Grantee	Janata Wifi
Project Title	Affordable Internet For The Community By The Community
Amount Awarded	USD 30,000
Dates covered by this report:	2023-01-01 to 2024-02-29
Report submission date	2024-05-22
Economies where project was implemented	Bangladesh
Project leader name	Mainul Hasan Alin
Partner organization	Link3 Technologies Ltd

Project Summary

Janata Wifi: Affordable Internet for the community by the community is an initiative to bridge the digital divide and uplift the quality of life for low-income populations.

Objective 1: Based on the current economic scenario and hiked prices in Bangladesh, our objective is to set up 30 community Wi-Fi zones in collaboration with one nationwide ISP, serving 15,000 Internet users.

Objective 2: Prove that this model works at various different locations and any financier can invest in this model and can expect the business to recoup the invested money within 6 months of investment date, ensuring the payback of the financier.

Objective 3: Showing 100,000 Ads to 15,000 unique users in a single month at 30 community Wi-Fi zones. Attracting interest of advertisers.

The main activities conducted during the reporting period:

• We have found 81 low-income high-density locations with broadband availability. (Target was to find 50)
• We have set up 28 community Wi-Fi zones.
• We have been collaborating with a nationwide ISP Link3 and a Student Representative in Trishal district. Discussion is underway about running a pilot with Unilever Bangladesh Limited.
• Monitoring, Optimizing:
  • We have been continuously monitoring the community wi-fi zones to ensure close to 100% uptime
  • We have been identifying and documenting all possible issues
  • We have optimized the process of searching and selecting locations to ensure
    • the selected locations are frequently visited by community members living in the vicinity
    • people from different age groups can use the Internet at the wi-fi zones
  • We have optimized our hardware-software system to ensure
    • Scalability
    • affordability despite global price inflation
    • higher data transfer rates
    • support for larger number of concurrent users

Key Recommendations & Learnings

• There is a massive demand for Content Driven free Internet in Bangladesh. You can make people take a certain series of actions within a captive portal for a reward of free Internet.
• It is possible to do behavioral modification of young and new Internet users with short tutorial videos that they have to watch several times a week.
• Village Level ISPs felt threatened when when we wanted to set up free wifi zones, they feared their paid connection in that areas will diminish and the revenue from ads wouldn't cover it. But a recommendation from a friendly ISP owner may sway their mind on this.
• Have multiple ISP contacts in an Area, as one ISP might not be able to provide connection at a place but the other might.
• Smaller ISPs can move quickly, but it is also very hard to convince them of a new technology as they wont have that technology understanding.
• Anticipating forex rate changes are necessary if you have a plan to import hardware throughout

Table of Contents

• Background and Justification
• Project Implementation Narrative
• Project Activities, Deliverables and Indicators
• Project Review and Assessment
• Diversity and Inclusion
• Project Communication
• Project Sustainability
• Project Management
• Project Recommendations and Use of Findings
• Bibliography

Background and Justification

Problems

• In Bangladesh 90% of Internet users are primarily mobile Internet users, and mobile Internet which is mostly 3G and 4G, is expensive, volume based, and unreliable.
• Internet users have a very limited view of what the Internet is, most people believe the Internet is one or two large social medias, they have very little idea about how the Internet means a broader set of components that enables you to uplift yourself through education, e-commerce and online jobs.
• Initial cost of setting up a cable broadband connection at home is too high for low-income people. In Bangladesh the initial cost of setting up a fixed broadband connection at home is too high for low-income individuals. A subscriber has to pay for the Router, one time cost to the ISP for setting up the connection and the first month’s subscription fee. It is very difficult for low-income individuals to spend all that money at once. Also, due to frequent power outages in Bangladesh, home subscribers have to invest in power backup systems which adds to the expense of maintaining a home connection.

Other projects which have attempted to provide affordable broadband Internet through public wi-fi zones.

A project was initiated for the Karail slum in Dhaka city. The project team set up access points throughout the slum to provide free Internet to the community residing there. They used high capacity CISCO outdoor routers as access points which cost around 3000 USD. The project was not financially sustainable and failed. By observing that project we learned that

• Any attempt to provide public wi-fi in Bangladesh must be affordable
• Community wi-fi projects must be designed to provide incentives to all stakeholders and be financially sustainable.

