Digital Inclusion on Amazon Region using Wireless Broadband Networks:

NavegaPará Project Lamartine V. de SOUZA1, Edvar L. OLIVEIRA2, Liviane P. RÊGO2, João C. W. A.

COSTA1, Carlos R. L. FRANCÊS1

1Federal University of Pará (UFPA), Rua Augusto Corrêa nº 01 – Guamá - P.O. Box: 8619, Belém, 66.075-900, Brazil

Tel: +559132017740 / +559132011302, Email: {lvsouza, jweyl, rfrances}@ufpa.br 2Processamento de Dados do Estado do Pará, Rodovia Augusto Montenegro, S/N - Km 10,

Belém, 66820-000, Brazil Tel: +559133445318, Email: {edvar.oliveira, liviane.rego}@prodepa.pa.gov.br

Abstract: This work presents an alternative solution for digital inclusion using wireless broadband networks installed in some remote cities in Amazon region. In 15 cities of Pará State, Brazil, the local government is installing public wireless networks to provide wideband internet access to public agents, such as municipalities, schools, hospitals, police stations and office buildings in a project named NavegaPará. An optical backbone based on OPGW (optical ground wire) cables is implemented with 2,000 km long. This backbone reach 15 cities and each city has a radio base station working on 5.7 GHz and serving around 30 subscribers that use an individual broadband transceiver (IBT) to access the network. The available infrastructure is useful to local government offer also public Internet centres, which have free access to computers and the training needed to use them effectively on the job and in daily life.

1. Introduction As of January 2007, amongst the strategical activities being developed in the State of Pará, Brazil by the Pará Government is the NavegaPará program, with the objective of creating a communications network for the interconnectivity of all Government units within the state, aimed at the promotion of widespread digital inclusion on the part of the citizen, benefiting Pará society and also offering a wide range of services, such as: enabling access on the part of state and institutional educational and research units to the fiber optic network; creating a favourable atmosphere for the incorporation of technology and innovation in terms of processes and products; increasing competitive advantages within regional, national and international plans; facilitating the implementation of company networks and agglomerations within productive setups; electronic governance; distance learning and telemedicine services. As to the deployment of its communication network, the Pará State solidified technical cooperative agreements in conjunction with various different public and private institutions so as to share already existing resources and inbuilt infrastructures, highlighting amongst these, the following: • A technical cooperation agreement with the Federal University of Pará (UFPA), for the

utilisation of the METROBEL consortium fiber optic network and interconnection to its units within the metropolitan region of Belém;

• A technical cooperation agreement with ‘Centrais Elétricas do Norte do Brasil S.A.’ (Northern Brazil Electrical Stations Ltd), ELETRONORTE, for the utilization of the fiber

24

optic network infrastructure over the company’s Optical Ground Wire (OPGW) cables, and the interconnection of further units located in municipalities throughout the company’s power transmission system and also contained within the Technical Cooperation Agreement;

• A technical cooperation agreement with CELPA (Pará Electrical Stations) for the utilization of the company pylon infrastructure for the supporting of established fiber optic cables, as well as the use of telecommunications towers;

• A technical cooperation agreement with VALE (Brazilian mining company) for the use of the company’s fiber optic network infrastructure, utilized in the monitoring of their proprietary ‘pipeline’, interconnecting the Paragominas bauxite mine to the Alunorte unit (one of the group’s companies) in Barcarena, both within the state of Pará;

• Cooperation agreements between State organisms for the establishment of partnerships, with the objective of reducing costs through the joint usage of telecommunications and physical space infrastructures held within these institutions, such as public safety organisms and also that of FUNTELPA (Pará Telecommunications Foundation – television producer and broadcaster);

• Agreements with certain entities for the deployment and maintenance of infocenters, such as the Bahia state and Ministry of Science and Technology for the utilisation of the infocenter management system and also the Pará State Bank (BANPARÁ) for maintenance of energy rates and also the Banco de Amazônia (Amazonian Bank) for monitor payments.

