When Solar meets Wireless – rural communications solution

There is no need to explain and expand the clear relationship that exists between information technology and development of a country. Access to information and communication on the fly bridges the digital divide that generally engulfs the bulk of African countries. This is usually measured as teledensity: the number of connected phones users per 1000 people.

Solar and wireless technologies share a very unique thing. They both bring something to a location where it would have been otherwise impossible to. Solar brings power and wireless brings data. So the combination of these produces something that everyone wants but cant connect the dots bringing internet and voice to remote location using solar energy. Bear in mind that the batteries can function for several days without sunlight.

Solar Powered wireless access uses low wattage transmitters and receivers to send and receive radio signals regardless of frequencies involved. Backhaul to backbone also uses solar powered radio with up to 100 km range at 32Mb/s with line of site before repeating.
Solar Wireless Access Nodes presently available have enough battery capacity to run for several days without significant sunlight, and are fully remote monitored as long as there is backhaul to data network! NetOne already has deployed a solar powered base station because of intermittent ZESA outages.

Naturally most people dismiss solar powered initiatives as very expensive because what they fail to realize is that once installed the system pays itself as long as the sun shines!

The two most basic services that technology can deliver in remote areas are a dial tone and email access.

Spread the cost
These two should constitute a basic need for any nation that claims to be serious about any form of development. Availing solar-powered phone and internet centers at business centers is one direct way of availing basic communication means to the remotest part of the country not covered by any GSM signal. This way even the remotest farmer in Wedza can send an email to a fertilizer supplier in Kwekwe for prices. The phone and internet centre approach spreads the cost of ownership over a larger group of people.

A thorough and detailed site survey will establish if a particular technology will work for a certain community or not. The site survey must collect relevant data like weather patterns, temperature extremes, elevation, wind speeds, security, distance from interconnection, population density etc.

Use of solar powered wireless equipment addresses two problems inherent in most developing countries – lack of reliable electricity (ZESA) and cost of laying copper. Solutions that can be solar powered remove power related obstacles in rolling out basic telephone services and even internet.

This approach provides a vehicle to implement say tele-medicine and other healthcare delivery services as well as agricultural education and extension services. Other services include distance learning and mass education programs. This means that the local rural clinic, local police, school, shops have access to a dial tone and email within a reasonable walking distance. This means teachers based in remote areas are able to access resources that can aid their curriculum. This means that health workers can disseminate HIV/AIDs info at the click of a mouse.

Having phone and internet centers at the community centers and even growth points, will mean that not everyone in that area needs to buy his or her own computer to access basic communication services but can use the public access system. This eliminates the excuse of computer cost being a major obstacle to development by default.

Think of a telecom centre as a setup with phone, e-mail and internet services. This model is pretty common in urban setups. And this model could be used for remote centers and even some urban centers whose electricity supply is more often off than on.

Way forward
Considering that the most challenging part of such an huge project funding – is presumably available under control, according to POTRAZ and the Ministry of ICT, what remains is precise project planning to match bring the right technology at a reasonable cost to the targeted population.

This entails doing some pilot runs at a small scale for proof of concept. Since the ultimate plan is to mass deploy these community communications centers, it makes logical sense to solidly conduct thorough pilot runs before committing millions to buying equipment for mass deployment.

Successful implementation will require a coordinated approach involving close and ongoing partnerships between communities, government and industry providers. – Ndlovu is an ICT consultant based in San Jose, California.

Phone Centre

The essential building blocks for the rural phone centre would be based along these guidelines:

• Housing booths – to house telephone handsets.
• Solar module this is a 3m long pole with a solar panel, a charger and batteries.
• Wireless module – this could be CDMA or WiFi or GSM depending on what wireless technology is available.
• Phone devices these are the handsets that will be plugged into the switch on the local network.
• Metering units these could either be stand–alone devices or incorporated within the telephony devices to regulate usage.

Internet Centre

The following make up the data side of the centre:

• Mini PCs these are fully functional computer systems that consume less. electricity but provide enough processor speed and capacity to be used for tasks like word processing and internet browsing and printing.
• LCD monitors these have a lower power consumption rates.
• Switch this is in the form of a PoE (Power over Ethernet) switch in which the phones can be plugged in directly with no separate power source as they are powered inline by the switch.
• Accessories ethernet cables and power strips.
• Software free tried and tested linux operating system like Ubuntu.

Control System

Basically this is the logical term for the systems that bring and or enable services to the end user stations namely the telephone center and the internet center.

• Internet server this is a Pentium 4 computer with at least 2G of memory running FREE open source Ubuntu Linux operating system. In short this system acts as the intermediary between the end users (stations) on one side and the internet and satellite dish on the other hand.
• Telephony server this is the call routing and call processing system that literally performs call origination and termination and all transcoding functions where audio signals have to be converted for GSM or landline systems. Typically this system is a dual core Pentium 4 kicking on at least 3 G memory.
• VSAT system this is a solar powered satellite dish maybe 1.2m wide with 1.5Mb/s down and 384 kps up and again its size is determined by the size of the center. The VSAT option is the wireless option if there is no GSM or WiMax alternative in that area.