Rural magic: True stories
Sixty-year-old Palaniammal, a native of Melur (a small town close to Madurai in Tamil Nadu) had been complaining of blurred vision for sometime. A chance encounter with the village Internet kiosk operator proved to be a boon in disguise. The operator’s solution was simple – Palaniammal was taken to the kiosk, where four photographs of her eyes were taken with a web camera. These photographs were e-mailed to Aravind Eye Care Hospital in Madurai. It did not take the doctors long to deduce that Palaniammal was suffering from cataract. They mailed back their feedback and within days her vision was restored.
The farmers of T Ulagapichampatti were in a dilemma. Their okra produce was turning yellow. A similar procedure followed, wherein a videoconferencing between the farmer and agriculture specialists, in the city, was set up. The leaves and the produce of the damaged crop were shown through the web-cam, the kind and amount of fertilizers added were also discussed. The experts diagnosed it to be yellow mosaic. Apt treatment was administered and the farmers prevented a loss of US$2,800.
It would be interesting to note that neither party had to trudge across to the nearby town or city to get their problem solved. That not only saved time and energy but also was monetarily a much better option. These are just two examples of a silent revolution brewing in some Indian villages – plain, simple ‘access to information via the Internet’.
Power of communication
The benefits of the Internet is unquestionable to a country with over 6,00,000 villages, which need telephone and Internet connectivity at the earliest. An interdisciplinary group of IIT, Chennai, formed a group, Telecommunications and Computer Networks, or TeNeT, which realized as its aim, this task of connecting India.
corDECT and Wireless in Local Loop
The first issue to address was how to provide connectivity in the villages. Fortunately, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited had already taken optical fiber cable deep into rural areas. Almost all talukas (revenue sub-units, equivalent to counties) headquarters had a fibre. A wireless system from these fibre points covering 10-15 km radius would connect most of the villages. TeNeT Group along with a company, Midas Communications, developed a low cost wireless in local loop system called corDECT. It provides telephony and Internet access at a dedicated bandwidth of 35 kbps or 70 kbps, allowing some video conferencing and remote video-based education due to its low latency.
corDECT (Fig. 1) operates on a radio-exchange or RF (Radio Frequency) mechanism, and connects to base stations that are installed in the taluka headquarters. This low-cost system operates even at 55ºC and requires a total power of no more than 1 KvA, making it easy to deploy in the remotest of towns and in the harshest of environmental conditions. The low power consumption implies that a small generator is capable of protecting the system from the vagaries of power distribution. Besides, the initial setup cost to start service in towns is under US $ 21,000. Further costs are incurred only as other subscribers are added to the network. Such a system can connect about 300 villages within about 30 kilometers around the taluka headquarters.
Fig1. corDECTwireless in local loop
n-Logue and rural connectivity
However, the provision of technology is not adequate in itself. What is ultimately required, is a business model customized to rural needs, which utilises the technology to yield benefits for the rural populace. n-Logue Communications, incubated by the TeNeT Group, has accomplished precisely that. The focus of the company is to drive Internet and Telecom services in small towns and rural areas of India, thereby realizing its vision of ‘significantly enhancing the quality of life of every rural Indian by driving the digital revolution profitably’.
Business model
The business model of this enterprise emulates the success of the Public Call Operators, or PCO’s. PCO’s have been around from a time when dedicated telephones were either unaffordable or unavailable to most households in the country. PCOs helped telephony reach the urban middle and lower middle classes. Ordinarily, small entrepreneurs, who operated 18 hours a day, 365 days a year, owned these PCOs. Today, these PCOs have proliferated to over 9,50,000 and about 25 percent of the total telecom revenue is generated by them. Almost 300 million people in India, who do not have telephones at home, use these PCOs regularly.
Using a similar model, n-Logue endeavours to provide telephone and Internet connections to every village. The thrust, however, is on entrepreneurship. In every village that n-Logue ventures into, it identifies an entrepreneur and helps him/her set up a kiosk equipped with a PC with Multimedia and a web camera, a corDECT Wall set and accessories to connect to the Internet, a printer, an uninterrupted power supply and a suite of Local Language applications among others. The entrepreneur can avail of the entire package for US$ 1,000, of which almost about US$ 800 worth of loans are arranged for by n-Logue.
The kiosk operator (KO), is typically a young villager with a basic 12th standard educational qualification. Moreover, it is desired that they posses the ability to manage and operate an Internet business. n-Logue provides technical and entrepreneurship development training to them, thus enabling the young entrepreneur to start the business. The KO provides premises for the business. The expenses incurred by the KO, eventually, are primarily on account of Internet usage. The revenue generated, on the other hand, is on account of Internet-based services sold to the villagers.
The KO model succeeds by aggregation of demand in the village, and generates revenue by servicing these demands; revenue of US$2 a day or US$60 a month sees the KO break even in a year’s time. n-Logue steps in to ensure that the KO has enough rural-specific services to keep the revenues coming (Fig. 2).
