Name: Herman Ângelo Miguel Ramos

Email: kapelloramos@gmail.com

Title: Digital Transformation of Rural/Remote areas with Community Networks

1. Introduction
The reach and evolution of the Internet and technology has grown more rapidly than that of
almost all previous communications media. Nevertheless, many people have not experienced
the benefits of the Internet. Many plans and efforts to allow the expansion of the Internet and
to address the digital divide and ensure access to all, were developed. There are many reasons
that many rural/remote areas don’t have access to the Internet, and includes the lack availability
of adequate infrastructure for connectivity and capacity of the device, affordability, availability
of relevant content, legal and regulatory frameworks.
Many efforts have been made to ensure universal access of the Internet. Including in making
policies to reduce the cost of access and usage for poor and marginalised groups or community
of rural/remote areas (development of low cost projects and creation of price packages
appropriate for groups with low or variable incomes). Although these are important and
fundamental steps, doesn’t solve the main problem.
In order to not only allow access to all, but also revolutionize the rural/remote areas and the
people’s life, is fundamental to operate a Digital Transformation in Remote/Rural areas using
Community Networks. This will generate many social, environmental and economic benefits.
In order for a successful implementation of digital transformation in rural/remote areas,
collaboration and participation with all stakeholders of internet governance is fundamental,
because progress is only possible when different people, different organizations work together
and that strong partnership is crucial to deliver positive change. The multistakeholder approach
will allow inclusivity, openness, and bottom-up decision making.

1
2. Theoretical Concept
Rural areas are defined as geographic areas that are located outside towns and cities, sometimes
classified as the countryside and remote areas are defined as places that are out of the way or
considerably secluded from civilisation (extreme extension of rural areas in other words) in
other words.
These zones, for being incredibly isolated from urban areas where all investment takes place,
are less developed. Verifying several problems due to the lack of health infrastructures,
communication and internet infrastructure, and in many cases without access to electricity. The
is a strong correlation between rural poverty and access to health, internet and electricity,
because they are prerequisites for productive activities.

In contrast, in rural areas there are large portions of free land, favourable to the practice of
agriculture, construction of buildings, installation of energy systems. It is a huge number of
people who, even without academic training, have a strong desire to learn and to contribute to
innovations and job creation and sales of products and local services. It becomes fundamental
to carrying out activities that contribute to the sustainable development goals (SDGs), adopted
by the UN General Assembly in 2015 as part of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Multiple definitions of Community networks can be found in literature. Community networks

refer to telecommunications infrastructure deployed and operated by a local group to meet their
own communication needs [7].
The concept of community networks is formed by the merger of group of people in the same
environment and encapsulate the transformational effect to contribute to the development and
grow of the community by working together and combining their resources, changing the local
ecosystem and decreasing the social, economic and digital gaps. The community networks are
a viable way to end with digital divides between and within communities, as the internet can
be carried virtually with the use of optical fiber, copper, and wireless links.

The are some examples of successful implementation of community networks.

One of them is the case of small villages scattered across the mountain tops of northeastern
Georgia, which is the result of a partnership between Internet Society (ISOC) and its Georgia
Chapter. The project provides a Fast wireless Internet service (high-speed fixed-wireless
Internet by constructing a local connecting networks in three directions from Diklo mountain
and Abano pass, with mast sites from 2,500 to 3,500 meters above sea level) at affordable
prices. Another example of community networks is the Bridging California's Rural/Urban
Digital Divide with Mobile Broadband project [10].

With the implementation of community networks, we can then proceed with the digital
transformation. Digital transformation can be defined as the cultural, organizational and
operational change of an ecosystem through a smart integration of digital technologies,
processes and competencies across all levels and functions in a staged and strategic way [16].

2
3. Applicability and Impact of digital transformation of these Remote/Rural areas with
Community Networks.

3.1 Applicability
The application of digital transformation in rural/remote areas with community networks is
essential for sustainable development. The objective is not only to create accessibility,
inclusiveness and equitable access, but to contribute to a technological revolution by exploiting
the natural riches and virtues of these places and creating conditions for people to create,
commercialize their products and services. Also will originate a structured development of
infrastructure or fundamental services, contributing to a better political, legal and regulatory
structure. A digital transformation is complemented with a digital strategy to leverage the
opportunities of new technologies and their impact.