Thus, in a short space of time, it has been possible to implement a modern communication network and thereby create a state information highway with a backbone of more than 2,000 km over optical networks, operating using systems with transmission rates of up to 17 Gbps, servicing 15 cities in its first phase, as shown in Figure 1 and Figure 2.

Figure 1: State of Pará, Brazil.

25

Figure 2: 15 cities on NavegaPará Program – Phase 1.

In this situation, Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) technology is used, supplemented by high capacity radio links with bit rates of up to 300 Mbps. Within the serviced municipalities, digital cities will be established, in which the various units are connected, with access via metropolitan fiber optic networks, with bit-rates of up to 1 Gbps (in the case of the cities of Belém and Ananindeua) or with broadband wireless network technology, with minimum bit-rates of 512 kbps. By December 2008, more than 1,000 government units will be integrated into the NavegaPará system, including schools, hospitals, health centres, public safety organisms, public education and research institutions, other state and municipal government bureaus, institutions from the third or non-profit sectors and also, for general access, 100 public infocenters. Within this phase, the NavegaPará project will benefit more than 2,500,000 people by the end of December 2008, thus integrating 15 cities until December 2008 (Phase 1) and another 46 cities until December 2009 (Phase 2) in Pará. Table 1 shows the number of subscribers for each city on Phase 1.

Cities Subscribers Abaetetuba 24

Altamira 39 Barcarena 22

Belém 165 Itaituba 54 Jacundá 28 Marabá 57 Marituba 30 Pacajá 26

Rurópolis 37 Santa Maria do Pará 20

Santarém 58 Tailândia 25 Tucurui 36 Uruará 16 Total 637

Table 1: Number of subscribers for each city on Phase 1.

26

During 2009 and 2010, the extension of the network is anticipated for other regions, utilizing strategies similar to those already used in the expansion of the backbone, such as, for example, the utilization of fiber optic networks used in electrical power distribution systems already under development within the state. The NavegaPará project is being jointly implemented by The State Secretary of Technology, Science and Development (SEDECT) and also by The Pará State Data Processing Company (PRODEPA). PRODEPA has been authorized to supply telecommunications services [1] in order to provide network access at State and national territory levels. In order to guarantee network support, the State Government promoted investment in the modernization of infrastructures and human resource specialization within PRODEPA, implementing a Network Management Centre (NMC) within the company and subsequently contracting specialists, via public resources, for traditional Information Technology system areas and new Telecommunications areas alike, thereby becoming a reference company in Information and Communication Technologies – ICT. Human Resources training activities in the ICT area have been complemented by the creation of a modern telecommunications network evaluation laboratory within the Guamá Science and Technology Park at the Federal University of Pará (UFPA), with the promotion of ICT network research and innovation training in partnership with The State of São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESPA). The rest of this paper is organized as follows. Next section we explain the basic concepts of Information Highway concept and its technical characteristics. In section 3, we present the wireless broadband networks used in NavegaPará project. Finally, conclusions and possible future researches are drawn in section 4.

2. Optical Backbone The transport network (or optical backbone) will attend to the needs of the State of Pará area, interconnecting the main units which are and will be comprised of: Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) systems and the Synchronous Digital Hierarchy (SDH) system – STM-16 (2.5 Gbps). Such a network will be implemented throughout the State of Pará along the transmission lines within the areas close to the ELETRONORTE substations and repeater stations. The DWDM system, in the direction of Marabá to Santa Maria, will have a final capacity of 8 lambdas, being a single lambda of 10 Gbps and 7 other lambdas of 2.5 Gbps, as described as follows: • six 2.5 Gbps channels (available for general traffic); • one 2.5 Gbps channel for SDH transportation (STM-16); • one 10 Gbps channel (available for general traffic). The DWDM system, in the direction of Tucuruí to Rurópolis will have a final capacity of Eight 2.5 Gbps lambdas, as described as follows: • seven 2.5 Gbps channels (available for general traffic); • one 2.5 Gbps channel for SDH transportation (STM-16). The DWDM system, in the directions of Rurópolis to Santarém and Rurópolis to Itaituba, will have a final capacity of Five 2.5 Gbps lambdas, as described as follows: • four 2.5 Gbps channels (available for general traffic); • one 2.5 Gbps channel for SDH transportation (STM-16). There will also be the inclusion of units with Ethernet tributary interfaces across all SDH STM-16 and STM-4 equipments. The SDH system must essentially be configured of 63 E1 circuits (2 Mbps - G.703 of the ITU-T), STM4. Dependent on each location, variations can occur in the STM4 Access quantities.

