Bringing the Net Effect to 700 million Rural Indians

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Bringing the Net Effectto 700 million Rural
Indians

• Driving the Digital Revolutiontowards rural
  prosperity

Prof. Ashok Jhunjhunwala, IITM,
Chennai ashok_at_tenet.res.in
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Rural Magic !!

• The next few slides have truly magically
  effected the lives of people in villages . All
  these are true stories

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Palaniammals eyes

• A 60 year old from a village near Melur

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Agricultural Consultancy

• An Okra crop saved
• Top Diseased with yellow mosaic
• Below Post treatment
• Saving of Rs 140,000 (2800) for the farmers
• Cost of information Rs 20 (0.40)
• Built huge trust in the system

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The Vet is on the Net ...

• This goat had a wound near its mouth and could
  not eat for a week
• The advice from the doctor cured its problem in
  2 days

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Remote Cardiac care
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The Power of Visual Communication
Net Meeting The Power of Visual Communication
A Doctor in Madurai talking to patients
inUlaganathapuram
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Empowerment of People- Attapatti
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In essence

• Information and access to information leads to a
  significant increase in the quality of life
• People pay for improvements in quality of life
• This makes it a sustainable option

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How does one connect Rural India?

• India has 600,000 villages
• 700 million people (under 1000 people per
  village)
• Can Rural India afford Connections?
• Needs
• Technology
• Sustainable Business Model
• Organisation which thinks and acts Rural

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Innovative Technology to connect Rural India

• BSNL has fibre connectivity to most Talukas
  (county hq)
• CorDECT WLL developed at IITM
• provides a telephone line and Internet connection
  in a 30 Km radius
• can connect 85 of Indian villages
• start-up costs very low

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Use Local Entrepreneurs to drive ICT

• Entrepreneur-driven operator assisted telephone
  booths (STD PCOs) introduced in 1987

• Today in urban areas
• 950,000 such PCOs covering every street of
  smallest town
• generate 25 of total telecom income
• 300 million people use these PCOs
• Lesson for Rural
• To serve Rural people with incomes less than
  1/day, aggregate demand and let Entrepreneurs
  drive it

• Aid/ Grant does not scale
• Successful Enterprises can scale to all villages

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Innovative Business Models

• n-Logue A Rural Service Provider
• aggregate demand into a kiosk
• 1000 (including taxes) per Kiosk providing
  telephone, Internet, multimedia PC with
  web-camera, printer and power back-up for PC
• plus Indian language software, video conferencing
  software, training and maintenance
• set up by a village entrepreneur on the lines of
  urban PCOs
• provides telephone, stand-alone Computer and
  Internet services
• needs 70 per month to break even (7cents per
  person per month)

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The Business Model
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A Suitably Positioned Kiosk Like this
Tamil Nadu
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Or these
Maharashtra
Rajasthan
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A Kiosk Owner/Operator
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The Kiosk Owner

• Should have studied up to Class 12
• Need have no prior computer Training
• Should be able to communicate to the people in
  the village

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Kiosk Bouquet of Services (beside telephony)

• A variety of Services and Applications, relevant
  to Rural people, need to be enabled
• No single service can stand on its own
• Education
• Livelihood
• Health
• Entertainment
• Communication
• E-Governance

PC based services Computer education CD
movies DTP work Photography Internet based
services E-Governance Telemedicine E-learning
E-Agricultureusing Video conferencing
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At the Village
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The Dream

• Current Rural GDP in India 140 billion
• For a Population 700 million people
• GDP / Person 200 per year

Rural Prosperity
DOUBLING per-capita Rural GDP
400 per person per year
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Rural Micro-Enterprises are the Wealth Creators

• Micro-enterprises need
• Finance
• Knowledge and Training
• Buying Selling
• Insurance
• Can Communications Enable these ?

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Technologies people behind n-Logue
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Technologies in Use

• corDECT WiLL Midas
• will enable 100/200 dedicated and2 Mbps shared
  connection next year
• RAS Router Banyan
• Minnow ISP in a box Nilgiri
• Billing System Nilgiri
• Network Management NMSWorks
• Chirag voice/video mail TeNeT
• Power back-up Alacrity
• Indian Language Office package CK

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corDECT Wireless in Local Loop
IITM - Midas

• 35/70 kbps dedicated Always-on Internet plus
  simultaneous telephone
• 100/200 kbps dedicated 2Mbps shared connection
  in near future
• Price target 100 to 150 per line

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IITM-NMSWorks
IITM - OOPS

• Network Management System
• A must with distributed deployment of Intelligent
  nodes
• Convergence of Telecom and Internet management
• Manage traffic, subscribers, subscriber equipment
  and network health from management centers

• Video Conferencing on Internet
• Low bit-rate multi-party Video Conferencing
  (audio video chat at 20 kbps onwards)
• On-line lecturing at low bit-rates
• Video Mail

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Office package in Indian Languages
IITM - Chennai Kavigal
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Major New Initiatives

• Multi-party multi-rate video conferencing OOPS
• Live Lecture OOPS
• Rural ATM Machine Vortex
• Finger print detection HP-IITM
• Medical Diagnostic kit NeuroSynaptic
• LCD projection system TeNeT
• Web Terminal MeTeL Midas
• Entertainment Terminal TeNeT
• Rural Banking SW TeNeT
• On-line eye-testing HP-IITM
• Sparse Area Comm System TeNeT
• TeNeT faculty and 10 companies incubated by it
  (1000 engineers) working to make the dream true

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VITAL centres Next 3 months
IITM - NeuroSynaptic

• Village Internet Test and Analysis laboratory
• Upgrade the internet kiosk for basic non
  invasive medical tests
• ECG (Sensors connected to the monitor)
• Stethoscope (plugged into the sound card)
• Pressure ( Digital BP meters )
• Temperature
• Eyes ( Charts and Color blindness)
• Weight ( Regular weighing scale)
• Upgrade PHC with Internet connectivity
• For Blood testing (over and above VITAL
  equipment)
• Sugar and AIDS

Most of this equipment would be sourced at under
200
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Financial Services with ICICI Bank
IITM-Vortex

• Kiosk operators to have Credit cards
• Collect cash from villager and pay online
• Govt. payments, Telephone bills
• Kiosk operator to be an agent for
• agri-crop loans
• Rural Insurance, Health and Crop
• Rural low cost ATMs at kiosks
• Works along with the PC already existing
• Breakthrough pricing envisaged of 600

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Sparse Area Communications where there is no
fibre backbone
IITM - ISRO

• 8-10 voice channels 64/128 kbps Internet
  satellite backhaul
• Each hub supports 16 to 20 remote sites with 2
  Mbps download
• 150 corDECT 200 backhaul cost per
  connection

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Summary

• Internet is Power
• every village need to be connected at the
  earliest
• IIT Madras and n-Logue have a workable business
  model to revolutionize rural India
• Excellent goodwill
• Strong support from State and Central
  Governments
• But the challenge is to make this happen in scale
• To expand the footprint from 1 million to 10
  million people
• from 1000 connections in 20 district to 10000
  connections in 75 district in next 9 months
• and then to 700 million
• and simultaneously drive the rural economy to
  double per capita rural GDP

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To Sum Up

• ICT can reach everyone provided there is a big
  enough Vision behind it

• Dream of Doubling per capita Rural GDP
• Finance, Commerce, Training Information are key
• Driving Education, Health and Entrepreneurship is
  the means
• Wireless Internet with fibre backhaul can enable
  these
• Sparse Areas will require special technologies
  efforts
• Large number of innovative technologies and
  applications need to be developed catering
  specifically to Rural areas

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