Motivation of our organization and team members to do this project and offer a solution

• The founders of the projects and its current employees all come from the bottom 80% income group of the country, and the Internet has played a big role in our life so far. We recognize that being connected to the open Internet and knowing how to use it well can drastically change individual lives and the lives of their families.
• Given the median age of the people of the country is 27, Bangladesh with its large young population can either become crippled by unemployment if the youth is not educated, or can become an economic powerhouse with its youth educated. The ONLY way to educate and employ this large young population is through the Internet. This will define the success and failure of the country in the next 20 years.
• The project reduces the primary friction of availability, and affordability by bringing low-cost high-speed mobile broadband to lower income populations.
• The project massively innovates on the User interface and Business model, to ensure the long term sustainability of participants, which increases the probability of this project scaling up.
• The project makes adoption really easy through its simple software interfaces for ISP, Micro-Merchants, Consumer Brands and Internet users.

The project’s theory of change

Janata Wi-Fi: Affordable Internet for the community by the community project is driven by the vision of bridging the digital divide in Bangladesh and empowering low-income populations with affordable and reliable Internet access. The theory of change revolves around three key pillars:

• Accessibility: The project addresses the significant barriers faced by low-income communities in accessing the Internet. By establishing 30 community Wi-Fi zones in collaboration with a nationwide ISP, it brings affordable Internet connectivity closer to the people. The ease of use and accessibility of the hardware and software system ensures that even low-educated individuals from diverse regions can utilize the service.
• Economic Empowerment: Janata Wifi aims to demonstrate a viable business model for community Wi-Fi zones, making it attractive for financiers to invest. The project's scalability, rapid adoption, and affordability help attract investors and ensure a positive payback. Additionally, by showing targeted advertisements to users, it creates incentives for advertisers to view the community Wi-Fi zones as a viable proximity marketing platform. This generates additional revenue streams, fostering economic empowerment for all stakeholders.
• Digital Literacy and Education: Through the free access to education resources, e-commerce platforms, and online job opportunities, Janata Wifi seeks to dispel misconceptions about the Internet's potential. By expanding Internet users' understanding of its diverse applications, the project aims to empower individuals with knowledge, skills, and opportunities for personal and professional growth.

Project Implementation Narrative

Problem Statement:

In Bangladesh, 90% of Internet users rely on expensive and unreliable mobile data (3G and 4G), making it unaffordable for low-income populations. Additionally, the initial setup cost of fixed broadband at home is too high for many individuals. Moreover, Internet users in these communities have a limited understanding of the Internet's broader potential beyond social media platforms. The lack of affordable and accessible Internet access hinders digital literacy, education, and economic opportunities for these marginalized populations.

Project Objectives:

Initially the project objectives were the following:

• Setting up 50 community wi-fi zones
• Collaboration with 100 micro-merchants
• Collaboration with 10 ISPs
• Serving 15000 Internet users
• Ensuring an average per user total session time of 67.2hrs over a 6 month period. That would mean 1.008 million hours for all 15,000 users in 6 months.
• Distributing on an average 6.5952GB data to per user over a 6 month period. That would mean 98.928TB data for all 15,000 users in 6 months.

But based on the current economic scenario and hiked prices in Bangladesh, there has been some scope changes made to the project objectives -

• 30 wi-fi zones instead of 50
• collaboration with 50 micro-merchants instead of 100
• collaboration with one nationwide and 4 Regional ISPS instead  of 10

Activities Undertaken in the reporting period

• We searched and selected 81 locations throughout Bangladesh, suitable for setting up community wi-fi zones.
• After receiving approval for 28 locations from our ISP partner Link3, we have set up 28 community wi-fi zones. As Link3 is providing the bandwidth and fiber for the wi-fi zones free of charge, we can only set up the wi-fi zones after getting their approval.
• Sought out affordable locally made power backups. We had to test products from multiple vendors until we found a reliable one.
• We have collaborated with 35 micro-merchants in this period. These merchants run various types of shops such as
  • Tea-stalls
  • Digital Financial Service agents
  • Stationery and writing supply store
  • Fabric seller
  • Snacks shop
  • Photocopy and Digital Print shops
• We distributed over 36000 BDT to the micro-merchants as reward for points they gained from the ads viewed at their wi-fi zones.
• We learned a lot about RF interference and access point placements. This knowledge will greatly help us to set up wi-fi zones in highly dense large venues such as transport hubs.
• We have collaborated with a student representative in Trishal district to set up community wi-fi zones for the students of a public university.
• There are ongoing discussions with Unilever Bangladesh Limited to pilot-test the effectiveness of advertising through the community Wi-Fi zones.

