An open-technologies-based ICT deployment architecture for rural usage scenarios

PROCEEDINGS OF THE

15th

ANNUAL CONFERENCE

ON WORLD WIDE WEB APPLICATIONS

10-13 September 2013

Cape Town

South Africa

Editors:

A. Koch P.A. van Brakel

Publisher:

Cape Peninsula University of Technology PO Box 652 Cape Town

8000

Proceedings published at

http://www.zaw3.co.za

ISBN: 978-0-620-59570-4

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Proceedings of the 15th Annual Conference on World Wide Web Applications

Cape Town, 10-13 September 2013 (http://www.zaw3.co.za) ISBN: 978-0-620-59570-4

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN The full papers were refereed by a double-blind reviewing process according to South Africa’s Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) refereeing standards. Before accepting a paper, authors were to include the corrections as stated by the peer-reviewers. Of the 86 full papers received, 75 were accepted for the Proceedings (acceptance rate: 87%). Papers were reviewed according to the following criteria: Relevancy of the paper to Web-based applications Explanation of the research problem & investigative questions Quality of the literature analysis Appropriateness of the research method(s) Adequacy of the evidence (findings) presented in the paper Technical (e.g. language editing; reference style). The following reviewers took part in the process of evaluating the full papers of the 15th Annual Conference on World Wide Web Applications: Prof RA Botha Department of Business Informatics Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University Port Elizabeth Mr AA Buitendag Department of Business Informatics Tshwane University of Technology Pretoria Prof AJ Bytheway Faculty of Informatics and Design Cape Peninsula University of Technology Cape Town Mr A El-Sobky Consultant 22 Sebwih El-Masry Street Nasr City, Cairo Prof M Herselman Meraka Institute, CSIR Pretoria Mr EL Howe Institute of Development Management Swaziland

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Dr A Koch Department of Cooperative Education Faculty of Business Cape Peninsula University of Technology Cape Town Dr DI Raitt Editor: The Electronic Library (Emerald) London Mr PK Ramdeyal Department of Information and Communication Technology Mangosuthu University of Technology Durban Prof CW Rensleigh Department of Information and Knowledge Management University of Johannesburg Johannesburg

Prof A Singh Business School University of KwaZulu-Natal Durban Prof JS van der Walt Department of Business Informatics Tshwane University of Technology Pretoria Prof D van Greunen School of ICT Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University Port Elizabeth Further enquiries:

Prof PA van Brakel Conference Chair: Annual Conference on WWW Applications Cape Town +27 21 782 3084 (landline) +27 82 887 7361 (mobile)

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An open-technologies-based ICT deployment architecture for rural usage scenarios

MB Mutanga University Of Zululand

KwaDlangezwa, South Africa [email protected]

P Tarwireyi

University Of Zululand KwaDlangezwa, South Africa

[email protected]

P Mudali University Of Zululand

KwaDlangezwa, South Africa [email protected]

MO Adigun

University Of Zululand KwaDlangezwa, South Africa

[email protected]

Abstract The role of information technology as a catalyst for social change and economic development in developing countries cannot be underestimated. In essence ICT, can significantly remunerate those who meritoriously and strategically utilise it with increased income, better quality of life, and cultural, social, economic and political advantages. Many African nations are adopting the use of ICTs as a tool to foster development by deploying ICT infrastructure in rural areas. These deployments include Digital doorways (DD), internet kiosks and telecentres. However, each of these deployments is meant to meet specific ICT needs for the rural communities. For example, DDs are usually employed in schools as an ICT skills acquisition platform whilst Internet kiosks are used by the general community for Internet access. Most projects have provided access to ICT resources through deployments at centralised locations such as community centres and schools. This was mainly a cost saving measure which relied on sharing the cost of the infrastructure among the community but the benefits of the ICT infrastructure are mostly enjoyed by those already active at those locations. There is therefore, a need for an ICT deployment architecture that can cater for multiple usage scenarios for the various community sectors. Thus, one needs to harness different technologies together whilst ensuring that deployment costs remain affordable when providing a wide spectrum of services. In this paper we propose an ICT deployment architecture enabled by open technologies that can support multiple use cases. The benefits of such architecture are twofold. First, we provide a solution that takes a different approach in addressing the digital divide problem by providing ICT services and infrastructure in people’s

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homes. Second, by use of current technologies, we provide a deployment solution that is cost effective. Keywords: WebRTC, Wireless Mesh Networks, ICT4D, rural area, development.