The types of networks and technologies that can be employed in the successful implementation
of digital transformation can vary. Some networks can use Wi-Fi, Global System for Mobile
Communications (GSM) 2G networks, or may be based on Television White Space (TVWS)
technologies. They can connect to the Internet core using a variety of backhaul technologies,
including wireless, satellite, or optical fiber [7].
Wired solutions can be implemented in rural/remotes places because can reach wider areas. A
good frequency management used for communication is crucial to avoid interference.
Is also possible to use both licensed spectrum and unlicensed spectrum (not tied to a regulatory
license and requires minimal regulatory requirements, and the is no need to pay the high costs
of obtaining a spectrum license).

3.2 Benefits and Impact of digital transformation in rural/remote areas with

Community network
In order for the project to be sustainable, they not only need to generate enough revenue to
cover their maintenance and operational costs, but they need to address other social, technical,
and legal barriers as well. Digital transformation in rural/remote communities can help
leverages technologies to create value and new services for the members of the community,
also allow innovation and capabilities to rapidly adapt to changing circumstances. It is
important to reveal the specific benefits and impacts that the digital transformation will have
in order to solve the various problems in the different areas of a community. This subject
inevitably brings brand new security challenges for our networks. In this way is also important
to preserve the cyber security.
While digital transformation is predominantly used in a business context, it also impacts other
fields which are involved in tackling societal challenges such as pollution, digital divide,
poverty, lack of electricity, unemployment, lack of medicine and healthcare.

3
 Business
Business is one of the main fields of action that can be greatly impacted by digital
transformation. The practical applications of digital Transformation in business, boost business
productivity. This basically consist in the implementation of digital solutions and tools to
enable business processes.
The digital transformation will impact in diverse sectors of business, contribute to the increase
of revenue.
Creation of a Coffee Shop and Bar that provides access to internet either form cell phone or
with Internet Café (access to computers).
People who build houses, make electric installations can create a business and sell they
services, products and connect with customers around the area or in cities including virtual
assistant service.
Provide Tour Guide and book reservations online for travellers;
Partnership with companies from cities in order to sell products and services with a
commission.
Creation of a Mobile phones and accessories stores to design, develop and sell mobiles
including sim cards.
Enable the e-commerce in rural areas, by buying and selling of products online to generate an
income.
Business can make use of developments in the level of application, for example use cloud
computing. Cloud computing allows businesses to access their information virtually, creating
a flexible and global way of storage and accessing data any place, any time.

 Energy
Most low-income homes in many emerging markets get poor quality grid-power, with no
power or power outage for large fraction of the day. At same time, most of them cannot afford
the cost of power, even with some subsidy [8].
Renewable energies are presented as a viable solution, mainly energy and wind energy using
solar panels and wind turbines respectively. Wind turbines and solar panels can be
manufactured at home for small applications. In this way, these systems would allow residential
electrification of populations without access to electricity.

With the reduction in the price of PV systems and with some careful design, it is also possible
to build small plants in these areas to supply small, medium and even large infrastructures.
These systems are complemented with the use of the Internet for the efficient control and
monitoring of the system. It is also possible to produce and sell energy, using the internet to
monitor consumption and the respective amount to be paid by customers.

An example is a small home system of a project in Belagavadi, the communications and

monitoring were used to analyse the system behaviour and see if solar energy is being
optimised in each location. Also is possible to use the server–Internet-mobile-phone –
Bluetooth – Inverterless500 link to also configure certain parameters in the solar-system, so as
to optimise the energy usage depending on the load profile, solar-profile and the grid behaviour
in each location. As GPRS prices fall, this indirect link via mobile phones will be replaced by
a direct GPRS link.

4
 Health infrastructure
Different physiological markers could be explored in order to provide early diagnosis. The
health infrastructure in developing countries is much smaller, and in some rural and remote
areas these health infrastructures are nonexistent. Therefore, they could benefit greatly from
accurate mobile healthcare diagnosis that would reduce the need for investments in building
health infrastructure and will reduce the need of trained expert doctors (which are unavailable
in isolated areas).

Is crucial to create a system that predicts disease forecast outbreaks even considering that
difficult in accuracy of prediction models. This allows tackling resource allocation for that
disease. For understanding human mobility in disease propagation, Mobile Network Big Data
(MNBD) has become a low cost data exhaust that provides rich insight into human mobility
patterns with better spatial and temporal granularity when compared to statistical methods,
which rely mostly on macro level population parameters [5].

In addition, a system that provides an efficient diagnosis system of most common diseases
could be very useful. Ideally, this would be purely based on the inbuilt phone-systems (such as
an eye-tracker that uses the camera), but could also include the provision of a low-cost sensor
linked to the smartphone. Considering that there is a stock of medical supplies, this can allow
the early medication, and early transportation of the patient to the closest hospital. This can
provide early warning for epidemics and remove some pressure from the health infrastructure.

