Building e-Villages for People’s LifeInternational Workshop
Mon, 7th July 2014
on “e-Village” at MCF Conference Hall,
MICT Park, Hlaing Township, Yangon

Yasuhiko KAWASUMI
Vice Chair of ITU-D SG1 (RuralCommunications, etc.),
Advisor to the ITU Association of Japan

Mustang in Nepal
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History of Rural Communications Study in ITU• Valletta Action Plan (WTDC-98)
Focus Group on topic 7, “Study of new technologies
for rural applications” launched and issued report
after one year activities by collecting & analyzingcase studies from member countries.

・ ITU-D study question on rural communicationsdevelopment:
The study started from WTDC-94(Buenos Aires,Argentina),“Telecommunications/ICTS for rural and remoteareas” (2002-06, 2006-2010, 2010-14 study cycles),Activities include collection and analysis of casestudies, country contribution documents, e-forum toexchange information, experiences on policies,regulation, low cost technologies, etc.
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ITU-D Studies on Rural Communications•Recommends based on the analysis of collected Case
Studies :1) Provision of telecommunications/ICTs in rural andremote areas in their national development plans,
2) Assess all available technologies in the market
taking into consideration the regulatory environment,
geographical conditions, climate, costs (capitalexpenditure and operational expenditure),maintainability, operability, sustainability, etc.,
3) Business models which can achieve financial andoperational sustainability can be operated by local
entrepreneurs supported by a variety of initiatives.
These facilities, where necessary, should also besupported by Universal Service Funds as an essential
component of rural communications;4) that local institutions, such as village committees
should be involved in planning and implementing ICT
facilities;
3ITU-D Recommends: Continued5) enhancing local technical expertiseand adoption are important forsuccessful implementation of ICT services
and applications in rural and remoteareas,6) migration to broadband technology
should be encouraged,7) take steps to ensure reliability ofequipment in rural environments,
8) renewable energy sources should beused whenever feasible taking into
consideration the environmental
problems,
4Myanmar’s e-Village project
Population change of Myanmar(urban vs rural)

Population inthousand

allurbanruralyear
5Needs of national policy and regulatory
frameworks on following key elements••••

Special policy, legal and/or regulatory frameworks
for infrastructure sharing in rural and remote areas,for example by using optical fiber cables andBTS/microwave towers, backbone networks, etc.
Regulatory and policy measures to accelerate thedevelopment of telecommunications/ICTs/broadband
in their rural and remote areas
Instruments, such as universal service provisions,
universal access funds, license obligations, andtargets of broadband coverage, penetration rate anddata speed, defined in the telecommunication law andregulation
Access various e-applications, specially those which
integrate them into national streams like egovernance, e-health, e-education, e-agriculture, etc.
for vitalizing rural community
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Why capital investment for ICT
services is called for1) Can ICT services for rural areas stop themigration of population from rural to urban areas(urbanization),
2) Can ICT services empower the women andmarginalized people in rural areas,3) Can ICT services empower the rural economy,4) Can ICT services to contribute to preserve thetradition and culture of rural community,5) Can ICT services improve the child and mothermortality in rural areas,7Network Segmentation between core networks
and user’s premises(Technology option for infrastructure)•Long distance transit network (core networks)Thanks to rapid technology progress, thetransmission capacity of the backbone trunk line
such as terrestrial optical fiber, satellite(LEO,MEO, GEO), optical submarine cable isincreasing tremendously.
· Backhauling segment (middle range: <100Km)
Optical fiber (WDM,DWDM, etc.), Wireless (3G, 4G,LTE, WiMAX ,etc.)· User access (last mile: <10Km) : Wireless or wired, WiFi,WiMAX, 3G, 4G, LTE, DSL, FTTx, GPON, GEPON, etc.
· Multi-media services require last mile broadband
data speed in particular for the developing
countries (both urban and rural areas).
8e-Applications for Village People’s Life
• e-Education• e-Healthcare• e-Agriculture• e-Government (e-administration)• e-commerce (e-banking)• Community bulletin board (newsservices)• Weather information services• Disaster alert services• Services for protection of childrenand elderly people• Others9Successful Practices-1(Nepal Wireless Networks in Mustang)

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Computer and Vocational Training Programs

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Installation Team Members

12Partners and Supporters
1.

Mustang District Development Committee,Nepal
2. Himanchal Higher Secondary School, Nepal
3. Open Learning Exchange – Nepal
4. Nepal Research and Education Network, Nepal
5. Om Hospital, Pokhara, Nepal
6. Kathmandu Model Hospital. Bagbazar, Nepal
7. Nepal Medical College, Jorpati, Nepal
8. Thamel.com, Kathmandu, Nepal
9. Gandaki College of Science and Engineering,Nepal
10. Kaski Association of the Blinds, Nepal
11. Japan International ICT Association (JIIA),Tokyo
12. ITU Association of Japan (ITUA-J)
13. KDDI Corporation, Japan13

Project Implementation:
Khopra Relay at 3,650m

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Wireless Relay Station, Kagbeni

15Transport Technology Used
S.N. Equiment

Number1Alvarion radios of different capacity282

5.7 GHz Motorola radio with reflectors

635 GHZ MikroTik APs and Client radios

184

2.4 GHZ EnGenius , and Deliberant

10524dB Directional Antennas

4615 dB Panel Antennas

13714 dB Omni Directional Antennas

38Cisco routers and switches

49Soekris Routers

4For Backhaul – WiMax Equivalent Equipment16Access Technology Used
• Assembled PCs from different
manufacturers• Laptops Donated by KDDI Corporation Japan• OLPC laptops implemented by Open
Learning Exchange Nepal and Department ofEducation• VoIP equipment such as Linksys, Dlink,Polycom• Network Camera such as Polycom, Logitec
and Panasonic BL-C10A camera fortelemedicine and tele-training program• Open source software called VLC for videoconferencing

