagers are doing this through an content and qualified teachers in rural areas. In application called Haatbazar where they can put addition, an audio/video conferencing applica- information about the produce and products with tion is under development using open source for pictures. It is actually a virtual marketplace, ac- tele-teaching purposes. Once the software is cessible in the network through intranet. With complete, Nepal Wireless is planning to teach the connection of Internet, villagers have also live through the network to fulfill the shortage been able to promote their local areas for tou- of qualified teachers in the rural schools. rism. Nepal Wireless has helped villagers to de- velop a room booking system for lodges built 3.7.2 Tele-medicine by the communities along the trekking trails. In order to address the absence of clinics and The rural connection established by Nepal Wire- doctors in rural areas, Nepal Wireless has found less has helped people to establish money trans- that connecting a rural health worker to a doc- fer stations in some of the villages. Moreover, tor in city hospital using audio-video confer- Nepal Wireless is providing virtual ATM serv- encing through an intranet can be very useful ice to trekkers with the help of Thamel.com so to provide some medical assistance to the rural that trekkers can get cash in the villages or pay people, who have never visited hospitals. By their bill using their credit card. connecting one clinic in a village to a hospital in Pokhara in 2006, so far Nepal Wireless has 3.7.4 Technical Training connected eight rural clinics to a hospital in Human resources development is also highly 116 JOURNAL OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY APPLICATIONS & MANAGEMENT needed for technical sustainability. Nepal Wire- less network was limited to few villages and less frequently runs training programs to pro- not many services were provided. Himanchal vide training in the design, setup, running and High School had not obtained a license to become maintenance of a WISP (Wireless Internet Ser- an Internet Service Provider. While Himanchal vice Provider). The training package includes High School helped to build the network with setting up access points and clients, managing the technical support from E-Networking Re- bandwidth, IP sub-netting, line of sight calcu- search and Development and managed it, it did lation, link budget calculation, firewall control, not provide services directly to the end-users etc. It also runs basic and intermediate level com- of the villages. The services to the end-users puter training for villagers, teachers and commu- were provided through village communication nication center operators from the villages. centers. Each of the centers was managed dif- ferently and independent from the others. The 3.7.5 Research and Field Testing project did not collect revenues directly from Nepal Wireless is helping some researchers end users, but instead billed communication on climate change to access the weather and centers to cover the operating cost of the net- climatic data online by connecting sensors and work. Common caretaker organizations included field servers set up in remote mountain sites to mother’s groups, social clubs, school manage- the Internet. It has installed three weather sta- ment committees, and communication center ma- tions to date in the remote Himalayan Moun- nagement committees formed by the villagers. tains. It is also working with Wild Land Secu- By running the communication centers, the re- rity (http://wildlandsecurity.org) in the US to spective caretaker organizations also gained an set up an IP based surveillance system devel- opportunity to share in the revenue produced by oped by them for monitoring the movement of usage fees. Additionally, the telephone users were poachers in one of the national parks of Nepal charged a surcharge on telephone calls (Approx. to help protect endangered animals. The re- $0.01 per minute more than is billed by Nepal searchers of Nepal Wireless are also developing Telecom), resulting in an additional profit for a cheaper Electro Cardio Graph (ECG) machine paying the operating costs of the network. in its laboratory. Once it is developed, the ma- In order to comply with the rules and regu- chines will be put in rural clinics and will be lations of the Nepal Government and to become used for telemedicine. a legal rural Internet service provider, Nepal Wireless was registered as a not-for-profit sha- ring company on July, 2009 from the Office of 3.8 Project Management Company Registrar. The company consists of a Until 2009, the school management committee board with five board members. As a nonprofit of Himanchal High School managed the Nepal sharing company, it can provide IT services, Wireless Networking Project because the wire- technical support to build wireless networks Vol.20 No.3 Bridging the Digital Divide 117 and training for bringing IT related services to the management of the network is to develop users in rural Nepal. Nepal Wireless as a business enterprise with Until it became a nonprofit sharing company, public and private stakeholders. Now there are Nepal Wireless provided