 Agriculture and Livestock

Rural areas are characterized by vast unexplored land and the land is often fertile, suitable for
farming. Communities tend to use land for the production of various products and also for the
breeding and reproduction of animals, eggs, milk and various products. The inclusion of a
digital transformation would allow the sale of these diversified products either to neighboring
places or even to nearby cities.
In this case, a digital system can be created to control the production of products and their
commercialization. It can be complemented with a registration in the customer database in
order to facilitate the purchase and sale of products and respective delivery locations.
This system would allow income generation for agricultural producers, and an organized buy-
sell process. This can be achieved either through the use of ICTS, creating an application and
complemented with website (this will imply domain name registration, web hosting and
creation of content) and social media pages.

 Education
Distance learning extends to distant communities through the Internet. Teachers of all kinds
can deliver real-time lectures and training. Flexible class times via videoconferencing
overcome family and employment juggling. Rather than remaining isolated without a
choice, students' access a virtual community of learning.
Students can make use of technology devices to access information.
Can be establish also a server where national education material, national education websites
and other resources can be accessed.
One of the options is Wireless MANs, this can deliver a significant step forward in access to
education anywhere. By installing wireless point-to-point (covering 40 miles in each hop) and
m to fan our coverage, Proximal solutions yield coverage for 100s of square miles.

5
Here are some examples of application on education:
BOSCO Uganda has established a collaborative network through an internal content
management site (intranet), a voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) telephony system, and a
collaborative Wiki. There is also pre-loaded educational content. This has enabled projects like
the BOSCO Uganda classroom-to-classroom project, which has linked schools in the United
States to rural schools in northern Uganda. Students and teachers map and test water collection
sites and share results through intelligent mapping on the Wiki [9].

TunapandaNet allows remote video streaming of their educational material to allow more
people to participate in their training. Additionally, they have developed SWAG35: “A
gamified, open-source e-learning platform meant to deliver education content especially in
areas without an Internet connection. It allows users to create and share their content within the
platform without the need for the Internet” [9].

4. Stakeholders Collaboration
This proposal is not only intended to allow an expansion of internet access, but also to allow
economic, social, environmental and technological development. In this process of digital
transformation to be a success and collaboration and participation with stakeholders of internet
governance is necessary. The application of the multistakeholder model for this proposal will
allow inclusivity, openness, and bottom-up decision making.

A digital transformation journey needs a staged approach with a clear roadmap, involving a
variety of stakeholders, beyond silos and internal/external limitations. In order for a successful
implementation in of digital transformation in rural/remote areas, collaboration and
participation with all stakeholders of internet governance is fundamental, because progress is
only possible when different people, different organizations work together and that strong
partnership is crucial to deliver positive change.
That’s why all stakeholders – governments, intergovernmental organizations, private sector,
non-governmental organizations (NGOs), researchers, technical community, community
members and individual play a vital role in the deployment, implementation and management
of digital transformation using community network. Below are sets of actions that each group
of stakeholder must do in order to a successful establishment and deployment, of digital
transformation in rural/remote areas with community network.

 The Governments should:

Explore, create, promote and disseminate innovation policy for digital transformation with the
community network model.
Provide efficient manage and use of spectrum (Spectrum access is essential for the success of
any community network).
Create and promote regulatory regimes conducive to eliminate barriers (reducing the fees and
taxes to import and use telecommunications equipment) and to encourage investments in
communities.
Regulators should consider non-traditional spectrum management tools in an effort to a better
use of scarce spectrum [6].
Explore ways to correct market failures and encourage competition to bring the ICTs and
Information Society to all, by also making more unlicensed spectrum available.
Find funds for the deployment of digital transformation in rural/remote community.

6
Train officials and actively participate in the design of digital projects and technology in rural
communities.
Create policies to protect data and help build trust in the community to host content and services
locally.

 The civil Society should:

Work closely with communities to strengthen ICT initiatives;
Capacitate citizens (launch various projects that further facilitate citizen's access and training
to utilize ICT) and help communities understand the benefits of this initiative;
Promoting digital literacy, and help find solutions to issues arising from the use and misuse of
the Internet, of particular concern to everyday users, innovative technology to
allow affordability.
Ensure that, the multistakeholder approach of internet governance is applied in communities.
Help develop equipment that keeps costs affordable, innovate and improve on existing services.
Crowdfunding campaigns, either online or via personal or collective fundraising campaigns
(mainly in collaboration with partners in Europe and North America) and match fund
mechanisms, where donors match the amount contributed by the communities [9].
Conduct workshops in digital storytelling, practical experiences on networks, web
development, and server management, and delivery intensive learning experiences in
technology, design, and business [9].

