BY 2015, five billion people are expected to be connected to the Internet from close to three billion today, but the greatest challenge for the Government as well as service providers is providing connectivity and services to the emerging market, in this context the rural areas.

According to Nokia Siemens Networks, these subscribers, who will make up 90 per cent of the new users, will hail from rural areas, and many have limited budget for communications.

In Asia alone, almost 60 per cent of the population live in villages and in Africa, this figure is close to 70 per cent.

Nokia Siemens Networks’ head, South Asia, Joe Doering says the best way to have all the people connected is through mobile networks.

“For a start, these people (the rural folks) should be given the very basic access to communications services, that are voice and data (SMS). Only after they are used to the mobile communications, the Internet and broadband can be introduced,” he says at the recent Global Knowledge Partnership event in Kuala Lumpur.

He says for many Government and service providers, extending the mobile services to rural areas has been very challenging due to the high cost of setting up infrastructure in those areas.

“From the economic sense, conventionally it is more expensive to provide mobile services to the rural areas and the return is also low due to low number of users,” he says, adding that rural folks have very limited budget for communications.

Doering says cost is the real challenge. While today’s mobile customers spend between US$7 (RM24) to US$10 per month on mobile services, service providers seeking to tap emerging rural markets have to make mobile connectivity affordable for people who can spend just US$2 to US$3 per month on communications.

Introducing Village Connection. The Nokia Siemens Networks’ Village Connection is designed to enable service operators to capture the rural market potential by offering voice and SMS service with relatively low investment.

Describing the Village Connection as a simple and cost effective solution, Doering says the system works by offering a new business model to network operators through local franchising.

The Village Connection System can be placed in a house due to its small form factor. “In this case, the service providers may want to appoint the head of the village to manage the system and the village head can licence the mobile access rights for their surrounding area, which is pretty easy,” he says.

Doering says the system implementation will take away the conventional base station controller which cost the most. This way, the capital and operating costs can be reduced compared with conventional network rollouts.

“Once the system is up, villagers can make calls for free within the village or within 5km radius from the Village Connection system. They only pay if they want to make outside calls,” he says, adding that this is possible due to the usage of IP technology.

How it works. The Village Connection operates using the existing GSM networks, effectively extending coverage beyond the point at which a conventional rollout would be too expensive.

According to Nokia Siemens Networks’ connectivity solutions lead, network solutions, SSM Asia Pacific, Harpreet Singh, the system can cater to up to 80 subscribers per system and can be scaled to handle 240 subscribers.

“Currently, it only supports voice and SMS service, but soon it will support GPRS and 3G,” he says.

The Village Connection system has no hierarchical network structure. Instead it comprises village-level GSM access points (GAPs) and regional access centres (ACs). The link between the GAP and subscriber terminal is via GSM, while the link between the GAPs and ACs is via IP.

Harpreet says the use of GSM technology makes sense as if 3G are used, then issues will arise on the cost of the 3G mobile phones, which is out of reach of the majority of the villagers.

Moving forward. The Village Connection system is now undergoing pilot tests in India, and for Malaysia, Nokia Siemens Networks is holding discussion with all the telecommunications service providers and MCMC for possible implementation.

Doering says what’s important is that the viable technology is already available to connect all the people. For the villagers and entrepreneurs, with the availability of such a system, they can benefit from having access to market information, staying within reach of friends and customers, and develop contacts. Farmers can call ahead to check which market will offer them the best price for their crops, while seasonal workers are just a phone call away at harvest time.