wireless_communication_in_rural_india.doc

8/22/2019 Wireless_communication_in_rural_India.doc

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1. Introduction2. Graph3. Infrastructure in Rural areas4. Telecom Situation Today5. Graph6. Overview of the current technology available in India7. What constitutes Broadband8. Graph

9. Broadband for rural India10. Coverage, system gain and cost of towers11. Suitability of broadband wireless technology12. Technologies for today and tomorrow13. Telecom BOP in India14. Rural communication market15. Public sector involvement16. National e-governance plan17. Critical factors in success18. E-learning

19. Requirements from the technology20. Conclusion21. References


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In the last 10 years, India has emerged as a significant economic force in the

world. The economic growth that has taken place has been concurrent to itsexplosive growth in communications and to a significant extent, been fueled

by the telecom boom. India used to add less than one million Telephones ayear in early nineties. Now it adds six million per month. Wirelesstechnology (both fixed wireless as well as mobiles), has made telecomaffordable in India, fueling the growth. This has helped make business more

productive, propelling the Indian economy forward. However, the economicgrowth in India however is limited to urban areas. For the 700 million

people who live in 600,000 villages in India, who are watching thistransition, there is a growing cynicism that they are being left out fromsharing the benefits of economic growth that are accruing primarily in theurban areas. Due to the low penetration of telecom and communications inthe rural areas, the right kind of opportunities has not reached skilled andsemi skilled people in these areas. The rural economy is still dependent onthe agriculture sector. With more than 70% of Indias population living inrural areas with less than $ 100 per month, development of these areas posesa challenge for the India that is fast becoming well known for its economic

prowess in the world. The country varies diversely in topography. Thenorthern part of the country is characterized by the presence of plains and

flat land. The southern part of the country is characterized by the Deccanplateau that ranges in height between 300 and 600m above sea level. Theeastern part has flat land and hilly terrain while the West has desert and flatterrain. A high density of population of 253 to 525 persons per squarekilometer can be found in the plain regions in India. In terms of geographicalvariation, the topography of the plains varies around 20-25 m in terrain withtrees up to the height of 10-12 mb.

India reached a major landmark in November 2009 crossing the magic figureof half a billion wireless connections taking the wireless teledensity to over43%. Between 15-17 million subscribers are added every month in what can

be called among the fastest growing sectors of the Indian economy. Over40% of the next 250 million new subscribers will come from rural areas thataccount for nearly 70% of the population in India. At the moment around18% of the rural population has access to the mobile phone as against 97%


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for urban areas. The value of rural communication projects in the near futureis about USD 100 billion including both public sector and private businessinterest. BOP (Bottom of the Pyramid) and ICT for inclusive growth have

become the buzzword in India with both government and private sectorincreasingly focusing on this segment of population as the engine of growth.Finpro with Tekes has studied the current and emerging trends in villagecommunications in order to understand which sectors offer most interesting

business opportunities for the Finnish companies. The goal of the projectwas to identify major players, drivers, challenges, regulations, businessmodels and current technology solutions. Also it was to bring together theIndian opportunities and the suitable Finish offering.

In the last 10 years, India has emerged as a significant economic force in the

world. The economic growth that has taken place has been concurrent to itsexplosive growth in communications and to a significant extent, been fueled

by the telecom boom. India used to add less than one million Telephones ayear in early nineties. Now it adds six million per month. Wirelesstechnology (both fixed wireless as well as mobiles), has made telecomaffordable in India, fueling the growth. This has helped make business more

productive, propelling the Indian economy forward. However, the economicgrowth in India however is limited to urban areas. For the 700 million

people who live in 600,000 villages in India, who are watching thistransition, there is a growing cynicism that they are being left out fromsharing the benefits of economic growth that are accruing primarily in theurban areas. Due to the low penetration of telecom and communications inthe rural areas, the right kind of opportunities has not reached skilled andsemi skilled people in these areas. The rural economy is still dependent onthe agriculture sector. With more than 70% of Indias population living inrural areas with less than $ 100 per month, development of theseareas poses a challenge for the India that is fast becoming well known forits economic prowess in the world. The country varies diversely intopography. The northern part of the country is characterized by the

presence of plains and flat land. The southern part of the country ischaracterized by the Deccan plateau that ranges in height between 300 and600m above sea level. The eastern part has flat land and hilly terrain whilethe West has desert and flat terrain. A high density of population of 253 to525 persons per square kilometer can be found in the plain regions in India.In terms of geographical variation, the topography of the plains variesaround 20-25 m in terrain with trees up to the height of 10-12 mb.


