Information and Communications Technology for Billions (ICT4B) is a multi-disciplinary collaboration with UC Berkeley, Intel Research, and ICSI. We seek to develop hardware and software infrastructure appropriate to developing regions at low cost.

As part of our research, we are doing periodic deployments of our software and hardware in India, cooperating with a number of local organizations to provide Internet and intranet connectivity in rural areas. We also use this time to meet with the number of different organizations also pursuing work in this research area.

This site documents the second of these deployments, shortly following the Indian Ocean earthquake of December 26, 2004. In addition to providing maintenance and upgrades for the previous deployment in Pondicherry, we are installing links in Theni/Madurai, Thiruvaiyaru (Southern Tamil Nadu), and Mallapuram (Kerala).

We are endeavoring to partner with MSSRF and other organizations to aid in the infrastructure for providing relief to the victims of the tsunami disaster. Several of the MSSRF i-Villages, including Nallavadu, experienced severe property loss and damage.

This is a continuation of the previous project, extending it by also establishing links in Theni (for Aravind Eye Hospital) and Southern Tamil Nadu (for MSSRF). We are using boards manufactured by Soekris Engineering, and Netgear and SMC 802.11 cards with the Atheros chipset.

Although it is widely known that the power in India is somewhat unreliable, we would like to be able to better characterize the "badness" of the power, by measuring voltage variances, and tracking power outages. Our study includes both direct AC power, and that of the solar augmented battery backups. Power meters were deployed in several locations in December 2004, by Alan Mainwaring of Intel Research, Berkeley. During this trip, we are gathering more data, and checking on the status of the power meters. Time and technology permitting, we will establish infrastructure to enable remote monitoring of the power.

We are endeavoring to partner with MSSRF and other organizations to aid in the infrastructure for providing relief to the victims of the tsunami disaster. Several of the MSSRF i-Villages, including Nallavadu, experienced severe property loss and damage.