Engaging with the target community and addressing their needs from project design to implementation

The Janata Wifi Project is deeply rooted in the needs and aspirations of the underserved population in rural, urban, and semi-urban areas of Bangladesh. The project team members themselves come from similar socio-economic backgrounds, and their personal experiences have driven their passion to uplift and serve their own communities. Having studied in public schools and colleges and worked during their undergraduate years to cover expenses, we fully understand the transformative power of the Internet in enabling self-growth, skills development, and employment opportunities.

Rather than being distant observers, the project team has actively engaged with the communities they aim to empower throughout their lives. Leveraging their lived experiences, they have forged strong connections with the target population, enabling them to design a project that directly addresses the specific needs and challenges faced by these communities.

The project's approach involves conducting multiple site surveys before establishing community Wi-Fi zones. We strategically select locations such as densely populated areas with lower-income residents, hostels, hospitals, open-air marketplaces, and transport hubs. We also identify key gathering points like tea stalls, snack joints, and Mobile Financial Service agents, where a large number of target customers conduct daily transactions.

In our efforts to understand the Internet needs and usages of the community, the team directly engages with micro-merchants who run these establishments. These micro-merchants serve as valuable sources of information about their customers and their Internet usage patterns. Additionally, we conduct direct conversations with the end-users to gather insights, preferences, and suggestions.

The project's continuous improvement process is deeply informed by feedback from the community. Regular visits to the established community Wi-Fi zones enable the team to gather valuable input from users about service quality, limitations, and potential enhancements. This iterative approach allows the team to fine-tune the project, ensuring affordability, reliability, and ease of use for the community members it seeks to serve.

User feedback has directly influenced critical decisions, such as reducing the duration of advertisements that users need to watch to access Wi-Fi Internet. Moreover, the team actively seeks suggestions for new locations and seeks feedback on marketing materials to optimize community engagement.

The story about the partnerships with other organizations, researchers and community leaders that helped to achieve the project objectives

Link3 Technologies Ltd is a nationwide fixed broadband ISP operating in Bangladesh with close to 140,000 retail subscribers. We had run a POC with them in the May - September 2022 period to test the viability of community wi-fi zones as a bandwidth selling and brand promotion method. At the beginning of that POC, we introduced the option for users to purchase tokens with secret codes on them. To get access to the Internet in our community wi-fi zones a user had to then put in the secret code in the right data field on a Captive Portal page which only worked in the wi-fi zones. We found this token purchase model was not very attractive to people living in urban and semi-urban areas. People living in rural areas are more likely to purchase tokens to get long term Internet access as they can spend a significant time at the shops where the wi-fi zones have been set up. Also, broadband availability and cellular Internet coverage were far more scarce in the villages of Bangladesh compared to the cities and the suburbs. Later when we introduced the Advertisement based free wi-fi model it was well received by the urban and semi-urban audience. As the POC showed great potential, especially for the ad based free model, Link3 showed interest to run another pilot to see if we could get to 100,000 Ad views per month from 100 wi-fi zones. We discussed a collaboration process where Link3 would provide the bandwidth required for the wi-fi zones. They also tried to utilize their countrywide distributor network to help find suitable locations for setting up the zones. Unfortunately, these preparations delayed implementation of the Pilot and as we were relying on Link3 for the free connections and bandwidth for our community wi-fi zones, our project for 50 community wi-fi zones funded by APNIC was also greatly delayed. In May 2023 we began searching locations for setting up wi-fi zones while bearing the full operation expenditure. We are receiving support from the local branches of Link3 to shortlist the areas where we may find these locations. Also, Link3 has agreed to provide free bandwidth for the wi-fi zones for 3 months. Another challenge we face in this partnership is a lengthy approval process. After we communicate a selected location to Link3 for setting up a community wi-fi zone, we have to wait for 1 month on average before the location is approved by them for providing a fixed broadband connection. Collaborating with a large organization with a long-established work process and a tested revenue generation model can be challenging for a startup with limited resources like us. Especially when we are experimenting with an innovative project, getting approval from all the relevant departments was more time consuming for this project was outside the scope of Link3’s regular work. Despite all these challenges the partnership with Link3 has been and is still proving to be very beneficial for the community wi-fi zone project. They are providing free bandwidth for the zones. Also, support from the local Link3 offices has proven to be crucial for reducing cost and time in our search for locations. Currently we are operating community wi-fi zones in Dhaka, Savar, Gazipur, Munshiganj, Mymensingh, Feni, Rangpur, Jessore with broadband connections from Link3 Technologies.