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The average village occupies an area of around 5 km2, most of which is

farmland. Settlements in villages range from tiny hamlets of thatched huts tolarger settlements of tile-roofed stone and brick houses. The most commonfuel for lighting is still Kerosene and more than 65% of people in villagesuse firewood for cooking. Sometimes children in villages would have totravel up to 20 km to reach the nearest school. In terms of access to healthservices, less than 35% of child deliveries happen in institutions at the allIndia leveled. Industrial production in villages has not reached its full

potential as of now. Figures show that most villages are typically spacedaround 30-40 km apart from the market centers. Each such center serves as

catchments of around 250-300 villages. The per capita income of these areasis less than $100 (Rs. 3000) per month. Fortunately most of rural India hassome form of roads today and at least one bus plies to a village every day.Highways connect towns, which are rarely farther than 15 Km from thevillage. Recently through the Prime Ministers rural road developmentscheme, the Government of India has decided to invest in building roads toconnect rural areas to the highways. This is a work in progress. Also, thenearest railway station is at least 20 km away from the village. This allowsfor relative easy access to transport in the plains. Significant numbers ofvillages have an electrical grid. Though availability of power on the grid is

not an issue, the quality of power is questionable in rural areas. The grid haspower only during the period when the demand in urban India is low. Duringpeak demand period, urban India has the capability of sapping all the powerproduced and the rural areas receive whatever is left over. Even when thepower flows into the rural grid (0 hour to 18 hours a day, depending on thestate), the voltage could sometimes be as low as 90V (reflecting higherdemand in urban areas) or as high as 440V (during nights when power usagein urban areas is very low). There is a urgent need for decentralized powergeneration solutions to tackle this problem of poor quality electricity at the

village level.


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The mobile revolution of the last five years has seen base stations sproutingin most towns, owned by three or more operators, including the state-ownedcompany. The base stations of the new operators are networked using opticalfiber laid only in the last 5 years. There is a lot of dark fiber, and seeminglyunlimited scope for bandwidth expansion in these areas. However, the solidtelecom backbone that knits the country ends abruptly at the towns andlarger villages. Beyond that, cellular coverage extends only up to a radius of5 km, and then telecommunication services simply peter out.

Cellular coverage can and will grow in rural areas, but this will depend onthe rate at which infrastructure and operating costs reduce, and rural incomesincrease. Fixed wireless telephones have been provided in tens of thousandsof villages, but it would be safe to conclude that the telecommunicationschallenge in rural India still remains the last ten miles. This is particularlytrue if one were to include broadband Internet access in ones scope, sincethe wireless technologies currently being deployed can barely support dial-up speeds. This then is the rural India in search of appropriate broadbandwireless technology: characterized by fat optical-fiber POPs within a rangeof 15-20 km of most villages, with a fairly homogenous distribution ofvillages in the plains, poor rural cellular coverage, and low incomes. The lastaspect, i.e. low incomes, makes the provision of basic telecommunicationsas well as broadband internet services all the more urgent, since ICT is anenabler for wealth creation.


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Before we look at Broadband technologies for Rural India, let us take a look

at mobile technologies of today. This section will mostly focus on GSMtechnologies, though CDMA systems are also present in India today.Though it may not be readily evident, the bottleneck in rolling out servicesto rural areas is not the cost of electronic equipment, but is rather due to thefollowing:

i. The most significant cost component is the site preparation and theerection of the tower. The towers are about 40 m tall, and requireconsiderable amounts of expensive steel for its construction. Infrastructure

like roads and electricity has to be set up to support the equipment.

ii. The second highest contributor to the cost is the power infrastructure RFcables running to the top of the tower, the power amplifiers, RF filtering andthe transceivers roughly account for 55% of the costs of the base tower. RFequipment is expensive as of now.

iii. The maintenance of cell site infrastructure requires local personnel whoshould be trained in wireless communications to deal with the problems thatarise.

iv. Ultra-low cost (ULC) phones at costs below Rs. 1500 with financingpackages are not yet available in the markets.

