USM, PhilRice develop low-cost Wi-Fi

To access the Internet through a broadband connection, extension workers and farmers need not look further than the ordinary kitchen.

In an effort to provide wider access to information for Filipino farmers and extension workers, information and communication technology (ICT) specialists from the University of Southern Mindanao (USM) and the PhilRice have developed a "low-tech" solution to connect to the Internet through Wi-Fi (wireless fidelity) using antennas made of pots and pans.

PhilRice and USM, lead agency and a partner institution of the Open Academy for Philippine Agriculture, respectively, fabricated antennas from common household items. The antennas can be used with wireless networking equipment for Wi-Fi connectivity.

"Instead of buying expensive outdoor Wi-Fi equipment, we roll our own. We can deploy cheaper solutions with this setup," Roger F. Barroga, Open Academy program director, said. Commercial outdoor Wi-Fi equipment costs from P80,000 to P150,000 per pair, and the grid antennas that go with them cost another P15,000.

"Sourcing them is also another factor. We managed to cut down the costs considerably by making our own from readily available equipment and materials. Our setup costs around P10,000," Barroga said.

Wi-Fi, or "wireless fidelity," is a brand identity for IEEE 802.11a/b/g, a network connection standard that works on the 2.4-GHz radio band. Products certified as Wi-Fi are interoperable with each other, even if they are from different manufacturers. Typical Wi-Fi equipment operate at a range of up to 400 meters outdoors.

"We downloaded antenna designs from the Internet, and with our own modified designs, we were able to extend the range from 800 meters to two kilometers," USM ICT chief Virgilio S. Oliva Jr. said. The farthest reach was 34 km in Kidapawan, North Cotabato, using 100mw Wi-Fi radio transmitters, he added.

According to Oliva, the USM campus network in Kabacan, North Cotabato is already Wi-Fi connected even before the De La Salle University in Manila announced its wireless campus network.

The cost of broadband Internet connection in the country is still prohibitive, and there are still areas that are not covered by telecommunications companies (telcos) and Internet service providers (ISPs). A typical leased line costs P40,000 a month while DSL (digital subscriber line) costs P60,000 monthly. To defray the costs, agencies and offices in the same region can share a broadband Internet connection.

Barroga said Wi-Fi solutions will come in to address the location of offices and their distance from one another in this situation. PhilRice and USM use a cluster network design to connect the different offices to a shared broadband connection.

"One office will be the access point for all the offices in the area," Luis Tamani, PhilRice network administrator, said. He said they can connect other offices within 20 km of the access point through Wi-Fi using "either low-cost, low-power antennas, or high-powered ones for greater distances."

Low-cost Wi-Fi has been successfully deployed since 2002 and are undergoing field testing in PhilRice branches in Isabela, Muñoz Science City, Los Baños, Laguna, and Agusan del Sur, as well as the USM campus. These sites are also Open Academy pilot areas.

The Pinoy Farmers’ Internet, as the Open Academy is more popularly known, use the broadband Internet backbones of the Philippine Research, Education and Government Information Network (Preginet), a project of the Department of Science and Technology’s Advanced Science and Technology Institute, the Agriculture and Fisheries Research and Development Information System of the

Department of Agriculture, and the DA’s National Information Network.

"From these backbones and using our Wi-Fi connectivity solution, we can reach farther and wider and connect more sites where farmers and extension workers can converge to access content on the Pinoy Farmers’ Internet portal," Barroga said.

"We can leverage broadband to deliver up-to-date and appropriate agricultural technologies to our extension workers and farmers," the program director said.