BarAcc Project Presentation

Meetings with SU/NORSU

30 April/04 May 2010

Dumaguete City

The BarAcc Project is part of several initiatives (in Tourism, Agriculture, Education/Training and ICT) towards helping speed up the social and economic development of Oriental Negros.

The project ‘s main beneficiaries will be the residents of remote barangays.

SMEs and other organizations engaged in providing products and services in the province may also stand to benefit.

Cities

6

Municipalities

19

Barangays

557

Population

1.23M

... the establishment of a profitable and sustainable business enterprise in a barangay that will:

enable the full use of mobile phones anywhere in the barangay

operate an Internet kiosk

The BarAcc Project will be a collaboration among the 1st Buglas Foundation, a telco(Globe) and Silliman University and/or Negros Oriental State University (SU/NORSU).

We believe that SU/NORSU should play a key role in the propagation of our initiatives among key leaders in the cities and municipalities in Oriental Negros and in mobilizing technical support for our various projects.

We’re in continuing discussions and/or negotiations with these organizations.

A provincial project team from SU/NORSU will be formed.

The first major activity is to come up with a project plan – a five-year development plan including a detailed implementation plan and budget for first year.

This team will be involved in coordinating outsourced entities that will provide setup and regular support services to the BarAcc Project.

The role of the barangay entrepreneur is a very important one.

It must be emphasized that he/she is expected to profit from this venture.

The mobile phone business will bring in immediate revenues upon implementation; revenues from the Internet kiosk follow soon after.

In due course the entrepreneur can expect a share of the revenues from on-line services delivered thru his/her enterprise.

The Barangay Access Point (BAP) will be connected to the telco’s Access Center (AC) via a long distance wireless link. This distance is in the range of tens or even hundreds of kilometers. Several BAPs can be connected to a single AC.

For this purpose we’re looking at Wi-Fi technology for Long Distance, which has been only recently available commercially. We’re looking at Intel’s Rural Connectivity Platform for this.

We’re also looking at a Nokia-Siemenshardware/software solution, called Village Connectionfor the BAP and AC.

This solution has been tried in several countries only during the last few years. (By the way, there are other alternatives, one of which comes from Huawei – an ICT company based in China.)

WiLDNet: Use standard 802.11radios for both Point-to-Point

Point-to-Multipoint

Can get longer range up to 150km Directional antennas

(24dBi)

Line of Sight (LOS)

Why choose WiFi:

Low cost of $500/node

No spectrum /licensing

costs

Open-source drivers

Good data rates:

11Mbps (11b)

54Mbps (11g)

The above shows a typical cell site. It’s a very

expensive setup that can only be justified in urban

areas.

Pictures

of a setup

for Internet

in the

Philippines

-- a pole

tower with

guy wires

and

antennas at

the top of

the pole.

Which of the above services are appropriate for

OrNeg barangays? Are there others we can

propose?

We will start with a pilot project for

the purpose of demonstrating

sustainability and profitability.

Moreover, the pilot project will enable

us to learn a lot from its operations

such as the pricing of the various

services, set up and operating costs,

alternative power sources, support

services providers, etc.

The pilot project should start with a fully operational

BAP

Identification of the pilot project site/s

At least 3 BAPs established w/in the 1st year

– 1 per district of Oriental Negros

Funding for the first year

The main costs are for ACs, the Nokia-Siemens Village

Connection hardware and software for each BAP and the

BAP set up and project team technical support costs.

Time table

We should get the pilot project going within three months

or by the 3rd quarter of 2010.

Organize SU/NORSU project team

Gather/analyze necessary data/information

Prepare 5-year development plan

Based on sound data/information

Prepare 1-year implementation plan and budget

Arrange for importing equipment

Think of public announcement/launch

Let’s start the work now!

William T Torres, Ph.D.

wttorres@gmail.com

+63 917 899 0998