1. Technology, Policy and Activism for Rural Telecommunications Arun Mehta www.holisticit.com www.radiophony.com www.indataportal.com

2. Reading List  http://www.saschameinrath.com/writings/WirelessingTheWorld.rtf http://www.saschameinrath.com/writings/WirelessingTheWorld.rtf  http://www.netparadox.com/fccletter.html http://www.netparadox.com/fccletter.html  http://www.seas.upenn.edu/~gaj1/auctngg.html http://www.seas.upenn.edu/~gaj1/auctngg.html  http://indataportal.com/optical/WOC.htm http://indataportal.com/optical/WOC.htm  http://www.freifunk.net:8080/sc2004/wiki/ThankYouDjursland http://www.freifunk.net:8080/sc2004/wiki/ThankYouDjursland

3. Technologies we look at  FM Radio  WiFi  Wireless (Free Space) Optical Communications

4. Why Radio?  Natural: we know how to speak before we know how to read and write.  Flexible: we speak five times faster than we can type and 10 times faster than we can write  Cost-effective: only communications technology the poor can afford  Growing: currently exploding on the Internet  Democratic: far more people are able to produce quality audio content than written

5. An ecologically-friendly Public- Address System  The same sort of range as a loudspeaker, but unlike the regular PA system,  A hundred can coexist, without mutual interference  24-hour operation possible  Excellent quality at the furthest point  You can turn it off in your space

6. Innovative uses of FM  Low-cost simultaneous translation (used at Asian Social Forum, >8000 people had cheap FM radios with earphones, we had one FM transmitter for each language  Radio browsing: post questions to the radio station, someone finds out the answer, broadcasts the answer in the local language  Open source design on our website, we only come to know when there is a problem ;-)

7. For a radio station you need…  An antenna…

8. MD player or equivalent, a mike, an operator…

9. A 50mW transmitter!

10. How about permission?  50 milliWatt FM transmitters in the form of cordless mikes and car door openers were widely sold in the market, and so, we assumed that they were legal.  With 50 mW, we could reach about 500 meters outdoors

11. The WPC objected…  So we asked (Apr. 16, 2003) how come the rich were allowed to do Karaoke with FM transmitters, but a poor, self-help womens’ group could not popularize micro- finance with it?  WPC replied: “Use of certain wireless toys and gadgets under certain conditions are exempted from licensing requirements, in specified frequency bands."  Anything above 1mW needs a license

12. Why WiFi?  Broadband  Open standards  Multitude of suppliers  Open source, free software  Doesn’t need experts to set up and maintain (e.g. Djursland, Denmark)  Same tech for WAN and LAN, so large quantities and low price

13. How to change policy  responses to discussion papers  Oral comments at open house meetings  Legal challenge  Experimentation license  “Piracy”

14. Why Wireless Optical?  No regulatory bottlenecks  No license fees  Power efficient (to get the same focussing with 1GHz, you need an antenna that is 100 meters across), so lower capital cost  Higher intrinsic security: hard to intercept a light beam without interrupting communications  Components (lasers, photodiodes, CCDs, lenses,…) are inexpensive, off the shelf  Compatible with optic fiber, our preferred long- distance medium

15. Low Cost Transceiver  Mike-chip-laser for sending audio  FM Radio for receiving  A PC with optical receiver at a high point picks up light, converts to audio, queues for transmission via a low-cost FM transmitter  This is effectively an audio chat channel

16. How to get technological change without vast resources  You write about it on the Net  You talk about it at conferences  Start a mailing list (e.g. wirelessoptical@yahoogroups.com) wirelessoptical@yahoogroups.com  Use a Wiki for collaborative work  Get universities interested…

17. Moral of the story  Engineers no longer can get by knowing technology alone  They need to understand law (e.g. IPR), policy- making process, psychology, teamwork, communications,…  They need to be activists  The rest of the world need to understand technology too