Motivating Community-Based ICT Infrastructure Development Using Wireless Technology

Onno W. Purbo
Independent ICT Writer
Sabbatical Leave at IDRC Canada (http://www.idrc.ca)
onno@indo.net.id

Edited by:

Frank Tulus
Senior Program Officer
International Development Research Centre
Regional Office for South Asia
New Delhi, India
ftulus@idrc.org.in

Chaitali Sinha
Research Officer
International Development Research Centre
Ottawa, Canada
csinha@idrc.ca

Advancement in wireless communication has gone a long way since Marconi received the first transatlantic wireless signal on Signal Hill, Newfoundland (Canada) in December 1901.  Today, we are faced with a multitude of options as various forms of wireless technology matured into viable communication medium for the masses.  From cellular telephony to wireless Internet, we are undoubtedly embedded within a wireless digital era.  However, what sort of opportunity can the wireless digital era bring a rural community in developing country?  

As the wireless revolution continues to evolve, we are still currently faced with the grim reality of communication in rural communities of the developing regions.  As we will realize from this article, the connectivity challenge in a rural community is not simply a factor of the remoteness and physical distance of these places from an urban conglomeration.  What’s equally important is that the experience shared in this article pointed out to the potential opportunity for a community to generate knowledge-based producers with the advent of a low-cost, sustainable form of Internet communications. 

Dr. Onno Purbo has led a community-based infrastructure movement in Bandung, Indonesia since 1992.  At the time, he was affiliated with the Institute Technology of Bandung (ITB), and was a key figure in linking schools in the region via a slow 1200bps packet radio network running on Very High Frequency band (VHF).  He has since capitalized on Wireless Fidelity or (WiFi) as advancements in this technology made it possible for him to connect more communities on a low-cost, high-impact basis.  

This article will demonstrate the path and experiences in facilitating a community movement to build its own communication infrastructure.  Currently, more than 5000 outdoor WiFi installations are present in Indonesia, and it is increasing at a rate of 200-300 nodes per month.  The benefits of such an infrastructure and community-based movement are clearly shown in this article.  With this new technology, a shift is occurring from old-fashioned community telecentres and cybercafes towards wired communities via a wide area neighbourhood network.  

Fully supported by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and the Bellanet Secretariat in Canada, Dr. Onno Purbo is able to share his practical knowledge of wide area WiFi infrastructure deployment in English.  This practical knowledge for supporting the development of community-based infrastructure is freely available at the following site:  http://sandbox.bellanet.org/~onno.  An online virtual discussion forum on practical issues of WiFi and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is currently hosted by IDRC and Bellanet at wifi4d@dgroups.org.  

A Glimpse of The Past

“PaguyubanNet”, the earliest form on Internet in Indonesia was established in 1993, as a result of considerable effort and expertise contributed by a handful of national digital pioneers. “Paguyuban” is a Bahasa Indonesian word meaning “helping each other”.

Prior to the establishment of PaguyubanNet, in 1986, early network development was inspired leading amateur radio pioneers.  This inspiration was carried forward by similar radio experiments performed by students at the Amateur Radio Club (Institute of Technology of Bandung (ITB). 

As a result of financial restrictions, all experiments were run on first generation personal computers (with 64KB of RAM) and used radio for data communications.  The speed of transmission was 1/10000 of the speed of WiFi today.

Since 2001, the Director for Vocational Schools at the Ministry of Education has been leading the integration of more than 1500 vocational schools to the Internet through WiFi. Much ground is left to be covered with a total of 1300 colleges / universities, 10,000 high schools, 10,000 Islamic schools, 4,000 vocational schools yet to be connected. 

This journey towards achieving low-cost connectivity was complemented with many talented and dedicated Indonesians who enjoyed sharing their knowledge, expertise and resources for the betterment of Indonesian society.

Today, the learning and development process is continued through various Indonesian mailing lists, such as, orari-news@yahoogroups.com, indowli@yahoogroups.com, and genetika@groups.or.id.

WiFi to Bypass Telco Last Mile

Over half of the Internet infrastructure operating costs goes for paying the Telco last mile. This phenomenon is what drives communities to seek alternate solutions to build their own network to bypass the Telco last mile.