Fig2. n-Louge Business Model
Servicing the kiosks
Once the hardware is installed, emphasis shifts on servicing and maintaining these PCOs in the village. An organization, which is totally focused on services and yet, is low cost is needed for the purpose. Over the last decade in India, local cable TV operators have emerged, providing very similar services to a neighbourhood. In just over a decade’s time, the total number of cable television subscribers has increased from 0 to 60 million in the country. Low costs of operations have been passed on to subscribers making cable TV affordable in India.
n-Logue makes use of an analogous business model to provide services in an area (typically a taluka). It partners with an entrepreneur called ‘Local Service Provider’ (LSP). The LSP and n-Logue co-ordinate and set-up an ‘Access Centre’ and Base Stations to provide wireless connection to kiosks. These LSPs market the service, carry out maintenance and training round the clock, collect the connectivity charges and drive the business in the area. n-Logue, in turn, provides the equipment, training and support to the LSP and continuously brings in new business opportunities for the kiosk operator and LSP.
Services provided
Having developed the business model and taken Internet an inch closer to the grassroots, the emphasis was on providing services that were rural-specific, which would help generate necessary revenue.
Normally, services like telephony find a huge customer base. Even stand-alone computer services find a significant number of users - children often use them to learn typing, word-processing and computer aided design. But Internet acts as an enhancer. Children have the benefit of availing online tutorials. The TeNeT Group at IIT Chennai has begun offering a set of online tutorials and spoken English courses. Other services on offer include e-mail, voicemail and videomail.
Also, since a major chunk of the village population is migrant, communicating with relatives abroad is a requirement. This is where ICT is making its presence felt. The sight of villagers using these applications to connect with their far-away relatives is common in many of the villages where n-Logue has set up a kiosk.
Kiosks also offer ‘photography’ services. A photo is taken using the web camera, edited using a simple photo editor and printed (either locally or even remotely).
Video-conferencing is another powerful application that is virtually creating new ways of doing things, which were hitherto unimagined by villagers. The low-bit rate multi-party video-conferencing enables telemedicine and also allows farmers to get their crop problems sorted out without having to go to the city. Besides, the Government also uses the video-conferencing to provide services and redress grievances.
Micro-enterprise
Having enabled the above, TeNeT dreams more. The last two years have seen n-Logue connect several other villages. Today, n-Logue operates in over 50 districts, concentrating largely in Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and Gujarat. It has already connected 1,000 villages and is moving fast. What is more important is that the Internet has started making a significant impact in the villages, with more and more creative uses being found everyday.
TeNeT Group believes that besides helping enhance education and health delivery in villages, the kiosks can enable the growth of a large number of micro enterprises in rural areas. Micro-enterprises in agriculture, food processing, animal husbandry and handicrafts will benefit. Equally important is the creation of an IT-based service industry wherein rural areas can provide services to urban India. This can enable trading and investments from rural areas. The key to strengthening micro-enterprises in rural India is to make finance available. Tie-ups are being made with banks to use the kiosks to provide such facilities. A low-cost ATM will soon be introduced in some kiosks. Equally important is making training, information and support available to the micro enterprises. Internet kiosks can definitely enable this. Helping in buying and selling of goods and materials and managing logistics to bring in and deliver supplies would be another task. Further, the micro-enterprises need some amount of risk mitigation that can shield them from the vagaries of nature and market fluctuations. Innovative insurance schemes can be made available through the kiosks. The possibilities are enormous and can significantly enhance the rural economy.
Technologies in use
| Technology/Product |
Company |
Feature |
| CorDECT WLL |
Midas Communications |
Simultaneous telephony and Internet at a dedicated speed of 35/70 kbps. |
| OOPS isee |
Object Oriented Programming Service |
Multi-party multi-rate video conferencing. Low band width of 20 kbps |
| Minnow ISP in a box |
Nilgiri Networks |
Linux-based and enables small ISPs to offer a host of services at low cost |
| Network Management |
NMSWorks |
Allows convergence of telecom and Internet management |
| Indian Language |
Chennai Kavigal |
Set of business tools for MS Windows Office Package. |
New Technology Initiatives
| Product |
Company |
| Low cost rural ATM (with finger print detection) |
Vortex |
| Medical Diagnostic Kit |
Neurosynaptic |
| LCD Projection System |
TeNeT |
| Web Terminal MeTeL |
Midas |
| Rural Banking Software |
TeNeT |
| Online eye testing |
HP-IITM |
| Sparse Area communication Systems |
TeNeT |
Technologies behind n-Logue
n-Logue doesn’t stand alone in pushing forward this task. The TeNeT Group and some technology companies incubated by them are aiding n-Logue in its technology needs. Over a thousand engineers are involved in such research activities and are working towards making this dream come true. Such technologies include Indian language software, multi-party video conferencing at low bit rates, low cost ATMs and low cost medical diagnostic kits.
Conclusion
Providing connectivity to rural India provides the much-needed access to information and power. With enterprises like n-Logue encouraging entrepreneurship and micro-enterprises, it builds the necessary atmosphere to create wealth and enable rural India. We now need to build on this and work towards empowering India.
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