v. There is no proper distribution infrastructure for phones, SIMs, spares andaccessories in remote areas, and there is a lack of basic training to users thusincreasing the maintenance costs.

vi. Billing and collection infrastructure for pre- and post-paid subscribers is

expensive to set up. If one accepts these factors as the real bottleneck, then itis immediately evident that as soon as there is sufficient GSM voicecoverage across India, we are already past the key hurdles. However, onecannot afford to deploy any new cell sites, but one can only add electronicequipment at existing cell sites. To deploy 3G at a cell site, Node Bequipment has to be installed (instead of or in addition to the GSM BTSequipment). The cost of such Node B equipment has been falling by


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approximately 40% each year over the last 4 years. Taken together with thefact that 3G offer more capacity than GSM, the 3G Node B is just 50% moreexpensive today than the GSM BTS to deploy the same voice capacity. Ithas already been seen that 55% of the cost of base station equipment is intheRF. Since a single 3G channel of 5 MHz replaces many GSM channels of200 kHz required achieving the same capacity the RF costs of 3G systemsshould over time be lower than that of GSM systems. Thus 3G willeventually lead to cheaper equipment than GSM, resulting into MobileBroadband infrastructure in India.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has defined broadbandservices as those provided with a minimum data rate of 256 kbps.At this bit-rate, browsing is fast, videoconferencing can besupported, and applications such as telemedicine and distanceeducation using multi-media are feasible. There is no doubt that avillage kiosk could easily utilize a much higher bit-rate, and astechnology evolves, this too will become available. However, it is

important to note that even at 256 kbps, since kiosks can beexpected to generate a sustained flow of traffic, 300 kiosks willgenerate of the order of 75 Mbps. This is a non-trivial level oftraffic to evacuate over the air per Base Station, even with aspectrum allocation of 20 MHz.


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When considering any technology for rural India, the question ofaffordability must be addressed first. Given the income levels, one mustwork backwards to determine the cost of an economically sustainablesolution. The 200 odd households in a typical village having disposableincomes can spend on an average $1-2 per month for telephony and dataservices. Assuming an average of two public kiosks per village, the revenueof a public kiosk can be of the order of $100 per month. Apart from this, afew wealthy households in each village can afford private connections. After

providing for the cost of the terminals, it is estimated that a cost of at most $300 is sustainable for the connection. This includes the user equipment, aswell the per-subscriber cost of the network equipment and infrastructure(towers) linking the user up to the optical fiber POP.

It has been mentioned that one needs to cover a radius of 15-20 km from thePOP using wireless technology. The system gain is a measure of the link

budget available for overcoming propagation and penetration losses (throughfoliage and buildings), while still guaranteeing system performance. Mobilecellular telephone systems have a system gain typically of 150-160 dB, andachieve indoor penetration within a radius of about 5 km. They do this withBase Station towers of 40 m height, which cost about $ 10,000 each. If aroof-top antenna is mounted at the subscriber-end at a height of 6 m from theground, coverage can be extended up to 15-20 km. When the system gain islower at around 135 dB, as in any line of sight system, coverage is limited to

around 10 km and antenna-height at the subscriber-end has to be 10 m inorder to clear the treetops. This increases the cost of the installation by about$ 20 per connection. Thus, rooftop antennas in the villages are a must if oneis to obtain the required coverage from the fiber POP. A broadband wirelesssystem will also need a system gain of around 150 dB if it is to be deployedwith 6m poles. This system gain may be difficult to obtain at the higher bit-rates supported by emerging technology, and one may have to employ taller


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poles in order to support higher bit-rates at distant villages. There is animportant relationship between coverage and the heights of the towers and

poles, and thus indirectly their cost. The Base Station tower must usually beat least 40 m high even for line-of-sight deployment, as trees have a heightof 10-12 m and even in the plains one can expect a terrain variation of atleast 20-25 m over a 15-20 km radius. Taller Base Station towers will help,

but the cost goes up exponentially with height. A shorter tower will meanthat the subscriber-end installation will need a 20 m mast. At around $ 400,this is substantially costlier than a pole, even if the mast is guyed and notself-standing. The cost of 250-300 masts of this type is very high comparedto the incremental cost of a 40 m tower over a 30 m one. With 40 m towers,

poles are sufficient at the subscriber-end, and need rarely be more than 12 mhigh. In summary, for a cost-effective solution the system gain should be ofthe order of 150 dB (at least for the lower bit rates), a 40 m tower should be

deployed at the fiber POP, and roof-top antennas with 6-12 m poles at thesubscriber-end. The cost per subscriber of the tower and pole (assuming amodest 300 subscribers per tower) is $ 60. This leaves about $ 250 persubscriber for the wireless system itself, inclusive of both the infrastructureand terminal sides.