1. Introduction The digital divide is a problem that has been under scrutiny from most governments in the developing world especially India and some parts of Africa. This problem manifests itself in different aspects of our lives hence can lead to social, economic and social inequalities. There are various initiatives undertaken by governments and non-governmental organization to bridge the digital divide. Providing ICT connectivity in African rural areas presents a unique set of challenges that need to be overcome such as the high cost of equipment, unreliable electricity supply, ICT skill shortages and high cost of providing connectivity (Johnson and Roux, 2008). An African rural setting also provides a unique set of needs that are not easy to meet using a single solution. Social, cultural and economic differences between rural and urban settings make it imperative to make an in depth study before solutions aimed at rural settings can be deployed. Different sectors in the rural areas have different ICT needs. For example, schools require computers to promote computer literacy, facilitate e-learning and communications. ICTs may also be used to access educational information on the Internet. Rural based SMMEs require internet access and e-commerce applications to conduct their business and also search for new markets and sources of funding. Clinics and health centres may use ICTs to disseminate health related information to community members. Ordinary villagers would want to make use of ICT services and infrastructure without having to go to a central place like a school or a telecentres. Many solutions to address these needs have been proposed and deployed. One interesting paradigm is the living lab approach. Living labs can be used for experimentation and testing of ideas, and related ICT artefacts in real life scenarios. One big advantage of the Living Labs is that it is not only user-centric but a real human-centric approach. Despite a typical rural setting exhibiting a wide range of characteristics and needs, most of the traditional deployment efforts only address specific needs. For example most living lab deployments require that one goes to the nearest school to access services. Other deployments such as the Bushbuck Ridge Living Lab (Bushbuck Ridge LL, 2012) concentrates mainly on health related issues despite the living lab paradigm advocating for the involvement of different stakeholders to support the whole eco-system. Other proposed initiatives such as the Nongoma LL (Mutanga et al, 2011), solve this problem by introducing a wireless mesh network as a network infrastructure to extend the coverage area. This model assumes the existence of computers within households. This assumption, is however not realistic since the cost of computers is too high for ordinary villagers. It is therefore imperative to come up with a cost effective ICT deployment architecture that can cater for multiple usage scenarios. To achieve this, one needs to harness different technologies together whilst ensuring that deployment costs remain affordable when providing a wide spectrum of services. In this paper we propose an ICT deployment architecture enabled by open technologies that can support multiple rural use cases. The rest of the paper is structured as follows: In Section 2 we

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explore ICT4D initiatives whilst Section 3 explores the recent trends that are likely to shape the future of ICT in rural areas. Emphasis was put on technologies that are cheap and applicable in rural settings. Section 4 describes our solution whilst we conclude this work in Section 5. 2. ICT4D initiatives for rural settings

There are various initiatives that have been proposed to provide ICT infrastructure and services in rural Africa. Most of these efforts try to address the socio-economic problems by using ICTs. In this section we outline some of the initiatives that have been witnessed in different projects in South Africa. 2.1 Living Labs Living labs have been a preferred and successful way of deploying ICT infrastructure in remote areas of Africa. The human, social, cultural, organizational and institutional aspects are considered in this model (Mutanga et al, 2011). Living Labs have a shown a positive impact on sustainable service, business and technology development in communities that they are deployed. (i) Siyakhula Living Lab The Siyakhula Living Lab (Khane et al, 2011) is run by Rhodes University and the University of Fort Hare. An e-commerce website was developed to market and sell art and craft products made by villagers in the community. The Siyakhula Living Lab covers four villages and makes use of WiMax is to connect the different sites together. Schools are also covered within the living lab (Siebörger et al, 2010). Community members access the services by going to nearby schools. (ii) Moutse Living Lab The Moutse Living Lab is a partnership between the Ndlovu Care Group and the Meraka Institute (LLISA, 2012). The Meraka Institute developed a general Living Labs Research strategy that uses a WiFi as its backbone for the network infrastructure. The project entails establishing an information portal that can provide access to information, education, and healthcare. The Moutse Living Lab also includes Digital Doorway terminals. 2.2 Digital Doorway projects