Mehedi a Student Representative in Trishal district, studies at the Jatiya Kabi Kazi Nazrul Islam University situated there. He is a student representative who hopes to provide high-quality affordable Internet for his fellow students. The university administration does not provide any Internet facilities for the 3000+ students residing in the dormitories on campus. This university also has the largest residential hall for female students in South Asia in terms of lodging capacity. Mehedi is highly interested in the community wi-fi zone project. We have already collaborated to set up 5 wi-fi zones on the campus and in the vicinity of the university. We have set up 1 wi-fi zone inside a residential hall for male students. Another has been put in a small store near the center of the campus where both male and female students spend their leisure time to have tea and chat with friends. We are discussing the prospects of covering the whole university campus with more wi-fi zones with Mehedi.

Unilever Bangladesh Limited is one of the largest FMCG brands in Bangladesh. We were considering them as a potential advertiser who would be interested in our network of community wi-fi zones for advertising. We were hoping to approach them after reaching 100,000 Ad views per month from all our community wi-fi zones. To our great surprise they sought us out after visiting our YouTube channel where we had uploaded a couple of videos about our community wi-fi zone project. During our first conversation they proposed conducting a POC to test the viability and effectiveness of advertising through our community wi-fi zones. Discussion is underway to page out the details of this POC.

Activities that we struggled to implement during the reporting period, along with processes and methods originally planned that might need adjustment to achieve our project objectives

Delayed Implementation and Approval Process: One of the significant challenges faced by the project team was the delayed implementation and approval process for setting up community Wi-Fi zones. Collaborating with a large ISP like Link3 Technologies led to a time-consuming approval process for each location. This delayed the establishment of Wi-Fi zones and hindered the project's progress.

Hardware and Software Optimization: The team faced challenges in optimizing the hardware and software systems for community Wi-Fi zones. We needed to ensure scalability, affordability despite global price inflation, higher data transfer rates, and support for a larger number of concurrent users. Adjustments and improvements were made iteratively based on user feedback and lessons learned from various Wi-Fi zone setups.

Engaging Advertisers: Attracting advertisers, especially FMCG brands, to the community Wi-Fi zones proved to be challenging during the reporting period. The project aimed to show targeted advertisements to users and generate incentives for advertisers to view the Wi-Fi zones as a viable proximity marketing platform. However, achieving the desired level of ad views and attracting advertisers required additional efforts and ongoing discussions with potential partners.

Community Outreach and Location Selection: While the project team engaged with micro-merchants operating their businesses in the target communities, finding suitable locations for setting up community Wi-Fi zones was not without challenges. We had to continuously search and identify high-density locations with broadband availability, which required close collaboration with local ISPs and community leaders. Adjustments in the location selection process were necessary to ensure that the selected locations were frequently visited by the target community and accessible to people of different age groups.

Scalability and Adoption: Ensuring the rapid scalability of the project and easy adoption by various stakeholders posed a challenge. While we successfully set up 28 community Wi-Fi zones, scaling up to the original target of 50 zones in the current economic situation would require additional funding.

Thus, we have revised our initial objective of setting up 50 community wi-fi zones to 30 and we are focusing more on optimizing our operations and increasing promotional activities to reach the 15000 Internet user and 100,000 monthly ad views target with this smaller deployment.

Project Activities, Deliverables and Indicators

Beginning of Project

Activity	Description	#Months
Location Identification	Find 50 lower income high density locations with fixed broadband availability.	2
Infra Setup	Train, Ship and Setup the hardware and software infrastructure	4

Throughout the Project

Activity	Description	#Months
Partner Onboarding	Convince ISPs, Consumer Brands and Micro-Merchants in those areas for selling sacheted wifi internet, and providing free internet.	6
Monitoring, Optimizing	Monitor the network infrastructure, sales, customer experience and improving the product	6

Indicators

Deliverable	Status
Provide Internet to 15000 unique users through 30 community wi-fi zones by February 2024	Completed
User Session Time: average 67.2hrs per user by February 2024	Completed
Amount of Data Distributed: average 6.5952GB data to per user by February 2024	Completed

