Welcome to Nepal Wireless Networking Project, Himanchal Education Foundation

Welcome to Nepal Wireless Networking Project

Started by Himanchal Higher Secondary School

Introducing Wi-Fi technology to Connect and to Create New Opportunities in the Isolated Villages of Nepal

Mahabir Pun, Team Leader of the project is visiting Maryland, USA to attend the annual convention of Associations of Nepalese in Americas (ANA) as a distinguised guest from July 4 to 6 2008. With the strong support of friends from around the world, Mahabir has now started a campaign - "Donate $1 per month to help Build Broadband Information Highway Across Nepal".

Here is the "Request Letter for One Dollar a Month Campaign" . Please read it and sign up for the campaign as follows.

To donate, please go to http://www.himanchal.org/contribute-one-dollar-a-month.html to set up an annual recurring charge of $12 (i.e. one contribution of $12 each year) instead of having 12 separate monthly transactions of $1 each.
If you wish to set up your contribution of $1 on monthly basis, you can do it through http://www.nepalwireless.thamel.com. Either way, the money comes to our school’s bank account.
For those, who don’t have credit cards or would like to donate cash, please collect money through your local community organization and contact us at contact@himanchal.org. We will assist you to send the money to our bank account through our remittance partners.
You can also send your check earmarked as "For One dollar campaign" to - Himanchal Education Foundation, c/o Dr. Leonard Skov, 5610 Avenue N, Kearney, Nebraska 68847, Phone: (308) 234-1243, Email: skovl@unk.edu.

Please Note: You will get tax dedcution for your contribution in the US because Himanchal Education Foundation is registered as 501 (c)(3) not-for-profit-making corporation in Nebraska, USA.

Encourage your children to initiate the $ 1 campaign among their peers in schools so that the children can learn from their early age to be involved in projects like this for good cause.

After the ANA convention in Baltiomore, Mahabir Pun will visit several cities such as Boston, New York, San Francisco, Denver, Dallas, Seattle, Atlanta, Chicago as well. Please contact him to listen his stories at: mahabir@himanchal.org

This is the picture of the first relay station we built in May 2002 on a 20m tall tree. The elevation of the relay station mountain is 10,800 ft (3,320m) high. We had used a normal 8-foot TV dish antenna as the reflector and a one liter measuring can as the feed. We are still using the same tree as the "relay tower" with different antenna and radios.

Please read detail Case Study Report on Nepal Wireless Project submitted to World Bank in September 2006 at:http://www.nepalwireless.net/images/wbreport.pdf

Please visit the local homepage to see how the villagers are using the Intranet at http://www.nepalwireless.com.np.

Some links in the local homepage are not available from outside . We have to do it to protect the website from spams.

WHY ARE WE LOOKING FOR SUPPORT AND HOW CAN YOU SUPPORT?

A Request from Team Leader, Mahabir Pun

So far we are moving at slower speed for two reasons. The first reason is that we were testing different things and learning ideas to find ways to maximize the benifits of wireless networks in the isolated remote villages of Nepal. Secondly we did not have enough resources to expand the wireless network in larger areas of Nepal. Whatever we have been able to do is because of the financial and technical supports of some individuals, businesses, non-profit organizations, and international organizations (such as International Telecommunication Union, World Bank). So far we have not gotten any support from the Government of Nepal even though we approached them in 2007. We have also submitted a concept plan for 2008 to build wireless networks that includes 19 districts. The government is positive about the proposal but has indicated a shortfall in available funds. Moreover, it will take some time for the political parties to resolve all the political issues in Nepal.

At this situation we just don't want to wait for some years until current political issues are resolved in order to get support from Nepal Government. We want to continue our effort of building bigger wireless networks and provide ICT services in rural Nepal. Therefore we have started "Donate $1 Per Month To Build Wireless Network Across Nepal" campaign . Please participate in the campaign and help Nepal to be prepared to move to 21st century.

We would like to request all the organizations of the Nepalese in the US to actively participate and contribute for the campaign during the ANA convention in Baltimore USA. This is a great opportunity for two million Non Residence Nepalese (NRNs) living around the globe for doing something good for your country that gave you birth, took care of you and brought to the position where you are now.