One of the easiest ways to accomplish this is to use the off-the-shelf low cost WiFi (Wireless Fidelity) technology running at 2.4GHz & 5.8GHz band. WiFi wireless Internet solutions can be found on the Web at http://sandbox.bellanet.org/~onno/, http://www.wavelan.com, http://www.ydi.com, and http://www.wipop.com. 

WiFi equipment is originally designed for indoor usage. However, in our community-based network, it is also used outdoors. Unlike indoor installations, there is an outdoor external antenna used along with a 20-30 meter tower to extend the range of coverage to reach 5-8 km distances. 

Building low cost homemade 2.4GHz antenna is not very difficult; a tin can with 90 mm diametre, and 215 mm length can be easily used as a 2.4GHz antenna for 1-2 km distances. It costs approximately US$5-10 per antenna.  Someone with a strong Linux background may easily build a low cost gateway / router to integrate a LAN or a community to the Internet at 11Mbps. 
Community Neighbourhood Network Model

The Community Neighbourhood Network model moves away from the conventional Telecentre model, which centralizes all connectivity in a single room.  The new WiFi Community Network distributes connectivity throughout the neighbourhood thereby reducing monthly costs for 24 hour Internet access.  As more houses or computers in the neighbourhood become connected to the neighbourhood network, the operating cost as well as the initial investment cost will decline. 

To get a better idea of the savings one can achieve by developing an outdoor WiFi neighbourhood network, let us conduct a price comparison. Broadband 24 hour Internet access from the Indonesian Telco costs US$400-800/month/user.  This price allows the user to exchange limited traffic over the network with a high level QoS (Quality of Service).  In comparison, WiFi Neighbourhood Network broadband 24 hour Internet access costs US$15-45/month/neighbour. This low price includes the ability for users to exchange unlimited traffic on the network with variable QoS, depending on the level of traffic at that time.

Currently, there are over 5000 institutions including broadband Internet cafes, schools, and residential neighbourhoods are using WiFi technologies as an alternative to conventional connectivity options. 

With the help of IDRC and Bellanet Canada, a discussion group, wifi4d@dgroups.org, has been created to support practical WiFi & VoIP discussion in English for international practitioners.
Regional Networks

Now that we know how to link individual communities, we can take a step back to look at how to connect the communities to one another through a broader regional network. The two (2) most common technologies to build the regional network are satellite and fibre optics.  

DVB-RCS satellite backbone is the cheapest solution currently available to Indonesia is selling for US$200-700 at 64Kbps, depending on the agreement on the satellite ground station. Fibre optics/microwave backbone can be rented from cellular operators. The excess capacity is used to for our data traffic between cities. The local ISP (Internet Service Provider) normally rents the backbone from the cellular operators, and then resells it to the community.

Capacity Building: Encouraging Local Knowledge Producers

In creating a self-financed knowledge cycle, there are basically two (2) critical strategies, namely: transforming local youths into knowledge producers; and supply-created-by-demand strategy.

Without skilled and dedicated people to drive this movement, the deployment of such innovative infrastructure would not be possible. This infrastructure model thrives only because it is invested, built, and run by the people for the people. Having easy access to low cost technology is not enough. In Indonesia, ICT knowledge in local language is limited. 

A key component for the successful deployment of WiFi technologies in the Indonesian context is the development of young students to become local knowledge producers. These knowledge producers (young authors) acquire WiFi knowledge from various sources, experiment with them, and then author their experiences into publications in the local language (Bahasa Indonesia).  To sustain young authors to continue producing knowledge materials they are compensated with US$15-25/article and US$500-700/book. The typical monthly living cost for a student is US$80-95 (including tuition, books, housing and meals).

The impact of knowledge producers is felt on many levels.  Not only do their publications educate people, but they also open people’s minds to new ideas and help reaffirm the feasibility of investing their own money in such infrastructure models.  Once people are convinced to deploy community neighbourhood networks, they can utilize knowledge produced by the young authors to assist in building their capacities.  These capacities include initial set up, operation, and maintenance of the infrastructure.

With a sound knowledge base and strong network of knowledge producers, communities can become self-sustaining, by developing and maintaining their own equipment and services. Similar initiatives from large top-down institutions often result in failure because the methodology they use treats people as customers, rather than empowering them to participate in achieving a sustainable solution.  