Key Deliverables - Detail

Deliverable: Provide Internet to 15000 unique users through 30 community wi-fi zones by February 2024 Status: Completed Start Date: May 1, 2022 Completion Date: Baseline: Most people in Bangladesh do not have access to Unlimited Cable Broadband due to the barrier of initial investment of home connection cost which includes fiber price, ONU price and Access Point price. 90% of internet users in Bangladesh are mobile internet users. Vast majority of them use cheap mobile phones and live in densely populated areas. For them high quality mobile broadband such as 4G for a month, costs nerly 10% of monthly income, also the 4G speed in Bangladeshi Dense urban areas does not meet Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission's standard of minimum 7mbps. A solution which allows mobile phone users to enjoy the benefits of Cable Broadband Internet was direly needed. Activities: - We searched and selected 81 locations throughout Bangladesh, suitable for setting up community wi-fi zones. - We provided internet to 3683 unique individuals users in our community wi-fi zones - Sought out affordable locally made power backups. We had to test products from multiple vendors until we found a reliable one. - We have collaborated with 35 micro-merchants in this period. These merchants run various types of shops such as Tea-stalls, Digital Financial Service agents, Stationery and writing supply store, Fabric seller, Snacks shop, Photocopy and Digital Print shops etc. - We distributed over 36000 BDT to the micro-merchants as reward for points they gained from the ads viewed at their wi-fi zones. - Besides our partnership with Link3, a nationwide ISP, we have also partnered with a student representative in Trishal district to provide internet primarily to the 3000 resident students of a public university situated there. - We provided public wi-fi on 4 concert venues. Outcomes: - After receiving approval for 28 locations from our ISP partner Link3, we have set up 28 community wi-fi zones in Dhaka, Savar, Gazipur, Munshiganj, Mymensingh, Feni, Rangpur, Jessore districts with Access Points placed in shops run by Micro-merchants. As Link3 is providing the bandwidth and fiber for the wi-fi zones free of charge, we can only set up the wi-fi zones after getting their approval. - We provided internet to 3683 unique individuals users in our community wi-fi zones. - 30 micro-merchants successfully trained on how to troubleshoot day to day basic AP issues. - 53440 Ad Views (Each Ad View gives a user a limited time access to a WiFi Zone AP to use internet without data consumption limit) - We learned a lot about RF interference and access point placements by providing wi-fi to concert venues. This knowledge will greatly help us to set up wi-fi zones in high density large venues such as transport hubs. - We learned that students greatly benefit from free wi-fi internet by taking online classes. So, setting up more wi-fi zones around educational institutions and student hostels and dormitories can greatly benefit them in terms of accessing educational materials. Additional Comments: Provide WiFi based high quality Broadband internet for 15000 unique users by setting up 30 community wi-fi zones in urban, semi-urban and rural areas in Bangladesh. Users will get internet at less than UN Internet Affordability rate of "1 for 2". Based on past experience a lot of these unique individuals would be temporary users who would Sign Up to use the Community WiFi Zones but would not regularly use them. A portion of the unique individuals would use the internet in the Community Wi-Fi Zones on a regular basis. The community wi-fi zones are all supported with power backups to ensure 99% uptime.

Deliverable: User Session Time: average 67.2hrs per user by February 2024 Status: Completed Start Date: May 1, 2022 Completion Date: Baseline:Most people in Bangladesh do not have access to Unlimited Cable Broadband due to the barrier of initial investment of home connection cost which includes fiber price, ONU price and Access Point price. 90% of internet users in Bangladesh are mobile internet users. Vast majority of them use cheap mobile phones and live in densely populated areas. For them high quality mobile broadband such as 4G for a month, costs nerly 10% of monthly income, also the 4G speed in Bangladeshi Dense urban areas does not meet Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission's standard of minimum 7mbps. A solution which allows mobile phone users to enjoy the benefits of Cable Broadband Internet was direly needed. Activities: - From the very beginning of the project, we have kept internet accounting time based instead of volume based. Any balance addition that happens through purchase or ad view are time balance addition for use in an unlimited broadband wifi router. - We have placed reliable and affordable locally made power backups at all the community wi-fi zones. Outcomes: - Average per user total session time until 1 August 2023 was 142 hrs. That means 522,986 hrs for all 3683 users. - The power backups we placed at the wi-fi zones ensured over 97% uptime. Additional Comments: Ensure on an average per user total session time of 67.2hrs over a 6 month period. That would mean 1.008 million hours for all 15,000 users in 6 months.

Deliverable: Amount of Data Distributed: average 6.5952GB data to per user by February 2024 Status: Completed Start Date: May 1, 2022 Completion Date: Baseline: Most people in Bangladesh do not have access to Unlimited Cable Broadband due to the barrier of initial investment of home connection cost which includes fiber price, ONU price and Access Point price. 90% of internet users in Bangladesh are mobile Internet users. Vast majority of them use cheap mobile phones and live in densely populated areas. For them high quality mobile broadband such as 4G for a month, costs nerly 10% of monthly income, also the 4G speed in Bangladeshi Dense urban areas does not meet Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission's standard of minimum 7mbps. A solution which allows mobile phone users to enjoy the benefits of Cable Broadband Internet was direly needed. Activities: - We had set up each wifi zone with 30Mb capacity with one user being able to consume 10Mb Max bandwidth to keep the QoS reasonable for every other user. Outcomes: - Distributed on an average 3.8 GB data to per user until 1 August 2023. That means 13.995 TB data for all 3683 users Additional Comments: Distribute on an average 6.5952GB data to per user over a 6 month period. That would mean 98.928TB data for all 15,000 users in 6 months.

