By Colin Applegate
Background
An estimated 4.4 billion people, over two-thirds of the world’s population, lack access to the Internet. The majority of these people live in poor and rural regions in developing countries. The possible uses for mobile communication and the Internet in the developing world are endless. A Deloitte study found that access to the information on the Internet would help farmers in these developing areas increase their profits by an estimated 33%. Deloitte estimated the total economic output of providing Internet access to 75% of the world´s population could be an additional $2.2 trillion in global GDP and create more than 140 million jobs. With the majority of the potential economic development located in Africa, South East Asia, and Latin America, Deloitte estimated that the number of people living in extreme poverty (subsisting on under $1.25 per day) would be reduced by nearly a third. With the potential of bringing billions of people out of poverty, Internet access could have an impact as large as the Green Revolution.
Nearly one year ago, Mark Zuckerberg and the team at Facebook created Internet.org with the vision of connecting the world to the Internet. In order to better understand the challenges facing global connectivity, Facebook commissioned McKinsey & Company to create a report on the barriers to connectivity. McKinsey’s report found that one of the most challenging barriers to connectivity is the lack of infrastructure in isolated rural communities. An estimated 64% of the unconnected population lives in rural areas. Homes in these communities lack not only telecommunications infrastructure, but also access to grid electricity, sanitation systems, and clean drinking water. In order to bring 3G broadband to these areas, mobile network operators would have to either extend their fiber optic cable networks–which would require a very large investment–or create a VSAT satellite link, which carries a heavy operating cost. High provision costs lead to the next barrier to connectivity; affordability. According to McKinsey’s report, 50% of the unconnected population lives below the poverty line (under $2 a day). The combination of the high service provision cost and low potential revenue has deterred existing mobile network operators from expanding their infrastructure to the isolated rural communities. This has led to most developing countries having a 3G-coverage rate of below 20%.
Beyond the technical complexities of building a profitable telecommunications infrastructure, there are also consumer barriers that need to be overcome. According to the same McKinsey study, an estimated 69% of the unconnected population lack knowledge of the benefits the Internet could bring them. These are people who lack the digital literacy to understand how the Internet could benefit their lives. In addition, there is a significant lack of local language content for the majority of the world´s population (a problem exacerbated even more when the local language is indigenous to the community). According to the 2014 GSMA Digital Inclusion report, 55% of the Internet is in English, yet only 5% of the world´s population speaks English as a first language. On the contrary, 17% of the world´s population speaks Chinese, but only 3% of all websites are in Chinese (similar statistics exist for Arabic, Hindi, and Bengali).
In order to address these issues, Internet.org has launched several initiatives. First, Internet.org has partnered with mobile network operators in 9 developing countries (and counting) to provide immediate free access to the mobile network operator’s 2G/3G networks through the Internet.org application. The app allows users to access internet for only certain services such as Facebook, Messenger, Wikipedia, AccuWeather, women´s rights apps and several other applications aimed at providing valuable and relevant information. In addition, Facebook has launched the Innovation Lab where they incentivize developers to create apps designed for solving issues in the developing world. Furthermore, in their Connectivity Lab, Facebook is developing cutting edge technologies to overcome the infrastructural barrier of connectivity. In March of 2015, Facebook completed their first test flight of a drone that has the capability to stay airborne for months at a time and provide 3G/4G to medium density populations. Also, Facebook is working in collaboration with NASA engineers to create lasers that allow satellites to communicate with each other to create a backbone for fast and reliable Internet access everywhere.
Temporary free access to 2G/3G networks is not necessarily a bad idea; for the 69% of the unconnected population who lack the knowledge of the benefits the Internet could have, this could be an important trial period for them to learn. However, do Facebook’s partners have a long-term plan to provide affordable access for their new subscribers? For example, Facebook’s Colombian partner Tigo is only offering the free promotion until April 15th 2015. After Facebook’s partners stop donating their data, what will happen to the 50% of the unconnected population who cannot afford traditional data plans? What´s more, many activists are arguing that Internet.org is damaging to net-neutrality. Critics argue that Facebook is distorting the app market by providing apps for free. Small-scale developers who need to finance their operations cannot afford to provide their app for free. However, larger app developers such as Google and Facebook, who can afford it, are occupying huge portions of the market. The problem is so bad that millions of Internet.org’s users in emerging countries think that Facebook is the Internet. In response to the recent criticisms on the topic of net-neutrality, several of Facebook’s partners have pulled their app from Internet.org. Furthermore, drones and lasers sound exciting, but are they the cheapest, quickest, and most effective way of delivering Internet access to the developing world? We have to remember that most of the unconnected population live in low density, rural areas and are very poor. Could they afford to use a solar powered drone the size of a Boeing 737 that was designed to provide 3G/4G for a medium density, suburban environment? These questions remain to be answered. I have, however, been given the unique opportunity to work my second co-op for a small non-profit foundation in Madrid that is currently testing the deployment of terrestrial wireless backhaul technology and 3G small cells as a solution for connectivity in isolated rural communities.