The Digital Doorway (DoD) terminals usually consists of computers housed in a waterproof casing installed under a basic shelter in an open piece of land in a school yard. As an 'open-access' computer kiosk, the Digital Doorway lowers the social, cultural and economic barriers to use and adoption of ICT. In this type of setup, the use of the computers is free and usually involves no supervision, and is designed as a collaborative learning and information access platform. A recent deployment of DoD is the Motataisi DoD Project (LLiSA, 2013:a) which was developed in partnership with the Meraka Institute in Lesotho. It has DoD terminals installed at schools with the following two objectives:

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To deliver basic information on what is in sectors such as Education, Agriculture, Human Rights, Tourism, Health, Local government, etc.

To provide information on how-to issues, such as getting a birth certificate, social services, necessary government service documentation and forms, advice on the generation of income-generating activities at local level and other relevant information. Proximity to the schools is important for one to be able access the services.

2.3 Wireless Mesh Networks Wireless Mesh Networks have been used to provide broadband Internet access to rural areas with no prior access. These networks are well-suited to rural areas due to their low cost and ease of deployment. Several examples of rural Wireless Mesh Network deployments exist, in both developed and developing countries [Wray (Ishmael et al, 2008), Mpumalanga, (Johnson, 2004), Dharamsala (AirJald, 2013), Hanover (Allen et al, 2005), Macha (Villafiorita et al, 2010)]. These deployments are typically characterised by stationary mesh nodes that are co-located with existing infrastructure such as lamp-posts, houses, schools and clinics. The users access the network via their client devices which are connected to the nearest mesh node. Client devices are most often desktop PCs. The cost of desktop PCs for rural African communities is often prohibitive and donations of such equipment are often relied upon in this particular context. 2.4 Telecentres Telecentres one of the initiatives that were launched to test the optimistic belief that ICTs can leapfrog previously disadvantaged communities. They are based on the shared ownership of resources idea where a facility equipped with computers, telephones and other technological devices is used by villagers (Rangaswamy 2008). Because of their underpinning vision of bridging the digital divide, telecentres may offer services such as telephony, ICT literacy training, e-government, e-commerce and general access to information and communication technologies at a negligible cost (Gomez et al, 1999). Since a substantial amount of money is needed to equip these centres, the initial deployment costs are usually absorbed by donor agencies, NGOs or governments (Colle and Roman, 2001) (Gomez et al, 1999). This was based on the assumption that all community members will flock to these centres to take advantage of the low cost services. However, it was found out that the older people were being left behind (Tarwireyi et al, 2008). This also means that access was only limited within the operating hours of the telecentres. 3. Recent trends in open technologies applicable to ICT4D In recent years, there has been a vast increase in technology related products and services on the market. Some of these technologies are however too expensive to be adopted in income areas low. Some interesting technology advances include smart phones and mobile applications. This expansion of mobile apps territory makes them a promising technology in delivering services in rural areas. In addition, there is certainly a lot of hype around cloud computing, but few technology providers have done a good job explaining or providing services that are can be consumed by ordinary people. Other advancements such as social networking are also having also taken the world by storm and have the potential to define the

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future of ICT in developing countries. In this section, we give some interesting technologies that can have a positive impact in the deployment of ICTs in rural areas. 3.1 Single-Board Computers

