Project Title:
Wireless Internet Post Office

Recipient Institution:
Department of Computer Science & Engineering
Hauz Khas, New Delhi 110016, India

Project Leader: Prof. Huzur Saran

Amount and Duration: USD $ 29,630 / 12 months

Abstract of Project
With one-third of the world population living without electricity, providing digital connectivity is a distant dream for many. Cost, lack of infrastructure and complexity of computer technology creates a large digital divide between networked and unconnected citizens. However, advancements in technology and mass commercialization of handheld computers (PDA) and wireless networking (WLAN) now offer the opportunity to break down these traditional barriers to digital communication.

This project aims to couple advances in consumer electronics, with an entrepreneurial model to foster the deployment of text-based digital communication. The output of the project will be an end-to-end design of a Wireless Internet Post Office capable of delivering text-based messaging services to remote villages through a network of solar-powered wireless repeater stations.

Cost and complexity is minimized by using off-the-shelf commodity components. WLAN radios (802.11b) operating in the international license-free band (2.4 GHz) combined with directional antennas providelong range (kilometers) inexpensive wireless networking.

Medical and aid workers, teachers and government employees can synchronise low-cost PDA (<US$100) at wireless repeater stations, much like dropping off and picking up mail at a post office, then bring their PDAS into the field. Enterprising villages who purchase a PDA can go into business as "scribes", reading and writing email to the illiterate, and "information workers", providing crop and fertilizer pricing, pest and health alerts, and matching sellers with distant buyers.