connectivity only to many community stakeholders involved includ- rural schools, health clinics, and community ing local schools, local governments and in- communication centers. However, now it is pro- dividual partners. This allows an avenue for viding services to individual home users in the democratic participation as well as risk and villages if they can afford to have it. Still, vil- profit sharing. lagers who can’t afford to have computers and Internet connection at home can get IT services 3.9 Status of Nepal Wireless through communication centers in each village Unwin [2005] describes that there must be or school. Nepal Wireless charges a monthly seven key elements for the ICT4D partnership connectivity fee directly to the schools, rural to operate in a successful manner. They are as communication centers, and local service pro- follows : viders to cover the operating and maintenance cost of the network, such as monthly costs for 1. Trust the Internet bandwidth, rent for the server 2. Focus rooms, electricity bills, and salaries for the re- 3. Champions/Leaders peater station manager and fulltime technical 4. Sustainability staff. 5. Balance between demand and supply In addition, Nepal Wireless also works with 6. Networking local internet service providers to provide inter- 7. Transparency and sound ethical basis net connectivity to home users. A group of in- (pp. 64-67) dividuals or schools or organizations can form a committee to become a local ISP. Local repre- This project has achieved most of the com- sentatives from the villages have been put in ponents of Tim Unwin’s explanation about an the management committee so that they can ideal ICT4D2) partnership. It is entirely fo- come up with their own ideas and make their cused on providing IT services to rural com- own plan on how to use and maintain the wire- munities and is driven by local champions. less network. Working with the local partners, it has built Thus an organizational structure has been developed in which public and private partners 2) ICT4D : The full form of the abbreviation is Infor- have taken responsibility to manage the local mation and communication Technology for Develop- ment. It is usually used when information commu- network and provide IT services with the tech- nication networks are used for the sake of develop- nical support of Nepal Wireless as a partner. ment through e-services like e-learning, e-commerce, tele-medicine, e-governance etc. to raise socio eco- The reason to make public partners involved in nomic standard of life. 118 JOURNAL OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY APPLICATIONS & MANAGEMENT network in more than 120 remote mountain really contributing to the socioeconomic devel- villages of Nepal and is expanding the net- opment of Nepal through ICTs and online re- work to more districts. With its constant sources. With Tim Unwin’s model of successful progress and nonprofit structure of operation partnership, Nepal Wireless lacks some compo- it has gained huge trust from the rural people nents such as full sustainability, and balance as well. Moreover, Nepal Wireless has created between supply and demand. Nepal Wireless is 6 full time and several part time jobs for rural aware of those shortages and it is trying to ad- people. Because of these reasons, Nepal Wire- dress them step by step as it progresses. Over less has become one of the most reputed proj- a decade of efforts to connect the mountain vil- ects in Nepal. Thapa and Sein [2010], tran- lages with wireless and bring IT services, scribes an interview with a villager at Nangi Nepal Wireless has faced the following chal- while they were making a research on Nepal lenges : Wireless. The villager says that “Mahabir has done entire thing. He is the one who brings 1. Lack of technical expertise : It was decided computer and internet in village. All the credit to build a wireless network with the desperate goes to him, as long as Mahabir is with us, need of creating local communication system there is no fear” (p. 18). between the villages to run community de- With a long experience in the field of ICT4D, velopment projects without the team leader Nepal Wireless has overcome several chal- and team members having much technical lenges such as legal, technical, financial etc, and know-how. Therefore, lack of technical know- is progressing steadily with a hope to narrow ledge and expertise was certainly the first the digital divide to some extent in Nepal. challenge. There are defined goals and objectives, and the 2. Lack of appropriate technology : Wi-Fi was operation of the organization is according to just an emerging technology in 2001 and it those defined goals. Organizational transparency was primarily built for indoor use. Therefore is another positive part of Nepal Wireless. That many of the communication engineers with is why Nepal Wireless has been able to estab- whom the author had communicated did not lish its network in more than thirteen districts believe that it would be possible to build long of Nepal. Nepal Wireless is focused and de- range wireless network using the indoor termined to extend rural networks with public Wi-Fi equipment available in the market. The and private participation as much as it is Wi-Fi equipment that was donated to the possible. project to build the first 40 km long wireless link with a 3,300m tall mountain between 4. Current Challenges Nangi village and the city had just 60 mW transmit power without any amplifier and Thus we can argue that Nepal Wireless is long range antennas. Vol.20 No.3 Bridging the Digital Divide 119
