Rural Broadband Project in Northern Thailand

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Rural Broadband Project in Northern Thailand
Japanese Oversea Cooperation
5th Summit on Information and Communication
Technologies, Tashkent, Uzbekistan

• Yasuhide Yamanouchi
• The New Institute for Social Knowledge and
  Collaboration Kumon Center, Tama University

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• The local loop, or last mile is one of the
  formidable problem for information infrastructure
  construction, not only for PSTN but for Internet.
  PSTN Public Switched Telephone Network /
  traditional telephone system- Local loop
  usually means from the conduit of a home to the
  nearest telegraph pole. By definition, the
  numbers of local loop is equal to that of
  subscribers, and quite costly for the
  telecommunication service providers operation.

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• Recent technological progresses offer
  alternatives to the PSTNs traditional copper
  twisted wires. Namely - optical fiber for
  local loop FTTH - co-axile and fiber hybrid
  - ADSL twisted copper for high speed data
  transmission - mobile telephone, 1st, 2nd, and
  3rd generations, PHS - mobile phone for
  Internet, CDMA, HSDA - wireless local access,
  FWA, - Wireless LAN, 802.11b-g-e WiFi,
  802.16 WiMAX - PLC Power Line
  Communications - Satellite downlink, like IP
  Star - UWB Ultra Wide Band and so
  forth, These technology offer tremendous
  opportunities for the introduction of National
  Information Infrastructure.

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• Thailands governmental research institute,
  NECTEC (National Electronics and Computer
  Technology Center, an affiliate of NSTDA
  (National Science and Technology Development
  Agency )) has been working to develop and to
  introduce RWBA (Rural Wireless Broadband Access)
  in remote mountainous and agricultural area in
  northern part of the country, bordering to Myanma
  and Laos.- Japanese government has supported
  this project financially and technologically.
  The framework was by Official Development Aid
  through JETRO (Japanese External Trade
  Organization) from 2004 to 05, shifting to JICA
  (Japanese International Cooperation Agency) from
  07.

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• New Institute at Tama University exchanged MoUs
  with Thai National Mae Fah Luang University
  (MFLU) located in the outskirts of Chiang Rai in
  Northern Thailand.
• The configuration for demonstration experiment
  is to simulate MFLU as the center of a village,
  and the elementary school ,2.3 km from the MFLU
  as houses locating at the fringe of that village.
  
• In Thai rural areas, usually optical fiber or
  metallic cable are installed in public buildings
  such as village administration building or
  schools located at the center of village.

Yuji Hatakeyama (NTTDoCoMo), Kenichi Takeshita
(NTTBP) , Hirofumi Ichikawa (NTTAT), Yukio Yokoi
(NaganoJRC), Hideya Otani (BeMap), Akiyuki Goto
(NECTEC), Thongchai Yooyativong (Thailand Mae Fah
Luang Univ.), Mitsuji Matsumoto (Thailand GITS,
Waseda Univ), A Proposal to Implement Mobile
Wireless IP Telephony to the Mekong River Region,
2006.
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• - Average population of the village is around
  600 and 80 locate in remote areas. Lots of them
  are commercially in-viable neither by fixed
  wire nor mobile.
• There are approximately 70,000 villages in
  Thailand, and their average land area is
  estimated to be 7.7 square kilometers.
• Since the operation of 2.3 km-entrance circuit
  was verified, most of the villages can be covered
  by the combinations of WiMAX and WiFi.
• The experiment through WIPAS (NTTs technology
  of WFA or WLL Wireless Local Loop) indicated the
  enough capacity of the coverage through this
  model technologically.

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• Lessons learned (1)
• VoIP (Voice over IP) over Wireless is also proved
  inside the LAN, i.e., it was not connected to
  PSTN operators line.
• Two ways of VoIP services on this scheme are
  conceivable (i) allocation of dedicated number
  for IP telephony (for example, 050 in Japan) by
  telecom authority and additional introduction of
  the gatewy (centrex), or, (ii) Skype out.

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• Lessons learned (2)
• Local business promotion through ICT is a
  necessary part (or rather, main objects) for the
  sustainable operation of this model.
• Thailand government promotes one village one
  product (OTOP) project. Checking market prices
  of agricultural products, communications with
  traders in urban area, taking consultations from
  specialists, e-learning for qualifying
  examination like accountant, etc. are examples.
• In other words, economic development through
  global market economy might be the key, i.e.,
  Grameen phone model.
• Sullivan, Nicholas, You can hear me now How
  microloans and cell phones are connecting the
  worlds poor to the global economy, 2007.

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Prahalad, The Fortune at the Bottom of the
Pyramid, 2005, P.9.
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• Lessons learned (3)
• Financial scheme is therefore crucial. Risk
  should be properly allocated among governmental
  assistance (ODA), commercial banks, and private
  industry.

Report of Asian PPP Promotion Study Group,
Ministry of Economics, Trade and Industry, 2005.
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• Lessons learned (4) Bottle-neck specification
  should be useful.

(b) domestic backbones extending cities and
regions enough coverage ?
(a) connection to international backbone enough
bandwidth for nation-wide demand ?
(c) access loop population density and
appropriate technology
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• Lessons learned (5) still problems surmount
• How we could include these model into ODA
  framework
• - issue finding
• - G to G conversations. PPP platforms,
  etc
• - F/S
• - financial framework and SPC
• (2) Coordination with telecom operators