Single-board computers (SBCs) date to the late 1970s and can be considered precursors to the modern PC. SBCs contain all the necessary components such as the CPU, RAM and storage on a single circuit board. There is currently resurgence in the development of SBCs due to the Internet of Things concept where SBCs are used to control networked sensors. This resurgence is also driven by several other factors such as advances in electronics resulting in smaller, more powerful components and circuits, a leveraging of the freely shared circuit board designs, the improved reliability due to a lack of moving parts and a lower cost than traditional PCs. Due to Moore’s Law, the capabilities of modern SBCs rival those of earlier PCs. This means that SBCs can be used as replacements for traditional PCs in contexts where the need for latest hardware and software capabilities are non-existent. Several SBCs have been developed recently as an entry-level computing platform. Three of the more popular examples include the Raspberry Pi (The Raspberry Pi Foundation, 2013), BeagleBoard (Beagle Board, 2013) and PandaBoard (Panda Board Project, 2013). The Raspberry Pi has become very popular due to its low cost and capabilities of running open source software. One unit cost less than one tenth of a desktop computer. 3.2 Software Defined Radios

Traditional radio systems consist of various distinct hardware components such as detectors, amplifiers, modems, filters, etc. SDRs consist of a hardware-based Radio Frequency front-end with all the other components being implemented as software modules. In this manner, the flexibility and reuse of the radio is enhanced since changes do not require the building of a new radio but rather a change of the appropriate software modules. These software modules can be found in a popular open-source package called GnuRadio. GnuRadio provides an open platform to allow radios to autonomously sense the radio environment, determine the appropriate transmission and reception parameters and subsequently self-configure to use those parameters. Hardware platforms such as USRP 1, USRP 2 (Ettus Research, 2013) and Pervices Phi (Per Vices Corporation, 2013) have been developed to take advantage of the GnuRadio (GNU Radio, 2013) platform to enable the development of communications infrastructure capable of using TV white spaces freed during the migration to digital terrestrial television. SDR is a promising technology in providing network infrastructure in rural areas because unused spectrum can be taken advantage of for providing ICT services. 3.3 Communications platforms

Advances in both hardware and software capabilities, coupled in some cases with open-hardware and open-source software have allowed the development of sophisticated communications platforms. These communications platforms provide the underlying infrastructure (comprised of both hardware and software) for a variety of communications technologies. Platforms such as WebRTC (Bergkvist et al, 2012), Serval (The Serval Project, 2013) and the Mesh Potato (Village Telco, 2013) are able to support a subset of traditional

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communications technologies such as video chatting, VoIP and SMS. In addition, these platforms can support other types of applications via plain data transfers. An underlying networking infrastructure is often a prerequisite for a successful communications platform. WebRTC relies on the Internet, Serval relies on WiFi-enabled Android phones whilst the Mesh Potato can utilize the Internet or create a local networking and telephony infrastructure using a mesh network. The networking infrastructure may also be comprised of SBCs as routers or client devices as well as SDR-based router devices that sense the radio environment to create unobtrusive ad hoc networks. 4. Our proposed solution The proposed solution seeks to take advantage of the recent developments in the IT industry to provide cheaper connectivity options which will reduce the digital divide even further, by taking the ICT infrastructure to the older members of the community. Most projects have provided access to IT resources through deployments at centralised places such as community centres, schools and local government offices. This is mainly a cost saving measure which relied on sharing the cost of the infrastructure among the community members (Pade et al, 2006). Of course, it was assumed that besides the students at the schools and employees of the community centres, the rest of the community members will go to these resource centres to take advantage of the ICTs for the betterment of their socio-economic conditions. However, this has not been the case in most of the centres. It is either the resources are made available to the rest of the community during inconvenient times, like evenings after school or some people, especially the elder members of the community are not comfortable to go these centre to share computers with kids. This has been a trend where in most deployments, the youths are enthusiastic to use the ICTs, while the older people are seen as mostly passive. This means that there is a need to provide a solution that will improve the coverage of ICT4D deployments (Tarwireyi et al, 2007). The solution outlined in this paper proposes to extend the current deployment architectures so that it does not only cover schools and community centres, but also the villages and homes as well as ensuring that the cost of deployment remains low. This will enable community members to have access to the infrastructure not only at the centres but also in the comfort of their homes and at their convenience. The solution uses wireless mesh networks for network connectivity, Raspberry Pi for access and HTML5 with WebRTC for applications and communications. HTML5 has brought new connectivity mechanisms that allow web developers to implement feature-rich applications and real-time communications. One such mechanism is WebRTC. It allows web developers to create a new class of feature-rich applications that were once only available to end users in the form of native applications. One category of such applications is web based real-time multimedia applications which do not rely on plugins such as Flash. WebRTC is an industry and standards based open framework to enable Real Time Communication (RTC) capabilities into all browsers. These capabilities are made available to web developers through standard HTML5 tags and Javascript APIs. The main aim of WebRTC is to provide a common Real Time Communication platform that works across multiple web browsers, across multiple platforms (Bergkvist et al, 2012). This means that different devices such as smartphones, computers and telephones will be able to communicate using this common platform. The underlying standards of WebRTC are being developed by the W3C and IETF (Dutton, 2012).