One of the pre-requisites for any wireless technology for it tocost under $ 250 is that it must be a mass-market solution.

This will ensure that volumes and competition drive downthe cost of the electronics to the lowest possible levels. Asan example, both GSM and CDMA mobile telephonetechnologies can today meet the above cost target,(however, an even lower cost is needed for a non-broadbandtechnology since the services provided are limited). The

third-generation evolution of cellular telephone technologieswill probably continue to meet this cost target while offeringhigher bit-rate data services. However, they will not be ableto provide broadband services as defined above (as at mostthey will provide 64 kbps to each user). If one were to turnones attention to some proprietary broadband technologiessuch as WiMAX-d (IEEE 802.16d), it is found that at present


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volumes are low and costs high. Of these, WiMAX-d has alower system gain than the others (which are all around therequired 150 dB). All of them will give a spectral efficiency ofaround 4 bps/Hz/cell (after taking spectrum re-use into

account), and thus can potentially evacuate 80 Mbps at eachBase Station with a 20 MHz allocation. However, high costdue to low volumes is the inhibitory factor with thesetechnologies.

While wide-area broadband wireless technologies will be unavailable at thedesired price-performance point for a few years, local-area broadbandtechnologies have become very inexpensive. A well-known example is WiFi(IEEE 802l.11) technology. These technologies can provide 256 kbps ormore to tens of subscribers simultaneously, but can normally do so only overa short distance less than 50 m in a built-up environment. Several groupshave worked with the low-cost electronics of these technologies in newsystem designs that provide workable solutions for rural broadbandconnectivity.

In about two years, we would see better broadband technologies, whichcould provide the 150dB gain, while providing the 256 kbps or more foreach connection. The three most promising technologies are all standard

based and are therefore expected to meet the price targets required for RuralIndia. These technologies are:IEEE 802.16 m3GPP LTE3GPP2


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Although the per capita purchasing power of the poor is low, but if taken asa whole, this segment can prove to be a major revenue earner for corporateson sheer volumes. Reports have indicated that the POP population is willingand able to pay for goods and services and at times they even end up payingmore than economically stronger sections for essential products and

services. Contrary to popular perception, rural consumers are not only techsavvy but also good users of value added services offered by mobileoperators. For instance, the leading private sector GSM operator BhartiAirtel has the highest electronic recharge in terms of value coming from therelatively economically weaker state of Bihar and the highest value addedservices usage from the state of Uttar Pradesh, again not as strong in percapita GDP terms as many other regions. Owing to the high illiteracy ratesin rural India, services that are voice-based tend to do better than text-basedservices. Diversity of languages and cultures across the country also results

in the need to have multiple languages (most commonly, Hindi, English,Marathi, Punjabi, Bengali, Tamil, Telegu) inbuilt into applications.Applications that can assist the mostly agrarian population in employmentgeneration or income supplementation area are highly valued by the ruralsegment. Other applications that have potential include education,healthcare and infotainment. Handset manufacturers such as Nokia havedesigned India-specific entry level models that support multiple languages tocater to the vast rural population.The need to provide competitively priced products and services to the poorcan often lead to innovations that bolster a companys market

competitiveness and once tested for success, these products and services canbe extended to other emerging markets. Including the poor in business valuechains as producers, consumers, franchisees, distributors etc can also expandsupply and lower risk, at the same time increasing their income. The villageentrepreneur model has achieved considerable success for private sector

projects here; a local villager is imparted training in the use of IT tools


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and dissemination of information on the corporates offering. Theentrepreneur earns a commission on services rendered in additionto increased prestige and standing in society.At the same time, factors such as unsuitable market conditions

(business environment for the private sector), lack ofinfrastructure, diverse cultural and social needs and anunderdeveloped rural ecosystem often make doing business withthe rural segment difficult.