Project Review and Assessment

To what extent the project has achieved its objectives

We provided the following objectives in our approved proposal:

• Setting up 50 wi-fi zones
• Collaboration with 100 micro-merchants
• Collaboration with 10 ISPs
• Serving 15000 internet users
• Ensuring an average per user total session time of 67.2hrs over a 6 month period. That would mean 1.008 million hours for all 15,000 users in 6 months.
• Distributing on an average 6.5952GB data to per user over a 6 month period. That would mean 98.928TB data for all 15,000 users in 6 months.

We have achieved the following things:

• We have set up 28 wi-fi zones
• We have collaborated with 35 micro-merchants
• We are collaborating with one nationwide ISP and 4 Regional ISPs, totaling 5 ISPs
• We have served 11,948 internet users
• Average per user total session time up to 28 March 2024 was 60 hrs. That means 713,822 hrs for all users in this period.
• Distributed on an average 2.2 GB data to per user up to 28 March 2024. That means 26.486 TB data for all 11,948 users.
• 178,384 ad plays have been viewed at the community wi-fi zones.

Note: based on the current economic scenario and hiked prices in Bangladesh, some scope changes have been made to the project objectives:

• Target for wi-fi zones reduced from 50 to 30
• Target for micro-merchants reduced from 100 to 50
• Target for ISPs reduced from 10 to 1 nationwide ISP and a couple of local ISPs

The most important findings, outcomes, and outputs of the project can be summarized as the following

Community Wi-Fi Zones: The project successfully set up 28 community Wi-Fi zones in various locations, serving low-income populations in rural, urban, and semi-urban areas of Bangladesh. These zones offer affordable and reliable internet access, bridging the digital divide and empowering underserved communities.

User Engagement and Feedback: The project team actively engaged with the target community throughout the project's design and implementation phases. By directly interacting with micro-merchants and end-users, the team gained valuable insights into the internet needs, preferences, and challenges faced by the community. User feedback has been instrumental in improving service quality, reducing ad duration, and optimizing hardware-software systems.

Business Model Viability: The project demonstrated the viability of its innovative business model, attracting collaboration with Link3 Technologies Ltd, a nationwide ISP, and Unilever Bangladesh Limited, a major FMCG brand. The ad-based free Wi-Fi model has been well-received by urban and semi-urban users, creating incentives for advertisers and generating additional revenue streams.

Educational Impact: Nurul Huda Farabi is a high school student who lives near a community wi-fi zone we have set up in Feni district. Farabi is benefitting from the free internet in our community wi-fi zone. Farabi and other students like him often cannot use cellular internet due to network issues (cellular network in Bangladesh is very poor outside the capital city of Dhaka and a few other major cities). So, they come to the Janata Wifi zone now and then to collect the information they require from various educational websites. As Farabi is studying science, he has to read various scientific papers and documents. So, when they have an urgent need for the internet, they come to the zone for free wi-fi as it benefits them greatly as students. Students like Farabi deal with many limitations like often they do not have the money to purchase cellular internet plans. During those times they basically don't have any option to use the internet to get the information they need. If there are some free wi-fi zones all around the country then students like Farabi will benefit a lot. They would be able to browse the internet together with their friends and discuss the information they need for their studies. It would be very helpful for them.

Partnership and Collaboration: The project formed strategic partnerships with Link3 Technologies Ltd, which provided free bandwidth for the Wi-Fi zones. With Mehedi, a student representative in Trishal district. Additionally, Unilever Bangladesh Limited expressed interest in piloting the effectiveness of advertising through the community Wi-Fi zones.

To promote the project's contributions to internet development and address the needs of the target community, the following plans have been put in place:

Dissemination of Results: The project team will actively share its findings, outcomes, and successes through various channels, including social media, blog articles on the company website and even press releases. The project's YouTube channel will be used to showcase success stories and testimonials from users, emphasizing the impact of affordable internet access.

Research and Academic Collaborations: The project will seek opportunities for collaboration with researchers and academic institutions to study the impact of community Wi-Fi zones on digital literacy, economic empowerment, and educational opportunities for low-income communities. Research outcomes will be shared with the public and relevant stakeholders.