3. Difficult geographical terrains : Geographical month for a 1 Mbps link. Therefore the proj- barriers created by the high mountains also ect had to use a dial-up link at the beginning. made it look impossible to accomplish the Even though the Internet bandwidth cost has project. Many of the villages were not in Line come down to approximately USD 500 per of Sight (LOS) because of the high mountain Mbps per month in 2011, it is still expensive. ranges in between. Moreover, the repeater The 5 Mbps of Internet bandwidth Nepal stations that had to be created on the moun- Wireless has subscribed to provide to more tain tops were far from the villages with no than 120 villages is too little for the villagers. human settlements. Therefore powering the Therefore Internet bandwidth is still the main equipment and ensuring the security of the bottleneck for the project to provide IT serv- equipment was a big challenge for the project. ices smoothly in an affordable and cost-ef- 4. Unfavorable political situation : The wireless fective way in the villages. networking project was started at the peak 7. Sustainability of funding resources : This is time of political instability in Nepal. The con- the major challenge many of the organi- flict in rural Nepal made the wireless net- zations like Nepal Wireless have been facing working work extremely difficult hence the in Nepal and in other developing countries. project had to be implemented while con- The challenge is not only to make a project stantly facing threats of closure. The villag- financially sustainable but also to make it ers were often reluctant to participate due to technically sustainable. fears of violence from the government sol- diers and the Maoist rebels. Looking at the numerous challenges and 5. Legal issues : The autocratic regime of the problems mentioned above, it is clear that the king had severely restricted import and use idea of building a long range wireless network of wireless networking equipment. The re- in 2001 was a crazy idea then. Despite that, the strictive laws requiring a license to import team members could overcome most of the chal- and use any kind of wireless gear made ac- lenges and problems with persistence. The cre- quiring equipment from abroad almost im- dit for making the project successful at the ini- possible. Also, the requirement to get a li- tial years goes to the international volunteers. cense from the government to become an Seeing that it was almost impossible to get Internet Service Provider by paying expen- import and user license from the government, sive license fee seemed impossible to over- the project decided to take the risk to import the come for a grassroots project like Nepal equipment and use them illegally. The interna- Wireless. tional volunteers helped to smuggle the wire- 6. Expensive Internet cost : The monthly con- less equipment in their backpacks to Nepal and nectivity fee during the early days of the carried them to the villages through many strict project was at the range of USD 2,500 per security check points along the highway. The 120 JOURNAL OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY APPLICATIONS & MANAGEMENT team built different types of antennas and test- Another regulatory obstacle to bring IT ser- ed them at different ranges in the mountain vices in the rural areas was also overcome. villages. The mountain barriers were overcome That was the requirement of license by paying by building relay stations on tall trees at moun- high license fee to become Internet Service tain tops. Solar power and wind power were Provider, which was almost $4,000 a year [NTA, used to power the equipment up. 2010]. As a result no investor was motivated to Recalling the risky situation of that time, one become a rural Internet Service Provider be- can imagine that anything could have happened cause there was almost no chance of the return to the team members. They could have been on the investment. Nepal Wireless lobbied with arrested or shot dead by the rebels or the gov- the regulatory body of the government to re- ernment forces had any of the team members duce the license fee and Nepal Telecommunica- had been found carrying wireless equipment or tion Authority (NTA) brought a new law mak- using them to build a local communication ing the licensing procedure simple and bringing system. Luckily, no such incident happened and down the license fee to become rural Internet the wireless networking project kept expanding Service Provider to Nepali Rupee 100 (Approx. slowly to more villages. Thus the dream to USD 1.50) a year. As a result Nepal Wireless build long range wireless network and to con- has now received a license and it can legally nect the villages was fulfilled. In short, Nepal provide Internet and IT services in