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Project Implementation: Power Generation

Solar and Wind Power18

Power Storage Batteries at Relay Station

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Project Implementation:

Name of the Villages Connected
1. Lete
2. Kobang
3. Tukuche
4. Marpha
5. Syang
6. Jomsom
7. Kagbeni
8. Bhuka
9. Aula10. Chimkhola
11. Kaphaldanda
12. Torikhet
13. Chimkhola
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Project Implementation:
Location of some of the Villages in Mustang

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Project Implementation:390 OLPC laptops from DOE and OLE-Nepal

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Project Implementation:
85 Fujitsu Laptops were donated by KDDI Corporation and ITU
Supported for the Shipment from Japan to Nepal

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Project Implementation: Local Home Page

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Project Implementation

Weather Station at Khopra (3,650m)

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Future plan is to build wirelessnetwork across Nepal.
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Case Studies of Optic Fiber Networks
for the Small Island Country (RMI)
Republic of Marshall Islands’ Case

• The Marshall Islands are located in the North
Pacific Ocean some 4,000 kilometers northeastof Australia, consisting of 27 atolls and 5 islands.
Land area is approximately 181 square
kilometers scattered over 2 million square
kilometers of territorial waters. Among theislands and atolls, there are only 4 islands and22 atolls that are inhabited and Majuro is thecapital.
• The total population is about 60,000 of which
60% resides on the capital, and 20% on
Ebeye/Kwajalein (second urban center). The
remaining 20% is scattered over 24Atolls/Islands.
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RMI’s Case (continued-1)•••

Majuro already has underground core optical fiber
backbone from Rita to Laura and hand holes every 1,000ft,
and 8 nodes along the main road which are connected toMINTA’s main building. Optical submarine cable landed
Majuro is linked with Guam via Kwajalein and has
bandwidth capacity of 10 Gigabits with 70 Gigabits more to
be added as demand increases.
The present core backbone is branched and extended now
to the limited number of customer’s premises by highspeed FTTH on the occasion of recent Small Island
Countries Forum in Majuro. Instead, low speed ADSLs of256Kbps are extended to about 1000 customer’s premises
for collecting the traffic to be put through the Optical
Submarine Cable, thus limiting to 1% use of the full
capacity of submarine cable just like the small number ofcars on the highway.
If the high speed FTTH is extended to customer’s premises
in Majuro like fishbone network in the very near future thesubmarine cable will be effectively used so as for MINTA toraise revenue from new emerging services such as VoIP,
high speed internet services, digital IPTV, and eapplication services.
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RMI’s Case (continued-2)

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Needs of Workshop for training of fiber
networks and associated techniques• General awareness training on optical fiber
networks, digital communications and IPnetworks• Basic knowledge on FTTX, FTTH to beextended to customer’s premises• Training on fiber splicing techniques, inhouse wiring and various necessary
equipment and parts• Training on outside optic fiber installation
works• 25 technicians participated in the two day
fiber splicing workshop held last November
at the MINTA’s (incumbent operator)
training room31

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Case Studies of Optic Fiber Networks forproviding various e-applications for smart city
Shiojiri (Japan) case•••

Optical fiber networks are built which connect 72 points（Schools, City administrative branches, Hospitals, Museums,Nursing facilities, Kinder gardens, Industrial parks, etc.).
Total length is 130 km. Public WiFi spots areinterconnected. Fiber networks are built by government
subsidy, however operated by city council with their own
budget.
Disaster mitigation systems are built deploying varioussensors over the power saving Ad hoc wireless networks
with 640 relay stations (debris flow, land slide warning,water level warnings, harmful bird and wild animal info.,
bus operation info., and children watch info. )City established Shiojiri Internet Connection Organization(Japan's first municipal provider with over 10,000 users)with open net concept. (because of private ISP’s usage
charge was costly)

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Internet, Mobile

City Council
Private cloud

Area one Segment

Optical fiber network

Wi-Fi free spots

Ad-hoc Network
Relay stations 640ChildrenBeastprotectionand tracking watchingsystemsystem

City Bus
transportationmonitoring
systemLandslideprediction
systemFire,disaster
mitigation

River waterlevelsensing
system35

Lessons learned from case studies forbuilding “e-Village”• Subsidies from government, USF, outside funds
etc. are required for start-up of “e-village”,• Community participation for building “e-village”
and operation and maintenance is essential,• Public private partnership (PPP) should also be
sought for raising fund,• Outside expert knowledge and experiences
should be fully utilized for system design, eapplication & software development,• Solution for power supply is bottle neck for ICTs
in rural areas,• Human resource development for local staff isalways most important issue for O&M andsustainability of “e-village”.
• E-education, e-healthcare, e-agriculture, ecommerce(e-banking & money remittanceservice) are key applications in rural areas

36References
•
•
•

•
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ITU-D recommendations; http://www.itu.int/rec/DREC-D/en
ITU-D new recommendations; documnt TDAG1318/19-E, 6 November 2014
ITU-D Case study library;https://extranet.itu.int/itud/studygroups_caselib/Lists/Case%20Library%20D
ocuments/AllItems.aspx
Wireless broadband master plan for the Union ofMyanmar; ITU Telecommunication Development
Sector, Oct. 2012
The state of broadband 2013: universalizing
broadband; UN Broadband Commission Report Sept.
2013
Myanmar: Telecoms’ Last Frontier,Pacific Telecommunications Council Broadband
Reports, Number 2, 201437

Thank you !!
Yasuhiko KAWASUMIITU-D SG2 Vice-chair,
Advisor to the ITU Association of Japan

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