Wireless DSL for Rural India

Challenges and Requirements Rene Abraham Midas Communication Technologies rene@midascomm.com

WWRF #19 2007 Chennai, India

Outline

Background data Challenges Requirements

WWRF#19 Rene Abraham 2007, Chennai

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Not Wireline
Wireline is not the way to go Only a fraction of deployed copper can support DSL Rural teledensity is too low for required ramp

WWRF#19 Rene Abraham 2007, Chennai

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7M cellular subscribers/month, but

Existing Coverage ~30% of population 1700 Towns ~200M people Negligible rural coverage

WWRF#19

Required Coverage 75% of population 4900 Towns ~300M people ~350 000 Villages ~450M people Rene Abraham 2007, Chennai

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Revenues: Rentals & Voice

SMS is less than 5% Not lack of bandwidth or QoS
- Ease of use issue?
($ 7)

- Relevance issue?

- Cost issue?

WWRF#19 Rene Abraham 2007, Chennai

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Internet? What Internet?

Millions

9.22 Million Internet subscribers 2.4 Million broadband subscribers ~38 Million more have cellular Internet access
- Email? RSS? - Or not used?
100, 000s

WWRF#19 Rene Abraham 2007, Chennai

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Challenges
Economic Technical Regulatory Social

WWRF#19 Rene Abraham 2007, Chennai

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Targets versus Reality Constraints

Awareness Cost Content, Applications Ease of use
- Local language

Other constraints
- Equipment availability - Power - Reliability
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Effective Regulation Matters

Spectrum allocation Interconnection & NIXI efficiency Leased line cost Infrastructure sharing QoS & tariffs

WWRF#19 Rene Abraham 2007, Chennai

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Requirements Wish List

Lowest cost
- Access Edge - Backhaul - Backend core
- Reuse and inter-work with existing voice and data infrastructure
E.g. Aggregation switches, BRAS, NMS/EMS, Billing

Voice support
- Efficient transit and termination

99.999% reliability NMS

- Vastly improved preventive maintenance functionality
WWRF#19 Rene Abraham 2007, Chennai Page 10

Requirements Wish List

Modular investment scaling
- Access edge POP should be viable at 50 subscribers

Service span should be 10 km

- Up to 2 km: Non- or near line of sight - 2 to 10 km: Near line of sight or line of sight

256 kbps, 512 kbps and 1Mbps per user, always-on

- With QoS & Time/Volume provisioning, billing - $ 5 + per month

WWRF#19 Rene Abraham 2007, Chennai

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Requirements Wish List

Low cost voice & free data capability
- Voice: Toll quality & Payphone, Fax support - Data service allocated on demand

Self installable Retail model Pre-paid

- Simple recharge mechanism
- Non-trivial problem; cash based to start with

User maintained
- Low power & commodity battery

WWRF#19 Rene Abraham 2007, Chennai

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Requirements: Infrastructure (NWK Edge)

5K subscribers/access node Feed distributed POPs No air conditioning 1.5 2.0 kW power consumption Small form factor; container-shelter

WWRF#19 Rene Abraham 2007, Chennai

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Requirements: Infrastructure (POP)

50 subscribers/POP Feed up to 8 sectors as subscriber base grows 50 to 150 W power consumption

WWRF#19 Rene Abraham 2007, Chennai

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Requirements: Customer Premise

Cost
- $150 terminal + access device

Ease of use Reliability

- Thin client model?

Power

WWRF#19 Rene Abraham 2007, Chennai

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Power Issues
~44% of rural households have access to electricity Typically 36 hours of autonomous operation required Solar panel
- <20W: Terminal + Access Device + Lighting

Commodity, user-replaceable battery Very wide input voltage and surge tolerance

WWRF#19 Rene Abraham 2007, Chennai

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New Ecosystem Needed

Application Providers Transmission Providers Service Providers & Regulator

WWRF#19 Rene Abraham 2007, Chennai

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Start with Shared Access

Shared access
- Kiosks first, individual homes/users second

- Kiosk can also be village access edge operations centre and last mile bridge

WWRF#19 Rene Abraham 2007, Chennai

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Share Also
Storage Peripherals
- Scanners and printers

Applications & Application Servers Other common infrastructure

WWRF#19 Rene Abraham 2007, Chennai

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Example: BroadbandcorDECT

Up to 8 Basestations/POP From 50 to 400 subscribers Only 100W needed at remote site

Centrally located corVAN

E1 or Ethernet Backhaul

Fiber or Radio

POP

WWRF#19 Rene Abraham 2007, Chennai

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Example: Access Port + Access Device

Internet Access Device + feature phone with phone book, CLI, call charge meter, SMS, alarm, reminder, date, time Access Internet and Intranet applications directly
Chat, E-mail, Information Services
Full feature keyboard 40-character, 4-line display Hands-free operation option Local language user interface option in future

Ultra-thin client architecture

3rd party application hosting on backend servers through standard API

WWRF#19 Rene Abraham 2007, Chennai

VAS Server Page 21

Thank you

WWRF#19 Rene Abraham 2007, Chennai

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