Until recently, the rate of growth of telecom penetration in urban India washigher than that in rural areas of the country. However, subscriber reportsshow that the highest additions are being seen in Circles C, B and A (in thisorder) and lowest in the metros thus going to show that it is the smaller citiesand towns that offer more growth to operators. As on end-October 2009only26.6% of the telecom subscribers were from rural India that constitutes 70%of the total population of the country.Information via mobile, such as weather reports and market prices, has

begun to have an impact on productivity for the agricultural sector.However, it also concludes that other infrastructure challenges, such as poorroads and lack of refrigerated transport, need to be addressed in parallel inorder for farmers to realise the full potential of access to information viamobile. The Indian wireless industry, with over 43% penetration, is onlysecond after China in terms of subscribers. Most of this growth has comefrom urban India where penetration (fixed line + wireless) is close to 100 percent, but in rural markets is around18%. And it's here that the industry seesthe largest opportunity for growth. In rural India, villagers often considermobile phones as resources to be shared among family members and closefriends instead of as individual possessions. Studies (source: LIRNEAsia)have found that in approximately 80% of Indian households at the bottom ofthe pyramid, mobile phones owned by one member of the family are sharedwith other family members, nearly 50% share their mobile phone with non-family members at times with no cost implication on the user. Usage ofmobile phone usage in India started with urban areas, then expanded to


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trading communities in larger villages as they needed to do business withsuppliers/customers in cities who were already using mobile phones, andsubsequently, mobile phone usage expanded to the broader rural community.These days, mobile phones are commonly seen with low and semi-skilledworkers (construction workers, vegetable vendors etc) in urban areas.Mobile phone usage has received a major fillip with operators offering plansspecifically targeted at this segment (low value recharge, lifetime validityamong others), as well as handset manufacturers (such as Nokia, Reliance)developing ultra low cost handsets priced at less than INR 1000 (less thanEUR 15) for the poor. Leading Indian CDMA (and now GSM) operatorReliance reportedly sold 1 million low cost (INR 777, EUR 12) handsetswithin a month of their introduction. Provision of microfinance facilities for

purchase of the first handset will also drive mobile penetration in rural areas.Large national and multinational companies are focusing increasingly on the

BOP market as evidenced by the growing number of pilot projects, launch ofnew businesses or extension of product lines in existing businesses that caterto POP markets. So far the corporate sector has focused on housing,agriculture, consumer goods and financial services to meet consumer needsof POP population. Experts, however, recognize that the most noticeablerural success story is mobile telephony.

Financial support from USOF by DOT (Department ofTelecommunication) is to all operators that offer telecom servicesin rural regions and open infrastructure for sharing. The scheme,effective from 1st June 2007 is divided into 2 phases:

First Phase- The scheme will cover 7871 number of infrastructuresites (towers) in 500 districts spreading over 27 states for provisionof mobile services in the specified rural and remote areas, wherethere is no existing fixed wireless or mobile coverage.


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Second Phase- The scheme will cover the other uncovered areas inthe country through mobile services for which additional 11, 000towers have been identified by DoT through Infrastructure Supportfor Cellular Mobile Services.

National e-Governance plan started in 2006 with a mission to makeall Government services accessible to the local people, ataffordable costs and to realize the basic needs of the common man.To achieve the vision, a common service delivery platform wascreated. It consists of 3 elements:

State Wide Area Network(SWANs) establishment of intragovernment network till the district headquarters, facilitating therolling out of citizen centric services. Implementation to be eitherthe PPP model or the NIC model that would set up and operate fora period of 5 years.

Common Services Centres aimed at establishing ruralinternet enabled kiosks, which could deliver government and

private services to the grass root level. This would enable last milecommunication, leveraging of existing telephone exchanges,wireless services and usage of USO Funds.

State Data Centres(SDCs) to be established across 29 statesand 9 union territories of India to consolidate, manage and securelyhost the state level data and applications.


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Village communications projects need to have well-defined strategiesfocusing on self-sustainability and specific plans for scaling up along with

community involvement right from project development stage. Research onareas crucial to village economies such as retail, FMCG, telecom also needsto be undertaken to identify issues of concern to the rural population anddesign localized solutions. In the initial phases of the project, handholding

by the corporates and involved implementing agencies is essential to see theproject through to fruition. Scalability depends on right combination offactors such as:

Infrastructure

Vision

Research Community involvement

Strategic partnerships

Connectivity and maintenance issues

12 Provision of need-based and localized services- local languages, localrequirements. Funding issues international/national funding sources andavailability, investment by private sector players.