Policy Advocacy: The project team plans to engage with policymakers and relevant government authorities to advocate for initiatives that support affordable internet access and digital inclusion for marginalized populations. Advocacy efforts will aim to create an enabling environment for projects like Janata Wifi to thrive and expand.

Our project has made significant contributions to Internet development in Bangladesh. It has addressed key challenges faced by the underserved and low-income populations, resulting in notable positive impacts:

Increased Internet Accessibility: By setting up 28 community Wi-Fi zones in Dhaka, Savar, Munshiganj, Mymensingh, Trishal, Feni, Rangpur and Jessore, the project has significantly increased internet accessibility for low-income communities. We have provided free internet to 3,683 individuals in this period. These Wi-Fi zones provide a reliable and affordable alternative to expensive and unreliable mobile data services, making it easier for people to connect to the internet.

Bridging the Digital Divide: The story of Riaz Uddin, a micro-merchant and one of our wi-fi zone hosts is really touching. He spends his whole day running his tea store in the underground of Vorosa Supermarket in Savar. Cellular network reception is very poor in the underground so Riaz could not talk to his children at home for the whole day. Now that he can use free internet as the host of a Janata wi-fi zone, he can make video calls to his home and talk to his children. Riaz now gets to see the face of his children when they come back home from school everyday thanks to our community wi-fi zone initiative. Doing the same with cellular internet would be too expensive for someone like Riaz. He wanted to get a fixed broadband connection in his shop before but was discouraged by the initial set up cost. Our community wi-fi zone project has reduced the digital divide for Riaz and other people from lower socio-income backgrounds like him. 

Economic Empowerment: The innovative business model of the project, which involves showing targeted advertisements to users, and selling sachet internet packages via means of tokens has generated additional revenue streams. This has facilitated economic empowerment for 35 micro-merchants we have worked with. Also, by getting the advertisers to pay for the bandwidth in exchange of showing ads can ensure sustainable funding for the community Wi-Fi zones. The positive response from Unilever Bangladesh Limited indicates the attractiveness of the platform for advertisers.

Digital Literacy and Education: Ainul Islam Ayman is a student of Feni Government College. He goes to multiple tutorial classes (locally known as coaching classes) for different courses he is taking at the higher secondary level. For his tutorial lessons he has to go from one tutor’s house to another’s. In between these lessons he attends online classes. There are plenty of online video lessons available for students in Bangladesh such as English language lessons, math tutorials, physics and other core science subjects. Students can benefit by taking classes from the best teachers in the country and in the world thanks to online lessons. But the price of cellular internet is not affordable enough for students to watch coursework videos online. Ayman and his friends used to spend the time between their multiple tutorial classes without doing anything productive. Thanks to the community wi-fi zone we have set up at the Dighir Par area in Feni, they can now spend that time taking online classes. Providing high bandwidth broadband to these students has made it possible for them to access more effective audio-visual learning materials instead of only text-based materials. Mayer and Moreno's (1999) Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning¹ states that deeper learning can occur when information is presented in both text and graphics than by text alone. The theory of Multimedia Learning hinges on the presumptions that there are two channels for learning: auditory and visual.

Scalability and Replicability: The project's success in setting up community Wi-Fi zones and engaging with stakeholders demonstrates its scalability and potential for replication in other underserved communities. The experience gained from running the project has provided valuable insights for fine-tuning the model and optimizing future implementations.

Future performance of the project can be improved by taking into account the following lessons

User-Centric Approach: This lesson emphasizes the importance of involving the community in the project design phase and continuously seeking user feedback to tailor the services to their specific needs.

Financial Sustainability: Exploring diverse funding and revenue generation options to ensure long-term viability and growth would be essential for improving future performance.

Continuous Monitoring and Improvement: Continuous monitoring, optimization, and learning from user feedback is a crucial lesson.

Standardizing Operational Procedures: Future performance can be improved by carefully analyzing and documenting best practices to expand the impact to new regions or communities.

Engaging Advertisers Early: The interest shown by major advertisers like Unilever Bangladesh Limited demonstrates the importance of engaging potential partners early on. Reaching out to stakeholders like advertisers during the planning phase to foster partnerships and secure support can improve future performance.

Addressing Approval Process Challenges: The challenges faced with ISP approvals highlight the importance of addressing bureaucratic hurdles proactively. Anticipating potential approval delays and establishing clear communication channels with partners to streamline the process as well as exploring alternative options can improve future performance.

Personnel Development: Our Field Force at Janata Wifi became very proficient with identifying location and convincing location providers to allow us to set up free wifi zones.

We got good at prepping hardware quickly for sending out to ground for deployment.

