Wireless networking makes internet dream come true for remote Nepali villages

Posted on | November 19, 2008 | No Comments

7 years ago, Mahabir Pun, a Nepali teacher, wrote to the BBC World Service’s technology programme “Go Dig”. After receiveing a couple of used computers from Australia, he was looking for a way to connect his remot mountain village to the internet.

The problem was there was no phone line in the village, and a satellite connection would be way too expensive. Trying to figure out how to solve the problem, Pun wrote an article for BBC News Online asking people from all over the world for advice, and the idea of wireless networking was brought up. After successfully testing the technology between two Nepali villages, Pun was finally able to make his dream come true. Volunteers helped out with setting up the network, building the classrooms and finding grants and other kinds of financial help.

However, the political situation in Nepal at the time made it a complicated project. The rebels, who were trying to set up a communist republic in the country, were very suspicious of the wireless equipment, so it had to be smuggled into Nepal from America and Europe and set up illegally. Now, 7 years later, 42 villages – with 60,000 inhabitants in total – are connected to the internet. Although Pun says it hasn’t changed people’s daily lives in a masive way, it has made life much easier for them in many ways. Communicating between villages or with relatives living abroad has become much easier, and there’s also a project providing telemedicine to remote villages. Three villages have been connected to a city hospital so that when they get sick, they can ask doctors for advice without having to go all they way to the city – a great benefit, since there are no clinics in the area. Nineteen more villages are set to be connected later this year.

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Written by Fanny Johansson

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