the rural Wireless Networking Project could not have areas. come into existence without the courageous Similarly, financial and technical sustain- support of the international volunteers. ability of Nepal Wireless itself is a challenge. After the restoration of democracy in 2006, a From the interview transcription of Thapa and hard lobbying was done by the Nepal Wireless Sein [2010] with a villager, he expresses his team along with the members of the Associa- worries on the sustainability of the project, tion of Internet Service Providers in Nepal de- “until Mahabir is here, it will function properly, manding the government to de-license 2.4 GHz however in his absence, we need another per- and 5.8 GHz frequencies on ISM band. The son like him for the sustainability of this proj- team leader of Nepal Wireless gave two pre- ect” (p. 18). sentations to the Members of Parliament and The issue of the balance between demand Members of Development Committee of the and supply is still a big challenge for Nepal Parliament on how Nepal Wireless had been set Wireless. Nepal Wireless receives requests from up and how the rural communities were bene- many enthusiastic villagers and local govern- fiting. As a result Nepal Government de-li- ments from around the country for help to con- censed those frequencies in September 2006. nect their villages to the Internet. They are also Now the wireless equipment at those de-li- able and willing to raise some funds for con- censed bands can be easily imported and used. nectivity. At present, Nepal Wireless can’t sup- Vol.20 No.3 Bridging the Digital Divide 121 port all of them in funding even if it can defi- urban to rural area would be possible through nitely provide technical assistance. Thus there Internet and intranet. Nepal Wireless has been is huge demand and Nepal Wireless is unable an “unusual” case for the following reasons to balance between supply and demand of IT [Ruth and Schware, 2008]. services in rural Nepal. There are several aspects which make the 5. Recommendations Nangi case unusual. First of all, it was not initiated through government, NGO or mul- The main issue that has been discussed in tilateral interventions. Second, it was man- this chapter with Nepal Wireless as an example aged entirely by Nepalese local leaders, with is the issue of finding ways to make IT serv- assistance provided through skillful selection ices accessible to the majority of rural people of outside helpers, mostly volunteers, from in developing countries in sustainable manner developed nations. There was no role of the and to bridge the most publicized issue of digi- USAID, UNDP or World Bank in the pro- tal gap as far as it is possible. The way Nepal ject. Third, the hardware used was top- of- Wireless has been trying to address the issue the-line, and not a compromise among cheap in Nepal might or might not be applicable in or aging technologies. Fourth, the cost of the other countries. It is mainly because Nepal project was relatively modest, since there Wireless was started on the grassroots level by were no “middle-man” charges and because local champions of a specific area in Nepal. several equipment suppliers were so im- Nepal Wireless can’t provide solutions for oth- pressed with the Nangi concept that they ers, but it can propose some recommendations. gave large price concessions. Perhaps the The important point that should be noticed most unusual aspect of the case is that the here is that Nepal Wireless is inspired more by entire effort was not driven by an application, the social cause to help bridge digital gap in its like licensing, taxation or finance. Instead, capacity than as a business venture for finan- the idea for Nangi was, “if you build it they cial gain. No commercial Internet Service Pro- will come”, like the theme from the film vider has gone to the rural areas where Nepal “Field of Dreams.” Wireless Networking Project has been working. The long term goal is not only to help bridge The cases of Nangi and Nepal Wireless case the digital gap but to bring about socio-eco- is unusual in some senses because it has been nomic transformation of rural areas in Nepal by able to bridge some digital divide successfully optimum use of information and communication under difficult circumstances by connecting technology. Therefore Nepal Wireless is help- more than 120 villages with Wi-Fi technology ing to connect rural side of Nepal to urban and by bringing IT services in the remote areas so that the transfer of technologies from mountain villages, where the people did not 122 JOURNAL OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY APPLICATIONS & MANAGEMENT know what an Internet is. It is the persistence dividual, a school, a business, or a clinic or an of the team members for about a decade that office, has to pay the installation cost and made it possible. The team members are still monthly Internet connectivity cost. The month- working in their full capacity with a hope to ly connectivity fee is based upon the Internet connect many more villages. Based upon its ac- bandwidth used by a user, which is from USD complishment so far, Nepal Wireless case can 15 to USD 30 a month. The contribution