How long can you endure without the internet?

Although it seems that everyone has a smartphone nowadays, in fact, nearly half of the population still does not have broadband connection. How to bring the Internet into towns and villages and "reach out to those who are not connected to the Internet" has become the direction of exploration for experts. The advent of the 5G era has brought new miracles to the "going to the countryside" of the Internet.

From no network to streamlined 5G network

The high cost of building base stations in villages is an obstacle to the Internet going to the countryside. The power supply in many areas is unstable, and the power consumption of infrastructure and terminal equipment must be low. In addition, Srinivasan said that the cost of these broadband network services must also be extremely low because many families are still poor.

For telecommunications companies, building base stations in every village may not be economical, but some people have foreseen that laying 5G networks is a good opportunity and innovative methods can be used to cover areas that have not been connected to the network before.

The so-called "streamlining 5G network" means that while improving 4G wireless network technology, it focuses on network demand rather than speed indicators, and spends the least amount of money to pave the way for the final construction of the 5G network. The people-friendly 5G network clarifies the actual service needs of the population in each region. The more people understand the network, the more demand there will be for network services.

The Snaring Plan for the American West

Maria Bezaitis, a senior principal engineer in Intel's Next Generation Network Standards Market Development Team, said: "Our core goal is to understand what kind of change can be made from a social perspective." Bezaitis's team set their sights on wireless network service providers emerging in the western U.S. They rely on low-cost network technology to easily and quickly roll out their business, and study the social and economic aspects of unconnected areas.

“These technologies may not be 5G networks in terms of speed or other indicators, but they have built infrastructure and can provide a certain level of service to end users at a lower price than usual,” Bezaitis said. “We think that people in areas with little or no internet access may be able to take the first step to access the internet using this model.”

Through these unconnected populations, we can study how people learn to adapt to and eventually use Internet services, which is not only about how to survive in the online world, but also how to enjoy life here. This kind of field research can provide good guidance for 5G network technology developers on how to connect to the Internet in new regions.

India's snare plan

In the United States, only 15.9% of people do not have access to the Internet, while the proportion of people without access to the Internet in other parts of the world is even higher, with 93.2% in Bangladesh, 71.6% in Thailand, and 54.2% in China. McKinsey Consulting Company research shows that backward infrastructure and other factors in rural areas have hindered the construction of Internet in these areas.

Sundararajan Srinivasan, Intel's senior director of next-generation network standards in India, used the project cooperation with the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay to streamline the construction of wireless broadband network infrastructure and let villagers realize the benefits of advanced networks. The Internet allows villagers to pay daily groceries without leaving the village, saving a day's bus ride; villagers sell their products and services online, bringing business opportunities; remote teaching has greatly reduced the dropout rate, and rural education has also made some progress.

From 5G to the future

Indonesia's 4G network coverage continues to expand and the price of 4G mobile phones has dropped, setting off a wave of Internet and e-commerce.

As more people in developing countries use the Internet, there will be more opportunities to sell products and services.

Experts like Bezaitis and Srinivasan are putting more enthusiasm into bringing the Internet to the countryside and looking for more channels.

All the facts tell us that starting from the network that has just been "deployed to the countryside", we will eventually work hard to achieve a new era of future networks from streamlined 5G to wider services and excellent quality. Bezaitis said, "Although we don't know what we will do in the future, it is important to keep an open mind."

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