Article

Kiosks in India

For 750 million villagers in India, a telephone call is a rare treat. A new kiosk project promises wireless Internet access for the masses, just one of several kiosk initiatives there.

June 16, 2002

MUMBAI, India -- It is a startling statistic that 76 percent of the Indian population lives in the 70,000 villages that dot its countryside. And for the more than 750 million Indians living in these villages, connecting with the outside world by phone, let alone an Internet connection, is a rare treat.

That may be changing, thanks to an inexpensive and robust wireless technology. Researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Chennai have developed Internet kiosks using a wireless local loop technology called corDECT.

The system replaces expensive cabling with wireless base stations. The cost of a kiosk is just Rs 40,000 (US$810), compared with Rs 30,000 for installing a single telephone line.

"Existing operators are really not focused on rural areas," said Prof. Ashok Jhunjhunwala at IIT. "They believe rural areas can't generate money and see rural areas as a burden."

Army of entrepreneurs

Prof. Jhunjhunwala and a group of former students have set up n-Logue, a private company, to provide Internet and telephone services in villages and small towns. N-Logue plans to sell the service through local entrepreneurs.

Using the wireless-in-local-loop (WiLL) technology to provide low-cost telecommunications, the company plans to offer its local salespeople wireless equipment with antennae, cables and mast, the telephone set and a meter for subscriber calls.

To access the Internet, n-Logue offers a multimedia Pentium computer with a battery backup of four hours. The machine comes with vernacular (Indian language) software to make it accessible to all.

The plan is to link with local service providers (LSP). N-Logue's representatives will split revenue from the kiosk ventures, using local contacts to generate awareness and revenue.

"We can create an army of rural entrepreneurs; they could take small loans to set up their own rural phone and Internet centres," said Prof. Jhunjhunwala.

Within a 25-kilometre radius, the promoters expect to find buyers for 500-700 connections. Buyers may be individuals, government offices or schools. Prof. Jhunjhunwala said the company could have a million subscribers in three to four years.

Getting to work

The Internet kiosks are being set up in the states of Tamil Nadu and in Madhya Pradesh. Kiosks are also springing up in Rajasthan and in the Punjab.

The idea is catching on with young entrepreneurs. One team has worked on a Tamil-Hindi-English spreadsheet for the Windows Operating System, and it's developing a version for Linux.

Other components are word-processing, an e-mail program in Tamil and voicemail in the local language. The programs will change the lives of ordinary villagers, Prof. Jhunjhunwala said.

"We're adopting two key elements - affordability, since everything is very low-cost; and involving a local person in providing the solutions," he said.

"The first-level feedback has been extremely encouraging. We have kiosks running in the middle of Madhya Pradesh where the average revenue a kiosk-man makes is Rs 4,500 a month," said n-Logue's chief executive officer P G Ponnappa.

"After expenses, he makes Rs 3,000 per month. A figure of just over US $60 may not seem much abroad, but it makes him a rich man in that village, where the typical average person earns just Rs 800-1,000. And this guy is typically someone who is 21 to 25 years old."

New Delhi gets in the act

The Working Group, set up in New Delhi by the Ministry of Communications, supports efforts to increase the spread of Information Technology.

"For the common man to be able to access IT services, we would like a two-pronged strategy," the group has said. "We must aim that all middle-class homes, businesses and shops will have Internet connections by 2008. A target of at least 100 million Internet connections must be set for this."

In the interim, the Working Group expects to establish one million Internet-enabled IT kiosks, covering most of the country.

This would put the Internet in reach for many Indians, with locations placed so that individuals will be able to ride bicycles to the kiosk.

"IT kiosks will enable even the illiterate people to benefit from the IT revolution," the group said.

The group wants to put the kiosk build-up on the fast track, with the help of industry and financial institutions, so that India's self-employed and educated unemployed benefit. Leaders plan to model the growth after the spread of cable TV, which took just seven years to reach 35 million homes.

Down on the farms

Other, equally innovative uses of kiosks are taking place in rural India. Ikisan.com, an agri-information portal promoted by the Hyderabad-based Nagarjuna group, has plans to re-orient its operations toward development of specific agri-products grown in the state.

The portal, which was developed in mid-2000, has converted its existing kiosks into project areas that will focus on specific commodities.

"As part of the strategy, initially on a pilot project basis, we have decided to concentrate on maize at Metpally in Karimnagar district," said AV K Narasimha Rao, chief of the Ikisan.com portal. "We are kicking off the project this month, since the season for maize begins in June."

Rao said the one goal is to get information to project areas that will help farmers learn about the latest technology and farming practices.

The kiosks, which were disseminating only information, will have interactive sessions on the latest developments through the power of information technology, Rao said.

"The portal will act as an exchange; and, based on the success of the maize project, the project areas will later focus on other crops," he said.

Ikisan.com, which began with 11 kiosks in Andhra Pradesh and four in Tamil Nadu, has expanded to 38 kiosks in the former state and 20 in Tamil Nadu.

Meanwhile, the Kerala state government's ambitious IT plans include a PC penetration of 100 per 1,000 population, as well as IT kiosks in every "gram panchayat" (village secretariat).

On the main Mahatma Gahndi Road in central Kochi, workers are laying optical fiber cables as part of the Rs 7 billion optical fiber backbone. The project is being financed privately by Kerala Communications Network of the Reliance Industries group and Asianet, among others.

Reliance has formed a joint venture with Andhra Pradesh Technological Services to set up 7,500 Internet kiosks across Andhra Pradesh state to provide electronic governance to rural areas.

Training train-riders

RailTel Corporation of India, the telecommunications arm of the Indian Railways, plans to place kiosks at its rural and urban stops in hopes of giving its passengers something to do while waiting on trains.

The state-owned RailTel is planning a trial run on setting up Internet, STD (subscriber trunk dialing) and ISD (international subscriber dialing) kiosks for the benefit of people on the move.

"People who are waiting for trains and have nothing else to do can go and use these kiosks through Railways-issued pre-paid cards or even their credit cards," said A K Chopra, managing director of RailTel. "We will also set up manned kiosks on platforms, with added facilities such as fax, video conferencing and chatting."

Three rail sections - Ludhiana-Amritsar in northern India, Baroda-Ahmedabad in the West and Chinglepet-Chennai in the South - will get the first kiosks, mainly because the optical fiber cable backbone is already in place.

RailTel plans 50-100 kiosks in the initial phase, at a cost of Rs 60 million.

"We will gauge the public reaction on the kiosks; and once we see that the idea has picked up, we will go the whole hog by replicating the plan on the rest of the sections on Indian Railways where the optical fiber cable has been laid," said Mr. Chopra.

RailTel plans to seek technology vendors soon. The bidders will be asked to make presentations to the RailTel board.

"The franchisee would make the initial investment for setting up the kiosks; and the revenues will be shared between RailTel and the franchisee," said Mr Chopra. "Commuters using the Internet kiosks would be charged, not on the time frame, but on the download of data they are looking for."

If all goes well, RailTel expects to set up 30,000 kiosks on platforms by end-2004. Nearly one-third of these kiosks would be set up on rural stations, where villagers have long waits before catching their trains.

Indeed, rural India is ready to leap onto the IT bandwagon.