re- be taken as one of the examples for bridging ceived from outside donors is spent to build the the digital divide in remote rural areas. How- backbone of the network and to install back up ever, it should not be taken as the best solu- power systems at the relay stations. Support tions to meet the huge need of Nepal. from local government and district government Over time, the project has learned an im- also goes to build local networks and backup portant lesson to make IT projects like Nepal power systems. Nepal Wireless also provides Wireless self-sustained. The lesson learned is ongoing trainings to teachers, administrators to make local stake holders such as local pri- and local people to manage and use the network vate partners, local community organizations effectively. Since the community members have and local governments involved as operating also invested money for the installation cost, partners as much as possible for the long term there is a feeling of ownership towards the sustainability of rural IT projects in rural network. While support from donor organ- Nepal. This lesson has become a guideline for izations are helpful, Nepal Wireless always be- Nepal Wireless to help bridge the digital divide lieves in the maximum level of local partic- more effectively especially in the rural areas. ipation for achieving its goal. Without community involvement, an ICT4D After looking at the decade long efforts of project will survive for the project period only, Nepal Wireless, it has been realized that it is and then may flounder. very difficult to bridge the digital gap of the The issue of technical sustainability has been whole country with the efforts of a single or- solved by hiring some full time and part time ganization like Nepal Wireless no matter how staff after Nepal Wireless was established as a hard one tries. An organization or some organ- nonprofit sharing company in 2009. Still the izations like Nepal Wireless can help to develop number of full-time technical staff is not ade- a model or system and connect only a few hun- quate. Therefore there are quite a number of dred or so villages for bridging the digital gap3) people volunteering or doing internship in the if it works in its full capacity. However, there project, and Nepal Wireless seems it depends are over 6,000 villages in Nepal and many or- more on the support of the volunteers. 3) Digital Gap/Digital divide : There is a huge difference The issue of financial sustainability has been between the people with the access of information and addressed to some extent through community without access of information. In case of developing countries the gap is more. This gap is defined by digital participation. Each user, whether it is an in- divide or digital gap. Vol.20 No.3 Bridging the Digital Divide 123 ganizations like Nepal Wireless will be needed nancial support to rural operators that are in- to bring IT services to the Nepalese society at terested to bring Internet and IT services in the large. A majority of the 80% people living in the remote rural areas for which it is recommen- rural areas of Nepal will not get fast broadband ded to provide subsidized financial support for services from ISPs without government sub- building infrastructure and for paying the cost sidy. of the Internet access. Governments can use the Therefore the government must take ini- Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF), which tiative to build broadband information high- the commercial operators pay to the govern- way in rural areas using wireless technology or ment. it must provide financial support to grass root Most of the countries require the incumbent level organizations or companies like Nepal operators to pay a part of their net earnings to Wireless. This is important to make IT services provide information and communication ser- available throughout the rural areas and to vices to rural population, which is called Uni- bridge digital gap. One of the reasons govern- versal Service Obligation Fund in India. Chile ment intervention is recommended is that it is has the Telecommunications Development Fund less likely for commercial companies to invest (FDT). Pakistan has the Universal Service in the remote rural areas. It is unwise for com- Fund Company, and Taiwan has the Universal mercial operators to invest huge amounts of Service Fund [Wikipedia 2012]. It is called money to build infrastructure to bring broad- Rural Telecommunication Development Fund in band information highway and to provide Nepal and Nepal government is planning to use Internet services in sparsely populated and the fund for connecting all the 75 district head- scattered rural areas of Nepal because there is quarters through optical fiber link and then the a slim chance for them to get a return. In addi- villages through wireless link. The amount of tion, the low income of rural residents and the money collected for Universal Service Obliga- mountainous nature of the area decrease the tion Fund in each country is quite a large viability of any telecommunication infrastruc- amount. Therefore it will be good resource for tures. bridging digital divide in developing as well as Based upon