Village connectivity

We have been hearing for years how people in India's 600,000 plus villages are bereft of a phone. Over the years, over 250,000 have been covered. But what about the rest? Who is going to fund the investment?

That's precisely the market that the first product of Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN)plans to cater to. The NSN Village Connection solution can provide cheap rural connectivity. Here the focus is on entrepreneurs in the villages. Here the entrepreneur will set up an access point that has a GSM radio, IT hardware and software solutions. This can be strapped onto anything like a TV antenna. The village access points are connected by IP links to a regional access centre. This centre is in turn hooked to the GSM network of the operator. While there are no readily available numbers, it could be set up for roughly $ 3,000 (Rs 120,000).

Under the proposed model the entrepreneur will get paid for all intra-village calls. The operator gets paid for all calls going out of the village.

While that seems to be a great way to get cheaper connectivity, there are many issues that need to be sorted out.

# How does this fit into the country's regulatory mechanism?
# Does the GSM operator provide the entrepreneur any rental?
# How will the calls that are made within the village be accounted for?
# Will there be a revenue share on these calls too?

Let's hope this initiative by NSN does not get stuck in bureaucratic legalese. After all, rural India is the next big growth market. Oh ya, NSN is currently doing pilots on this at over 10 locations in India.