India is a diverse country; all villages are different with their own specificrequirements. Electricity is a challenge in many villages. All states vary inlevels of IT-friendliness, education levels and demographics-there aredifferences even at village level. It makes business sense to target middlelevel of the pyramid at least in the beginning as this segment possesses the

purchasing power for products and services offered by corporates. Languageand illiteracy factors need to be considered before developing solutions forthe rural market. Content should be locally relevant, have compelling value,intuitive and easy to use. It is essential to develop regional content. Pricingis very crucial pricing of technology, content as well as services. Privatesector companies say they discount their products by as high as 90% for therural market. Ensure price supports value of content-important to look atdifferent pricing models. Requirements from technology: technology should

be affordable, accessible, user-friendly visually appealing, should not


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require high-end equipment or high bandwidth as broadband connectivity inrural areas is poor. Some of the biggest challenges are: handset affordability,high tariffs, access to GPRS, customer education/awareness, networklimitations, power situation in villages.

Until a few years ago, initiatives in rural connectivity were undertakenpredominantly by government organizations, either through variousgovernment schemes or under the USO Fund. However, in recent times,there has been an upsurge in private sector activity in the area targeting therural population is no longer seen as merely a CSR initiative but as a meansof generating revenue for corporates. To this end, many of the private sectordriven projects either directly or through indirect channels aim to increase

usage of their products and services among the rural population; hence theseprojects are likely to be internally funded. Margins may be low but numbersare huge. Other stakeholders in village communication projects are the NonGovernmental Organizations (NGO) that help in extension work - NGOs

play a key role in increasing awareness, expanding outreach and to liaisewith the government, both at the Centre and State levels as well as ensurethe necessary buy-in from villagePanchayats (group of five persons, usuallyelderly, that are respected by villagers and are looked upon to solve disputesat village level). Content is provided mainly by local organizations research or academic institutes, government organizations or private sectorcontent providers. Technology providers, for instance, telecom operators,

partner with these local content providers to package their offering for therural masses. All stakeholders need to work in a cohesive manner to ensurethe demand side is met through locally relevant content, packaged in a user-friendly and affordable manner and distributed through the right channels toreach the target population for mutual benefit.


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Projects can be either government funded or through the open market(private players). Partnership can be at Central and State government levels.Purchase orders generally come from the state governments through

tendering process whereas the Central Government provides funding underits various schemes. Public Private Partnership (PPP) is increasingly beinglooked upon as a favourable business model. Before planning market entry,Finnish companies need to consider the following:

Identify target group teacher training or students; rural, urban, semi-

urban, first-time learners

Identify offering technology/content/infrastructure or combination of

any

Is the technology offered by Finnish companies already present in India?If yes, what is the Finnish companies USP? What is the comparativecost?

India is a very price sensitive market. Volumes are the key.

Finalize business plan is the objective philanthropic/business oriented?

Customize content for Indian market or create content in India for the

market- It may be more cost-effective to create content locally thancustomize existing content.

Affordable, accessible.

User-friendly visually appealing.

Should not require high-end equipment (should work with low

configuration of computers) or high bandwidth as broadband connectivityin rural areas is poor.


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Government has planned huge outlay of funds for the upliftment ofeconomically weaker and rural sections of society including through use of

technology by introducing numerous schemes and govt. programs. Many ofthese schemes are on PPP (Public Private Partnership) basis. Corporates too,have realized that the rural (POP) population offers tremendous business

potential not only in India, but also Africa and rural populations elsewhere inthe world. Finnish companies, with their technological expertise in e- and m-services and products for focus areas of agriculture, education, health,

banking and governance stand to benefit immensely from participation inrural projects, which can be led by the govt, or alternatively, by the privatesector. Alternatively, Finnish success stories in Finland or elsewhere in the

world can be brought to India as a showcase with the requisite customizationand localization undertaken to meet Indian demand. However, it is verycrucial for Finnish companies to understand the local requirements of thetarget segment and accordingly customize their offering. Business models ofthe West may not necessarily work. India is a diverse country where everyvillage has its own set of challenges and requirements. India is a market forthe long term. Finnish companies need to overcome their fear of enteringIndia: India is diverse but good local knowledge, team and contacts areuseful. It is crucial to identify the right partners for the right projects andright mode of market entry.

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