the experience Nepal Wireless in developed countries. According to the Natio- has gained, it is recommended that the govern- nal Broadband Plan of America, approximately ment intervention for bridging the huge digital 100 million Americans do not have broadband gap in developing countries must come both in at their home. Therefore the US government the form of open policies and favorable spec- has set up “Create the Connect America Fund trum regulations for the expansion of wireless (CAF) to support the provision of affordable or optical fiber networks, whichever is feasible, broadband and voice with at least 4 Mbps ac- in the rural areas. In addition, governments tual download speeds and shift up to $15.5 bil- should also subsidize the service or provide fi- lion over the next decade from the existing 124 JOURNAL OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY APPLICATIONS & MANAGEMENT
Universal Service Fund (USF) program to sup- America are currently part of an OLPC project, port broadband” [Connecting America, The with another 400,000 in Africa and the rest of National Broadband Plan p. xiii]. the world” [OLPC, 2011]. Similar projects have Another recommendation for helping to bridge been started by governments in Gaza, Afghani- digital divide is by providing ICT in education stan, Haiti, Ethiopia, and Mongolia. There is no programs in all the schools supported by go- doubt that such programs will be able to bridge vernment. The initiative taken by Nepal Go- not only the digital divide but make people con- vernment can be an example. As part of the nected to each other, to the world and create ICT in education program, the Ministry of new opportunities to the people of remote com- Education of Nepal Government recently “has munities [Thapa et al., 2012]. Open Learning started an initiative for introducing information Exchange Nepal has successfully done “One and communication technology (ICT) in educa- Laptop Per Child Program” as a pilot project tion with UNESCO’s support. It aims at har- with the Department of Education in five dis- nessing the power of ICT for teaching and tricts of Nepal. The pilot program was done in learning. This initiative is part of an ongoing two phases and it distributed more than 2,500 major education initiative in the country such laptops to the students and teachers [OLE as the School Sector Reform Plan, the Educati- Nepal, 2011]. on for All campaign and teachers education Finally, the time is not that far when a person projects” [UNESCO, 2010]. will require IT in every step for oneʼs living as Even the government of a developed country one of the basic human needs such as food, like the United Kingdom feels that they are ob- shelter, and clothes etc. However, there are bil- liged to do more for ICT in education. That is lions of people deprived of such opportunity. why the “rural areas in England and Scotland Therefore, getting an opportunity to learn IT in have been allocated nearly £363m to improve education should be included by all the respon- their broadband connections.” In addition, the sible governments of the world as one of the British government has brought forth a scheme fundamental rights of a child under the right to to give “free laptops to 270,000 pupils from poor get a basic education. Without such a provision, backgrounds in England” [BBC, 2011]. In order many children still will stand across the digital to target digital divide, “low-cost computers are divide from opportunities of the modern world. to be offered as part of a government scheme to encourage millions of people in the UK to get 6. Conclusion online for the first time” [BBC, 2010]. One example of government intervention for In this chapter we discussed the importance bridging digital divide is through the “One lap- of ICT in promoting education, healthcare and top Per Child Program.” Under this program, public services particularly in the remote commu- “over 1.7 million children and teachers in Latin nities. Examples include how the Nepal Wire- Vol.20 No.3 Bridging the Digital Divide 125 less Networking Project created the socioeco- “Final Report of APT ICT J3 Project in nomic opportunities to the mountain villages by Nepal”, Report presented to Asia Pacific Tele- facilitating affordable Internet access. The chap- community, Bangkok, Thailand, 2009. ter also demonstrated how the project turned [7] Harsany, J., Taking Wifi to New Heights, challenges into opportunities. 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Author Profile Mahabir Pun Mahabir Pun is currently So- cial Entrepreneur for commu- nity development. He received his B.S. and M.S. degrees from University of Nebraska at Kear- ney. He is involved in social work as an educa- tor, and a social entrepreneur. He helps start in- come generating programs and micro-enter- prises in the villages in order to create local economy and local jobs for the people in rural areas. He is also involved in innovation activities and helps young people to be innovative and creative. He is interested in bringing information and communication technology in the rural areas of Nepal and finding ways to make the best uses of the technology for the benefit of rural people.
