corDECT was designed with the economic realities of developing countries’ rural areas in mind. It is low cost, easy to deploy, and has minimal maintenance requirements. Key components of the system, such as the DECT Interface Unit (DIU) and relay base stations (RBSs)—used to extend the network’s reach—are energy efficient and can use solar power.

6.10. Case Study - Connecting Macedonia(28)

In 2006, USAID funded the Macedonia Connects (MK Connects) project, which was designed and implemented by AED. The basic logic of the project was that there was strong public sector demand for connectivity (in this case for schools) that was going to be very expensive to supply if the schools were the only clients. However, the market power of all of the schools as a client base was sufficient to entice a private sector firm to build a national network that could serve anyone in the schools’ communities. The guaranteed business of the schools for a multiyear period significantly reduced the entrepreneur’s risk and was a strong inducement. This market power enabled the public sector to procure school connectivity under a contract that required the winner to implement a business plan for a national broadband service.

Under this initiative, AED put out a competitive procurement to local firms, offering them the connectivity contract for all of the nation’s schools for a certain period, if they would build a network that could also offer affordable service to all residents of the area around the school. The contractor could use any technology it liked, provided that other residents throughout the country could buy service at price levels that were geared to the least expensive comparable service in Western Europe. The contracting firm had to serve all the schools in the first year, which ensured that rural communities would get their service at the same time as urban areas.

The winning proposal, from an ISP, called OnNet, used a combination of prestandard WiMax-like technology and WiFi mesh networks to offer very inexpensive service in every community with a school. The aim of the initiative, which will end in September 2007, is not only to increase Internet access and use across the country in schools, but also to accelerate economic and social development by connecting individuals, NGOs, businesses, and government offices to the Internet. In this case, the simple act of using the schools’ connection to leverage a larger, private sector investment catapulted Macedonia into the position of having the first national wireless broadband network in the world.

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