Sustainable Telecommunications Development in the Peruvian Amazon
The Hispanic American Health Connection (Enlace Hispano Americano de Salud–EHAS) creates telemedicine solutions for rural and developing areas in Latin America. EHAS uses devices such as telestethoscopes, telemicroscopes, and teleultrasounds to allow nurses and health technicians in rural communities of the jungle to send live sounds, images, and videos of their patients to doctors up to 100 kilometers away. In order to connect these devices to the Internet, EHAS has built wireless backhaul infrastructures utilizing existing WiLD and WiMAX technologies. WiLD/WiMAX send radio signals over long distances between antennas placed on top of towers standing over the jungle canopy. WiLD and WiMAX are currently being used to provide inexpensive communications systems for aid organizations, government agencies, and mining companies across Latin America. In 2007, as part of one of their flagship projects, EHAS constructed 16 towers transmitting Wi-Fi to 16 health centers along the Napo River deep in the Peruvian Amazon. Today, as part of a project called TUCAN3G, EHAS is planning to add 3G mobile broadband capability to these towers to provide the local population with reliable and affordable access to the mobile voice, messaging, and data services.
TUCAN3G will utilize extra broadband space from the Napo River’s WiLD/WiMAX telemedicine backhaul network to transport 3G communications. In your typical city or suburb in the United States, you receive your cellular signal from towers, interconnected by fiber optic cables, with macrocells that are capable of providing 3G/4G broadband over a large distance and supporting thousands of users at a time. On the other hand, TUCAN3G will be utilizing towers, interconnected by wireless WiLD/WiMAX backhaul, with femtocells that are capable of providing 3G/4G over small areas and supporting a few dozen users at a time. By utilizing a wireless backhaul system and femtocells, TUCAN3G will greatly reduce the cost of constructing and operating a rural telecommunications infrastructure.
The innovation in TUCAN3G will come as much from the business model design as it will from the technology. The proposed business model will disperse the cost of the constructing and operating the rural infrastructure, as well as the potential revenues and benefits generated, between three partners: a mobile network operator, a rural back haul provider, and a development or government agency. In the proposed model, the back haul provider would be a local organization tasked with maintaining and operating the rural infrastructure. The mobile network operator, Telefonica in TUCAN3G’s case, would purchase broadband from the rural backhaul provider and in turn provide the locals with access to their core network. What’s more, WiLD, WiMAX, and femtocells are relatively inexpensive technologies to obtain and maintain, but the capital expense to construct the steel towers to mount them on is still high. Therefore, the backhaul provider will need to seek additional funding from a development or government agency to subsidize expansions in the infrastructure in exchange for a social impact. The business model is visualized in the diagram below:
EHAS has completed laboratory tests of the WiLD, WiMAX, and femtocell technologies to confirm their capability of handling the expected traffic level for the population density in the Napo River region. EHAS´s local partners will install the femtocells in July of 2015 and will begin a six- month period of tests to research and confirm our hypothesis of femtocell deployment as a viable solution for connectivity in isolated rural areas. Furthermore, in collaboration with our partners, EHAS is in the process of writing the final business model design. During the six-month pilot period, we will measure the social and economic impact to substantiate the business model design as an effective and efficient way to provide mobile broadband access to isolated rural communities. In the end, we hope to create a sustainable telecommunications business model that may be replicated across Latin America and the world. For more information on EHAS, visit our website at www.ehas.org. For updates on TUCAN3G and all of our projects across Latin America follow us on Twitter @EHAS.
Works Cited
“Connecting the World from the Sky” Facebook. Web. 15 April 2015.
Guy Rosen. “Introducing the Internet.org App” Internet.org. July 31 2014. Web. 15 April 2015 http://internet.org/press/introducing-the-internet-dot-org-app
“Value of connectivity: Economic and social benefits of expanding internet access” Deloitte. February 2014. Web. 15 April 2015. http://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/uk/Documents/technology-media-telecommunications/deloitte-uk-tmt-value-of-connectivity-tmt.pdf
“Offline and falling behind: Barriers to Internet Adoption” McKinsey & Company. October 2014. Web. 15 April 2015 http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/high_tech_telecoms_internet/offline_and_falling_behind_barriers_to_internet_adoption
“Digital Inclusion Report 2014” GSMA. Web. 15 April 2015 http://www.gsma.com/mobilefordevelopment/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/GSMA_Digital-Inclusion-Report_Web_Singles_2.pdf
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-32349480
http://www.eldiario.es/turing/Facebook-Internet-org-Neutralidad_de_la_red-libertades_digitales_0_378313226.html