Policy Influence: Liberating 2.4GHz and 5.8GHz WiFi Band

The diffusion of WiFi neighbourhood networks in Indonesia not only depends on the people, but also on the government and policy regulation. This interdependency has impacted the movement for quite some time.  The issue at hand is liberating WiFi band (2.4GHz and 5.8GHz) from harsh government regulations. 

Prior to 1999, licenses for running WiFi nodes cost US$2200/yr/node.  This price was reduced to US$270/yr/node after some negotiations in 2001.  However, WiFi licenses continue to be awarded only to ISPs. Those who run WiFi without a license have their equipment revoked by the government. 

In October 2003, the Ministry of Telecommunications wrote a draft decree on WiFi. The decree is still open and many Indonesians hope that the Ministry will consider the numerous benefits, both economical and social, that will emerge if the WiFi band is liberated. 

Figure 1:  Potential Impact of WiFi Liberation in Indonesia
Impact	Current	Future (if liberalization occurs)	
WiFi based Internet users	1 million	17.8 million	
Potential ISP tax revenue	US$120,000/yr	US$2.5 million/yr	
Potential revenue from ISP VAT (Value Added Tax)	US$800,000/yr	US$15 million/yr	
Potential revenue from supplier VAT	US$2.1 million	US$70 million	
Computers	50,000 units	2 million units	
WiFi Equipment	5,500 units	130,000 units	

From the chart above one can see the significant increase in WiFi equipment upon liberalization of the WiFi band. Currently neighbourhood networks encourage local SMSEs (Small and Medium Sized Enterprises) to manufacture antennas and towers at a lower cost than their foreign competitors.  With the increase from 5,500 units to 130,000 units, manufacturers will be able to provide a lower price to the end consumer due to the principle of economies of scale.  The current demand of 5,500 units is not sufficient to provide incentive for new manufacturers to enter the market.  However with the increase in demand to 130,000 units will translate into a lower per unit manufacturing cost.  

Furthermore, as studies have indicated, the additional revenue the government can generate from the volume of ISP and vendor taxes will be more than sufficient to compensate for the loss of revenue from WiFi licensing.  

Conclusion

Over the past 10 years, Dr. Onno Purbo and his esteemed colleagues have worked very hard to make all the pieces fit into the Indonesian WiFi Neighbourhood Network puzzle. This process is quite involved and requires equal amounts of attention to capacity building of the people, research of new technologies, and engaging in the policy arena.

With the current sabbatical with IDRC, Dr. Onno Purbo managed to spread his knowledge further by participating and conducting live practical demonstration at the World Summit for the Information Society (WSIS), in addition to IDRC-sponsored training workshops in Laos, Bangladesh, India (Chennai), South Africa, Malaysia, Netherlands, and an upcoming one in Bhutan.  With the support of the Pan Asia Program staff of IDRC, Dr. Onno Purbo has also written two practical “how-to” books on WiFi and VoIP for developing countries.  

For inquiries regarding the community-based ICT infrastructure, please write to Dr. Onno Purbo (onno@indo.net.id).  For further information and other inquiries regarding this article, please submit your request to Mr. Frank Tulus, Senior Program Officer, Pan Asia Networking, IDRC (ftulus@idrc.org.in) or Ms. Chaitali Sinha, Research Officer, Pan Asia Networking, IDRC (csinha@idrc.ca).
About the Author

Dr. Onno W. Purbo (onno@indo.net.id), is a former Indonesian civil servant & retired lecturer.  He is a maverick driven by a plain & simple vision to see an Indonesian knowledge based society, committing his time to write thousands of articles, papers and 30+ books on Internet technology.  These publications are mostly in Indonesian language to educate Indonesians about IT. However, recently Onno has drafted 2 books in English on WiFi and VoIP as part of his sabbatical with IDRC. All of his articles are available on “copyleft” basis, thus it can be freely downloaded from the Internet, such as, http://sandbox.bellanet.org/~onno/ (English version), http://www.apjii.or.id/onno/ or http://www.bogor.net/idkf (Indonesian version) or http://onno.vlsm.org.