To contribute, y ou can go to http://www.himanchal.org/contribute-one-dollar-a-month.html to set up an annual recurring charge of $12 (i.e. one contribution of $12 each year) instead of having 12 separate monthly transactions of $1 each.
If you wish to set up your contribution of $1 on monthly basis, you can do it through http://nepalwireless.thamel.com. Please note that Networkforgood.org do not accept less than $10 per transaction. Either way, the money comes to our school’s bank account. The money raised through this campaign will exclusively be spent to build broadband information highway across Nepal.
For those, who don’t have credit cards or would like to donate cash, please collect money through your local community organization and contact us at contact@himanchal.org. We will assist you to send the money to our bank account through our remittance partners.
You can send your check earmarked as "For One dollar campaign" to - Himanchal Education Foundation, c/o Dr. Leonard Skov, 5610 Avenue N, Kearney, Nebraska 68847, Phone: (308) 234-1243, Email: skovl@unk.edu.

Please Note: You will get tax dedcution for your contribution in the US because Himanchal Education Foundation is registered as 501 (c)(3) not-for-profit-making corporation in Nebraska, USA.

Our target for 2008 is to make 15,000 members from around the world to participate in this campaign. This is not an ambitious target. According to the estimate done by NRN Association there are 2 millions Nepalese all over the world. If we could convince just 5% of these Nepalese signed up for this campaign, we will have 100,000 members. With this number of people supporting to build the information highway, we can easily connect most of the rural Nepal in five years.

We would also like to request donor agencies to provide matching fund for whatever we will be able to raise from "the $1 per month campaign". With your support, we can build wireless networks across Nepal covering at least 80% of the country, without taking any loan from international funding agencies. This task is perfectly doable and we are determined to do it.

The request is not only for people of Nepali origin. This request goes also to friends of non Nepali origin from around the world. Donating $1 a month you won't loose anything but 80% of the Nepalese living in rural areas will benefit so much by getting access to the Information and communication technology. Your $1 a month will actually be one of the greatest supports you can ever make to build "New Nepal". We appreciate very much for your support.

Why did we start this project?

Digital Divide" and "Digital Gap" have been big words in the past few years. Organizations like the United Nations and others have organized many conferences and have launched campaigns to address this issue.

Developed and developing countries are talking to each other to find what they can do to bring the computers and the Internet within the reach of the poor people. Everybody seems very much worried about finding ways to make the digital gap narrower. So is the Nepal Wireless Networking Project, seriously speaking.

Who are our current partners?

Our project is building wireless networks and is connecting mountain villages. However, connecting the villages wirelessly and bringing computers in the villages are not enough. We need to develop educational contents in Nepali language that everybody can understand. We also need to provide services such as e-health, Internet phone, remittance, and local e-commerce that are useful for the villagers. Obviously, we can't do all those things by ourselves and we need partners that can provide applications and contents for the villagers.

Therefore we are working with several organizations now to find ways to maximize the benefit of wireless technolgy for the people living in the isolated villages of Nepal. Our partners and supporters now are E-Network Research and Development for wireless networking and training, Open Learning Exchange - Nepal for developing educational contents in Nepali language, Nepal Research and Education Network for research and network designing, Gandaki College of Engineering and Sciences, and Kathmandu Engineering College for software development and technical support, Kathmandu Model Hospital and Om Hospital Pokhara for telemedicine program, and Thamel.com for e-commerce purposes.

When and how did we start?

We had started the Nepal Wireless Networking Project as a pilot project from a small and remote area of Nepal with the help of foreign supporters and volunteers. We did several testing in 2002 to find out if it is possible to connect the villages to the nearest ISP in Pokhara. The test was successful. That time we did not know at all how useful a wireless network can be for the rural people. We did not even thought that we would be able to build wireless networks in different parts of Nepal.

The villages are wirelessly networked and connected to an ISP WorldLink, which is approx. 22 air miles (~34 km) away from Relay Station 1, in a city called Pokhara. Wlink is one of the sponsors of the broadband Internet connection to the villages in Myagdi district Nepal.