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Figure 1: An ICT4D deployment extended with a Wireless Mesh Network

Our solution envisages an Infrastructure Wireless Mesh Network (Akyildiz and Wang, 2009) that consists of backbone and access layers. The mesh backbone is comprised of Mesh Potato devices that are co-located with existing infrastructure, where it is feasible to do so.

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These backbone devices may be solar-powered if such technology is available. The access layer consists of both the Raspberry Pi and analogue telephones. The Raspberry Pi acts as an inexpensive, small-form-factor desktop PC whilst the analogue telephone plugs into the Mesh Potato to create an IP-based telephone network. The Raspberry Pi desktop platform can support plain data transfers, Web browsing and video streaming through native browser support for HTML5 and WebRTC. Thus, our solution can support a wide variety of applications and usage scenarios using low-cost technologies. 4.1 Scenario It is an early Monday morning at Ludumo, a high school in the deep rural area of Nongoma in KwaZulu Natal and classes are about to start. The first lesson of the day for the Grade 11 students is Life Orientation where they are given a task to search for and document strategies to enhance self-awareness and self-esteem. As Ludumo is part of a Wireless Mesh Network deployment (such as the one depicted in Figure 1), the students use the World Wide Web to complete the task without much difficulty. The availability of ICTs enabled these students to quickly access information that would have otherwise been unavailable to them. The next lesson is Mathematics. However, like some other rural schools in South Africa, Ludumo does not have a maths teacher for this class. Thankfully, through the use of ICTs students are able to attend a remote lesson from another school through video conferencing as shown in Figure 2. Mr Ndwandwe, the remotely-located Maths teacher, is enthusiastic to give his students as much help and resources as possible, so he searches the World Wide Web (after hours in the comfort of his home, via the Wireless Mesh Network) for tutorials and tools which he can use to enrich his lessons. He then uploads these lessons on the e-learning platform for the students to review afterwards. Figure 2: Remote teaching

In addition, villages and schools can also use the available conferencing facilities for their meetings and distance learning activities. Parties to the communication will simply need web clients to partake in the conversation. A web server is needed to provide control or signalling.

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Using WebRTC, each browser can establish a peer connection with each and every browser in the group. This will create a full mesh of browsers, as depicted in Figure 3. Alternatively, one can make use of a media server where each browser maintains a single peer to peer connection with the Media server and control will still be provided by the web server. Figure 3: Servers providing control and signalling

After the lesson the grade 11 students at Ludumo are able to remotely consult with the Maths teacher through the various mathematical tools offered in the eLearning platform. At lunch time, Thobile, one of the grade 11 learners at Ludumo decided to call home to tell them that she will be coming home late since she wants to attend a netball practice session later that afternoon. For this communication to happen Thobile can use any device available at their school to call the analogue phone at home which is connected to the Mesh network. As highlighted before, most deployments use SIP. WebRTC provides a SIP signalling/control gateway which allows call setup information to be exchanged between the browser and the SIP client (see Figure 4). This sets up the peer to peer connection. Once the peer to peer connection has been set up, the media is exchanged directly between the SIP client and the web browser. For the proposed solution to be effective, it should work with the existing real time communications equipment deployed in the rural areas. Instead of confining the real time communications in schools and other centres as in the previous deployments, our solution promises to extend this facility to the villages thereby increasing the coverage of the telephony network.

