Bringing rural Argentina online

Argentina's mountains: A challenge to ISPs

Bertrand Hartman, of internet provider Omnired, writes of the challenges of using wireless network technology to connect to the internet the 15 million Argentines who live in remote rural areas.

Our first network was deployed in San Antonio de Areco, an agricultural town with 20,000 inhabitants, 120 kilometres (75 miles) north of Buenos Aires.

After many experiments and field trials, we did eventually achieve quite encouraging results in the technical area.

On the commercial front, we have approximately 10 users a month after the service becoming available, with good prospects of obtaining at least 30 or so more before the end of the year.

Our financial calculations indicated that each cell would need at least 50 customers to be sustainable, so we are not too far off our target.

Positive response

The high up-front costs and the necessarily stiff monthly fees of around US$100 are limiting factors, particularly in the light of the fierce economic recession Argentina has been facing for the last three years.

Hartman: Positive attitude towards the project

As for local people, they invariably have a very positive attitude towards the project.

We sense a genuinely felt recognition that finally somebody cares about them too.

High-speed internet services will certainly not change the way of life in San Antonio de Areco. But it may just help overcome the competitive disadvantage of being an isolated town in an already remote country.

People in remote areas are aware of the importance of the internet, which probably explains the surprisingly large amounts of dial-up users that can be found throughout rural Argentina.

For these people, wireless internet does provide a technically superior and often cheaper alternative over troublesome long-distance dial-up access methods.

Helping schools

Probably the biggest single area where the internet really can make a significant contribution is in education.

Site for one of the wireless transmitters

Unfortunately, Argentine public schools tend to have few financial resources, and most of them probably could not afford our service.

For this reason we have planned a dedicated initiative called ConectAR to make the service available at reduced costs for selected local public schools with little resources.

Our future network roll-outs are planned for areas significantly more remote than San Antonio de Areco, such as the Patagonian Andes region.

It is here where wireless internet truly comes into its element. It is also probably in these areas where the relative social importance of the service is at its greatest too.

Recent developments in wireless network technology, however, allow high-speed networks with a relatively long range to be built for comparatively low costs.

Our initial estimates indicated that, using this technology, a rural broadband internet project might indeed be feasible, despite the limited amount of possible users and Argentina's unfriendly business environment.