GBI hosted its monthly Tech Series last Thursday, this time focusing on “Bringing Telecommunications to the Rural Edge.” Speakers shed light on the need, challenges and opportunities involved in the process of expanding connectivity to rural areas and promote development.

Ian Walter, Vice President of Technology at Altobridge, presented on “Low Energy, Low Cost Wireless Communications for Remote Communities,” an overview of the remote communities market and its size, key challenges and opportunities ensuring remote locations have access to affordable mobile and voice connectivity.

With the number of mobile subscribers set to exceed 6 billion by 2014, operators need to find innovative and cost-effective ways to expand connectivity to 2.1 billion living in rural areas, based on World Bank estimates.

“A combination of competition between the equipment vendors, government subsidies and initiatives such as the GSMA’s ultra-low cost handsets have combined to drive down the network and handset cost for service providers but site, backhaul and power costs remain high,” said Walter speaker on the key challenges of expanding connectivity in remote communities.

“None of the above initiatives address the operational costs that operators face when deploying sites in remote communities”, he added.

The solution is the solar powered Altobrige lite-site, which enables mobile network operators to bring mobile connectivity to remote communities at low cost. Meeting the needs of up to 1200 subscribers, the Altobridge lite-site has been specifically designed to optimize satellite bandwidth and minimize power consumption.

One project that will put these technologies into the field is headed up by Troy Etulain, Senior Advisor for Media Development at USAID. Mr. Etulain spoke about “Low-Cost Cellular Infrastructure in the Democratic Republic of the Congo: LRA Affected Areas”, a case study on expanding connectivity in remote conflict areas.

Etulain offered contextual background on the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), a militant group operating in Central Africa accused of widespread human rights violations, including murder, abduction, mutilation, sexual enslavement of women and children, to name but a few.

According to Etulain, the project’s goal is to empower civilians with the communications infrastructure to monitor and report LRA activity. This consist of partnering with public radio to report LRA incidents on a daily basis and installing on top of church buildings—for safety and higher access points—a base transceiver station (BTS) or cell site, a piece of equipment that facilitates wireless communication between user equipment and a network.

Eric White, ICT Sector Economist for GBI, showcased the “Broad Applicability of Low Cost and Low Power Telecoms Solutions,” that advance development such as mobile apps used in agriculture, health, and education.

The GBI Tech Seminar Series is hosted monthly at USAID headquarters and covers a range of topics from connectivity and telecommunications access to content and applications. A video of this months program will be available online shortly.