A Roadmap to Rural Connectivity in India

August 30, 2017

A Roadmap to Rural Connectivity in India

It is worth wondering what would life be like without Internet connectivity!!! Today when we are connected 'all time and at all places', a single moment of not being connected infuriates us. However, in the rural villages of India, it is 'normal' to be not connected to the Internet. The human side of un-connectivity paints a grim picture and is a stark reminder of uneven distribution of the 'Right to Ubiquitous Connectivity'. In the modern digital age, 'Right to Ubiquitous Connectivity' is a basic human right of individuals irrespective of the place where they live, their economic strata in society, gender, caste, educational qualification. Ubiquitous connectivity has moved ahead from not just connecting individuals but works towards Internet 'anywhere, anytime and any device'. This right will strengthen rural connectivity by promoting digital economy in rural areas. The right to ubiquitous connectivity will shift focus from traditional technologies to affordable and efficient technologies that can provide connectivity to rural villages.

Internet has played a major role in the connectivity revolution by enabling a bridge to the digital divide through benefits of its usage. India has a very large rural-urban digital divide. While urban India is almost completely covered both through voice and Internet, rural India still suffers from inadequate connectivity with approximately 50,000 villages which do not even have voice connectivity and 6,40,000 villages that needs Internet connectivity. Hence, there is a need for broadband penetration in rural areas overcoming the various barriers and challenges that dissuades connectivity outreach to the rural areas. Thus, for enabling broadband connectivity to rural India some of the important issues that needs to be addressed are - technology feasibility, affordability of the technology and sustainability of the technology at the village level.

Thus with the vision of enabling rural India digitally, Gram Marg was formed. Gram Marg is the brand name for the Rural Broadband project at the Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Bombay. Gram Marg literally means the 'village road map - A road map to rural connectivity' (www.grammarg.in). Initially Gram Marg set off on its Internet journey by envisaging on the TV White Space Technology. The project began its inception in the year 2012 with the quantitative assessment of TV White Space in India.

In the year 2013, India's first TV White Space pilot test bed was set up by the Gram Marg team. As a part of the pilot test-bed, seven villages were provided with Internet connectivity over an area of 30 sq km in Palghar district of Maharashtra. Department of Telecom (DoT), Government of India granted experimental license to IIT Bombay to conduct tests in TV UHF band and it is the first time that such experiments are being conducted in India on this scale. The test-bed has been deployed in partnership with Tata Teleservices and Tata Communications. For Internet usage within the village, Wi-Fi hotspots were set up at Gram Panchayat offices and across the villages. These hotspots were connected to the fibre point of presence at a nearby Tata Teleservices tower using TV band radio.

In the year 2016, with a funding from Tata Trusts, the rural broadband project has been scaled to 25 villages covering an area of approximately 300 sq km located in Palghar district of Maharashtra. Unlike the pilot test-bed, the technology approach to connect these villages also uses point to point 5.8 GHz link in the unlicensed band. Tata Teleservices (TTL) provides bandwidth for the project. The project aims to establish one of its kind of network topology that will bring about broadband innovation through the use of frugal 5G by utilizing a cost effective, optimal mix of technologies.In order to provide Internet connectivity to the 25 villages, 6 base stations are set up at 6 TTL towers where bandwidth has been provisioned. At the villages, Wi-Fi hotspots are set up at the Gram Panchayat office, Zila Parishad school, Primary Healthcare Centre and locations within the village for Internet use by the people. A total of 65 Wi-Fi hotspots have been set up. Currently programmatic interventions catering to E-education, E-Health and E-governance has set in and villagers have begun using Internet.

Gram Marg's Internet Journey

Vision

To become a technology enabler and social partner to bridge the digital divide and bring about digital empowerment through rural broadband connectivity.

Mission

To perform research and development of solutions to connect the remote, underserved rural areas of India.
To develop a scalable, low cost technology for affordable Internet connectivity in the villages.
To perform research and development of solutions for implementation of applications and services in Gram Panchayat kiosks, Primary Health Care Centres, Schools and Anganwadis.
Creation of a sustainable economic model supporting Public-Private-Panchayat Partnership (4-P model)
To study the social and economic impact of Internet connectivity.

Technology Development

The Gram Marg team has been focusing on the TV White Space technology development. A cost effective prototype of the TV UHF device has been developed at the Gram Marg lab which is inexpensive as compared to the devices in other TV UHF standards like IEEE 802.22 or IEEE 802.11af. Currently this device is in the prototype stage and getting ready for commercialization by the end of this year.

Sustainability of Rural Broadband

There is a need to focus on the sustainability of rural broadband. In order to address the question of sustainability, a partnership model based on Public-Private-Panchayat Partnership (4-P model) has been developed. The partnership enables the network to be community owned terming the network as ' Network of the people, by the people, for the people'. The model is based on revenue generation and sharing between the partners i.e. Public, Private and Panchayat. The 4-P model ensures that network is locally owned by the Panchayat and there is a sustainable Return-on-Investment. Community ownership of the network can influence effective decision making and prioritizing services based on the village needs.

The Road ahead......

Gram Marg is committed to enabling Internet connectivity to the unconnected, un-served and remote rural areas of India. From connecting 7 villages to 25 villages, we are looking forward to scaling up to many more villages and bringing in Ubiquitous connectivity breaking the rural-urban digital divide.