In September 2003, we had connected five villages of Myagdi district. In 2004, we became able to connect 7 villages. In 2006 we connected 6 more villages. Now we have connected altogether 22 villages of Myagdi, Kaski and Parbat district. We helped to build a similar wireless network in Makawanpur district connecting 7 villages, and in Palpa district connecting 4 villages.

Who owns, runs and maintains the network?The Myagdi network of Nepal Wireless Networking Project is now owned and run by Himanchal Higher Secondary School, Nangi Village, Nepal. This is the school that Mahabir Pun had helped villagers to start after coming back from the USA, which is also the hub of several income producing projects including wireless networking project. However, Nepal Wireless Networking Project is an ambitious project and we want to go far beyond what we have done now by inviting people and communities that are interested to replicate such projects in other parts of Nepal. We are also knocking at the doors of Nepal Government and asking them to replicate the network across Nepal. We have now signed MoUs with several institutions and organizations to expand the network in other parts of Nepal and to make the wireless network as much beneficial as possible for rural population. On the long run, this project will be a national project and it will be developed in public and private partnership business model. Who is our target? The taget of this project are the people living in isolated villages of Himalayan region of Nepal where there is almost no chance of getting the modern means of communication in near future. We are introducing the information technology to villagers, most of whom had never seen computers until a few years ago. Most of the villagers still have no idea as what the uses of the computers are. For the villagers, a computer is no more than a "mysterious box". Moreover, they have no idea what Internet is.What is our goal? Our initial goal is to introduce the "mysterious box" to the remote villages and show its real uses to the villagers. It is only after the villagers see what a computer does will they be motivated to learn about it and use it by themselves step by step. Each step they will take will be a step forward to bring the digitally divided countries closer. We believe that this is the right way to go.What were the biggest challenges and problems that we had to face?Technically, we were running the network illegally because we had not gotten license that the government of Nepal then required. Also it was almost impossible to import Wi-fi equipment from abroad. We had smuggled all the wireless equipment from Singapore and the US. Therefore the biggest challenges until September 2006 for this project was to find ways to work in the absence of flexible government law.

Moreover it was very risky to our lives to bring the equipment and build the network during the time of peak political conflict in Nepal. We might have been killed or tortured either by the government or by the Maoist armies if there had gone something wrong. Luckily, we survived.

There were obviously some technical problems also that incurred. However, we became able to solve the technical problems.

After the restoration of democracy in Nepal in April 2006, the political situation is getting better in Nepal. Therefore we don't have as much risk now as it was before to set up Wi-fi network. Wi-fi technology (2.4 GHz and 5.8 GHz) has been de-licensed since Setpember 2006, and it has been easier to import and set up wireless network. Our team members along with the people working in the wireless networking field had to lobby hard to de-license the Wi-fi bands.

What are we lobbying for now?Nepal Wireless Networking Project along with individuals and organization working in the field of wireless networking had lobbied for opening up of VOIP and provision for rural and community ISPs in Nepal. For the last two years, team leader Mahabir Pun has spent more time in Kathmandu making presentation to lawmakers and officials of the importance of these things for rural communications. The team leader gave presentations to member of parliaments, political leaders and government officials telling how Wi-fi technology can be very useful for the people living in the remote areas. As a result the government has brought a new law on Rural and Community ISPs within Nepal reducing the license fee to about USD3 for using VSAT in the rural areas and starting a rural ISP. Originally the license fee was almost USD 5,000. The government has also opened up PC to PC and IP to IP VoIP in September 2007. We also lobbied for about a month with Nepal Telecom Authority of Nepal to make Nepal Telecom share its copper and fiber infrastructure with private ISPs. Now Nepal Telecom Authority has brought a law requiring Nepal Telecom to share it copper and fiber infrastructure. What can you see in this site?In this website, we are trying to explain how the idea came about, what we tried, what we have done so far, what we are doing with it, what our future plans are, and how we can work together. If you like the idea, you are welcomed to be a part of this campaign.Who is the sponsor of this site?

Jonni Lehtiranta from Finland is the sponsor of this website. He is helping to create and maintain this website from his own server. He visited Nangi village, Nepal in 2002 and 2004 and stayed a total of more than two months. Jonni was back to Nangi in Sptember 2007 for three weeks. Jonni also brought a sauna stove from Finland and installed in Nangi village, which the villagers like very much.

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