Diversity and Inclusion

The project is ensuring gender equity and inclusion by providing high-quality affordable internet to female students. Female university students in Feni and Trishal are already using our community wi-fi zones. There is ongoing discussion with our local partner in Trishal to set up wi-fi zones for a large female student dormitory. This will greatly benefit the female students by providing them access to funding opportunities.

In the project proposal we also set an objective that 50% of the micro-merchant we work with would be women. Unfortunately, we have not been able to achieve that target. Ground reality is that there are far fewer women micro-merchants in Bangladesh. We haven’t found any suitable locations with the host being a woman micro-merchant within the coverage area of our ISP partner.

Our Software interfaces were multilingual with both English and local language, also we hired people from indigenous community as project team member to work as field force in their localities.

Project Communication

Internal communication of the organization for this project has been bottom up for the whole duration of this project. We collected information through field visits about feasible locations to set up community wi-fi zones. Ground realities such as territory disputes among competitor ISP, uninterest from authorities, high cost of laying fiber at some highly popular locations due to distance from Link3 hardware etc. have caused us to change previous decisions and take new approaches on multiple occasions.

Our external communications were primarily focused on micro-merchants and local offices of our ISP partner Link3 as searching and selecting suitable locations proved to be quite time consuming and strenuous work. Our sales officers working at field level primarily engaged with the target community members. We reached out to marketing experts to understand how to promote our activities so that it would help us scale up the number of community wi-fi zones and attract advertisers. In recent times we have begun to upload video documentation of our activities on social media and reaching out to other organizations for funding.

We have presented some of our findings from the project in our local NOG event, BDNOG 17, also on RIPE 87, paper submission in both cases. We were also present at APRICOT 2024 and shared our ideas with the participants in the tutorial and fellow conference visitors.

Project Sustainability

During this reporting period alongside the fund we received from the grant we have also self funded many of our expenses. Thanks to the progress of the project we have established the demand for public wi-fi zones among our target communities. The next 12 months would be all about proving the ability of the business model to generate revenue.

• The advertisement based free wi-fi model has the greatest potential for revenue generation. We already have achieved our desired numbers in the small pilot. This will give us some leverage to raise money for a scaleup of this project.
• We are in the process of raising money from Venture capitalists also selling our software system as a SaaS platform to NSPs in Bangladesh to be sustainable as a project.

Project Management

The project is run by two Fintech and Networking experts from Bangladesh, One Ex Project Manager from Microsoft, along with very capable engineers.

The typical decision making is always driven by data and innovation, we collect data and prepare presentations before every new feature addition. The inputs come from online research, feedback from the ISPs, Micro-Merchants, Customers and our Engineers. All the decisions are made with the opinions from the engineers of the team and voting within the engineers. Before every feature addition complete UI/UX is prepared, then higher level use cases and architecture is prepared, then it goes through a coding process, then testing process, then it gets deployed. We use SCRUM methodology to achieve all these. We intend to scale up our communication with the micro-merchants and customers more by providing them with a direct line of communication with the engineer in our next update.

Project Recommendations and Use of Findings

The project team conducted multiple site surveys to identify suitable locations for community Wi-Fi zones. Based on findings from these surveys, we have optimized the process of selecting locations that were densely populated and frequently visited by the target community. This data-driven approach ensured the effective deployment of Wi-Fi zones in areas with higher demand, improving the overall impact of the project.

Based on the current economic scenario and challenges faced, we adjusted the scope of the project objectives, focusing on 30 Wi-Fi zones instead of the initially planned 50. Instead of spending on hardware and spreading out our operations even wider, it would be better to increase promotional activities to inform more unique individuals about the wi-fi zones. We are focusing more on things like ensuring quality of service for the users so that more people are drawn to a smaller number of wi-fi zones.

Based on the context of this conversation and the project's experiences, the project team would like to offer the following recommendations to other practitioners or researchers in the field facing similar problems or implementing similar solutions:

• Engage with the Target Community
• Take an iterative Approach to Project Design
• Ensure that your Decision Making process is Data-Driven
• Prioritize financial sustainability by exploring innovative revenue generation models
• Strengthen the project team's capacity through continuous learning and skill development
• Focus on Digital Literacy and Education
• Tailor the project's approach and solutions to suit the specific needs and challenges of the local context
• Embrace a culture of continuous improvement and innovation
• Encourage collaboration and knowledge-sharing with other organizations, researchers, and community leaders in the field

Bibliography

1. Moreno, R., & Mayer, R. E. (1999). Cognitive principles of multimedia learning: The role of modality and contiguity.

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