Intellectual Property Law

India Busting Barriers as New Satellite Connection Set for Remote Villages

By IBLS Editor

Next June, India plans to send a satellite into orbit expressly to provide computer connections to remote villages, according to the Government Space Department. The Chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation, G. Madhavan Nair, said in a speech, "We are going to launch GSAT-4 which will have digital connectivity on board. It's meant for data transfers from computers at remote villages." The announcement came when Nair delivered his inaugural address at the 3rd IEEE International Conference on e-Science and Grid Computing in Bangalore, India on December 10th.

 This satellite is an important step to forming a country-wide Web, something that other countries take for granted. It will provide high speed Internet access to hundreds of remote villages in the country as an experiment. Nair said, "Ultimately, it has to grow into a national system, an initiative whereby satellite should provide such service to all remote villages in the country eventually." Nair points out that what is being done by ISRO is essentially plowing virgin soil in such a large country. Nair said his agency is, "Reaching out to villages and to make sure that villagers benefit from advanced technology of computers, data base and applications...that's going to be unique. Even today, more than 100,000 villages in the country don't have any form of connectivity."

 Unlike conventional satellites, which typically spread their signal across a vast area, this unit will contain eight "Ka-band," or wideband, transponders that will transmit data as well as multimedia content, done at high speeds to specific spots. On this, Nair said, "The on-board digital switch (in the satellite) will be able to select data from point (computer) and distribute to other points (computers), depending on the connectivity." The first stage of the program includes plans for computer connection portals to be setup in community centers or "panchayat offices." The signal will be received on a dish, much the same as the typical consumer direct-to-home satellite TV receiver, while a modem will be accessed for two-way Internet connection. The remote-Internet program will especially focus on the hard-to-access and hilly areas such as the north-east and Kashmir.

 The 2.2-ton Gsat-4 satellite will be launched using the geostationary satellite launch vehicle (GSLV-FO3) from the agency's Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh. The costs of the initial test project will be about Rs. 2.5 billion (USD $63 million), including Rs.1 billion to build the satellite. The agency's approach is likely to bring down bandwidth cost, with a personal two-way satellite Internet system costing $600 or more, including an antenna and installation costs. While satellite Net delivery costs more to deliver than cable, by about double, the saved expenses of not having to lay down an infrastructure system must be factored in, making it much cheaper in many areas. Nair claims the GSAT-4 satellite having digital connectivity on-board would cover up to 1400 village initially before being expanded to even the remotest places in India, leading to connection of over 1,00,000 remote villages in India for the Internet.

 Other countries are also building up remote accessibility through such a satellite connectivity program. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency is now building its so-called Wideband InterNetworking Engineering Test and Demonstration Satellite, which is likewise a satellite with Ka-band transponders for Internet connectivity for the Asia-Pacific region. This satellite will also be launched in 2008, to address was is called "insufficient communication infrastructure in the region," according to Yoshitsugu Harada, Japan's vice-minister of education, culture, sports, science and technology, who also spoke at a conference in Bangalore.

Full post as published by IBLS Internet Law Blog on December 18, 2007 (boomark / email).