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Figure 4: Multi-device support

After school, Thobile goes home, takes a short rest, then connects her Raspberry Pi to the television (as depicted in Figure 5) and the mesh potato to do her assignments and thereafter chat with friends on social networking sites. At the same time Thobile’s mother remembers that she is going to town the next morning and decides to check if her aunt, Gogo Zungu, who stays in a neighbouring village would like to have something purchased for her. Thobile’s mother uses the analogue phone connected to the Mesh network and places a phone call to Gogo Zungu who is also a member of the Mesh network and has a similar phone in her house.

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Figure 5: Raspberry Pi computer

It is evident from the scenario just described that our solution can cater for multiple usage scenarios. In addition to the ones that have been highlighted in the scenario, the solution can also be used to deliver e-health services such as video calling for consultations with nurses and doctors from remote hospitals and clinics. It is also applicable for e-commerce and e-government services in rural areas. 5. Conclusion The contribution of ICT towards economic empowerment and poverty alleviation in developing countries cannot be underestimated. Countries like Brazil and India have shown that ICT can significantly contribute towards the improvement of quality of life. In Africa, the proliferation of ICT has been slow with countries like Kenya and South Africa being some of the major players. A lot of effort has been put in designing ICT products and services that work in rural areas. Important to note is the development of network infrastructure such as wireless mesh networks. Other initiatives such as Digital doorway and the living lab paradigm have also made an impact in South Africa. However to realise the dream of bridging the digital divide, cheap solutions have to be developed. In this paper we presented a generic model for the deployment of ICT in rural areas. Our solution makes use of cheap and open source

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technologies that can be put together to create an all-in-one solution that can provide a wide spectrum of services to cater for various needs in the rural setting. The future focus of this work is to build an experimental outdoor tested and to develop the applications proposed in this work. It is envisaged that the final product of the work will be deployed in the Nongoma Living Lab. References Airjaldi. 2013. The Dharamsala Community Wireless Mesh Network [online] available from: http://drupal.airjaldi.com/node/56 [accessed 21 June, 2013]. Akyildiz I.F and Wang, X. 2009. Wireless Mesh Networks, John Wiley Publishing Company, ISBN 978-0-470-03256-5. Beagle Board. 2013. [Online] available on http://beagleboard.org [accessed February 15, 2013]. Bergkvist, A., Burnett, D.C., Jennings, C. & Narayanan, A. 2012. WebRTC 1.0: Real-time communication between browsers. Working draft, W3C. Available at http://dev.w3.org/2011/webrtc/editor/webrtc.html [accessed February 15, 2013]. Colle, R.D., Roman, R. 2001. Challenges in the telecentre movement. Journal of Development Communication, vol. 2, 1-11. Dutton, S. 2012. Getting Started with WebRTC, 2012, available at: http://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/webrtc/basics/ [accessed February 15, 2013]. Ettus Research. 2013. [Online] available on http://www.ettus.com [accessed February 15, 2013]. GNU Radio. 2013. [Online] available on http://gnuradio.org [accessed February 15, 2013]. Gómez, R., Hunt, P. & Lamoureux, E. 1999. Telecentre Evaluation and Research: a global perspective. Telecentre Evaluation: A Global Perspective (Report of an International Meeting on Telecentre Evaluation), pp.28-30. Ingrid, S. & Terzoli, A. 2010. "WiMAX for rural SA: The experience of the Siyakhula Living Lab." Southern African Telecommunication Networks & Applications Conference: A society enabled by Innovation and Applications, Stellenbosch, South Africa. Ishmael, J., Bury, S., Pezaros, D., Race, N. 2008. "Deploying Rural Community Wireless Mesh Networks," Internet Computing, IEEE, vol.12, no.4, pp.22,29. Johnson, D. 2007. Evaluation of a single radio rural mesh network in South Africa. Information and Communication Technologies and Development, 2007. ICTD 2007.

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An open-technologies-based ICT deployment architecture for rural usage scenarios

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