 The Technical Community should:

Creation of a certain amount of control and safety standards to protect the beneficiaries of the
community.
Continue creating solutions that reduce the complexity to deploy, operate, and maintain
networks, and accompany them with educational materials on how to make use of them.
Include modules about community networks in their capacity building activities [9].
Offer community networks free or cheaper access to critical infrastructure resources [9].

 The Intergovernmental Organizations

Assist in integrating ICTs in the development process as well as supporting the implementation
of activities that contribute to the sustainable development goals (SDGs).
Raise awareness among community members about the potential benefits of digital
transformation.
Help identify the most common issues in the region and digital solutions to mitigate.
Work in partnership with civil society in capacity building.
Contribute to the development, reshape of policies related to digital technology.
Raise funds to support the development and integration of community networks, also to support
the starting and operation of local enterprises/local business (provide grants for community
members for practical applications of digital transformation to boost their business productivity
and to implement digital solutions and tools).

 To Private sector:
Assist local enterprises with resources crucial for business development;
Supporting local and regional Internet organizations;
Raise funds to support rural community projects that generate revenue to sustain the initiative
and a payback to the investors.

7
Provide workshops, assessment and mentorship explaining everything about business from
ideation to venture scaling, including how to start, build, and scale an impact venture.

 To community’s members:
Must share responsibilities in order to allow the involvements of many people of the
community and also engage and support these kinds of initiatives.
Having as many people as possible understand the process and the rationale behind the
community’s decisions, not only presents a common front when disputes and tensions rise, but
it also provides for a diversity of views and backgrounds among those managing the initiative
[9].

5. Conclusion
The purpose work was to describe and analyze the application of digital transformation in
rural/remote areas. This can be a solution to affordability, connectivity problems provide access
to all and also with economic, social and environment benefits.

This can help unleash the full potential of the communities and with the use of multi-
stakeholder model of Internet governance, all stakeholders can contribute and are important
because a digital transformation journey needs a staged approach with a clear roadmap,
involving a variety of stakeholders, beyond silos and internal/external limitations.

8
Bibliography
1. Baca, C., Belli, L., Huerta, E., & Velasco, K. Community Networks in Latin America:
Challenges, Regulations and Solutions.

2. Butler, J. (2013). Wireless Networking in the Developing World.

3. Capgemini Consulting’s Editorial Board. (2012). Digital Transformation: making it
happen.

4. Engineering D.HUB. Digital Transformation: Leading our customers towards a new

economy of digital ecosystems.

5. Fernando, L., Lokanathan. S., Perera, A. S., Ghouse, A., & Tissera, H. Improving Disease
Outbreak Forecasting Models for efficient targeting of Public Health Resources.
6. Internet Society. Policy Brief Spectrum Approaches for Community Networks.

7. Internet Society. (2018). Unleashing Community Networks: Innovative Licensing

Approaches.

8. Jhunjhunwala, A., Kaur, P. (2017). Enhancing Affordability of Roof-top Solar using

Communications.

9. MORENO, Carlos Rey (2017). Supporting the Creation and Scalability of Affordable
Access Solutions: Understanding Community Networks in Africa.

10. Partnership between the Internet Society and its Georgia Chapter, The Small and Medium
Telecom Operators Association of Georgia, The part of the association LTD Freenet,
technical head of the project – Mr. K. Stalinski, and the Tusheti Development Fund (TDF).
(2017). Clearing a path to the outside world. Using grit, planning, and time to bring the
Internet to Tusheti.

11. Rachata, N., Charoenkwan, P., Yooyativong, T., Chamnongthai, K., Lursinsap, C., &
Higuchi, K. (2008). Automatic prediction system of dengue haemorrhagic-fever outbreak
risk by using entropy and artificial neural network. 2008 International Symposium on
Communications and Information Technologies, ISCIT, 210 214.

12. Saeb, S., Lattie, E. G., Schueller, S. M., Kording, K. P., Mohr, D. C. (2016) The relationship
between mobile phone location sensor data and depressive symptom severity. PeerJ
4:e2537.

13. Services for Australian Rural and Remote Allied Health (SARRAH). Literature Review
Supporting the transition of Allied Health Professionals to Remote and Rural Practice.

14. Song, S., Moreno, C.R., & Jensen, M. Innovations in Spectrum Management: Enabling
community networks and small operators to connect the unconnected.

15. Torero, M. The Impact of Rural Electrification: Challenges and Ways Forward.

16. Ziyadin, S., Suieubayev, S., & Utegenova, A. (2019). Digital Transformation in Business.