27

3. Wireless Broadband Networks The State Government Digital Cities project consists of the installation of broadband wireless networks within the cities thus serviced. This is considered to be the last mile access of the project and will allow for the access of governmental entities (federal, state and municipal) and non-governmental entities that have, what is considered, to be a social impact character. The wireless networks installed within these cities operate over a 5.7 GHz frequency range, and hence do not require an operating licence in conjunction with Anatel for the utilization of such frequencies. Nevertheless, for the availability of MCS services (Multimedia Communication Services), Prodepa does already have a licence in conjunction with Anatel for the providing of these types of services to the Pará State Government. A server station will be installed within the State Government/Eletronorte POP within each city, thus broadcasting the radio signal to the customer stations. The customer stations will be State and Municipal Government organisms, such as: schools, state and municipal secretariats, health centres and hospitals, police stations, Military Police barracks, Fire departments, etc. There are basically two types of interconnection plans utilized within the Pará State Government project: • Backhaul links; • Point-multipoint links. The backhaul links (links of high transmission capacity) are point-to-point radio links that permit the transmission of traffic at a rate of up to 300 Mbps at distances of up to 50 km [2]. Such links are characteristic for the servicing of locations that are distant from the Pará State Government/Eletronorte POPs. Figure 3 presents a basic interconnection diagram of a backhaul link between 2 cities.

Figure 3: Backhaul link between Capanema and Primavera cities using a 150 Mbps radio.

The point-multipoint links are radio links which are utilized over the last mile interconnection, in other words, the links that effectively connect the final end-user of the system. The effective bitrate for this type of link is in the range of 6 Mbps and can reach average distances of up to 3.2 km, with the possibility of reaching up to 16 km in distance (in

28

these cases the client uses a directional antenna – normally being a type of reflector antenna) [3]. Figure 4 illustrates a typical coverage interconnection diagram for this type of system.

Figure 4: Typical radio coverage of NavegaPará project, Santarém City.

Besides the customer stations, there will be a public access Internet point at each location, where a wireless 2.4 GHz network will give free access to the local population.

4. Conclusion This system will allow for a reduction and/or elimination of Internet and telephone related costs in cases where an Internet access network had previously been made available. Moreover, allowing also an ideal setting for the development and deployment of various kinds of solutions such as digital TV, VoIP, collaborative solutions, systems for tracking public, among other solutions that require a high bandwidth, before it is not possible to be implemented as there was no kind of infrastructure able to meet the minimum requirements. In some cities, such a system will be a pioneering process in taking digital service access to the populace. Additionally, it will provide access to a trustworthy data network at a much greater velocity than existing networks, making effective electronic governance possible by the thus involved organisms.

Acknowledgment Authors would like to thank the Pará State Government, Brazil, and Federal University of Pará, Department of Electrical and Computing Engineering, Belém, Pará, Brazil.

References [1] Ato ANATEL Nº 2.720, publicado no Diário Oficial da União de 8 de maio de 2008. [2] Technical Specifications Motorola Point-To-Point Broadband Wireless Solutions, Motorola, November 2006. [3] Specifications Sheet - Motorola Canopy 5.7 GHz SM, 2007.

29