Community Radio for Social Development

Balachandran C.

Technical Architect Gram Vaani Community Media Pvt. Ltd.

AIT, Bangkok

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Community Radio Stations

    Radio Stations that cater to the needs of groups of people with shared interests.

Mandate of being for the people.

Typically, they serve the local community – say, a group of villages within 20 km radius of the station.

They try to fulfill needs in public health, economic, social and cultural spheres.

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Community Radio Stations

     Health Lectures on Hygiene, Information on Immunization drives, Women’s health Economic needs Job opportunities in the nearby cities, Provide knowledge on locally dominant economic activities (agriculture, weaving, fishing) Political Local governance, Political debates Cultural Preserving local dialects, art forms, oral tradition Educational

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Distinguishing Features

     Mandate of serving the people sets the agenda  Profitability takes the back seat Restricted footprint for a given station Community members play a major role in content creation. Reliance on volunteers.

Rules and regulations tend to enforce these aspects in some countries. (e.g. India)

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Effectiveness In Rural Areas

       Speaks the local language Illiteracy is not a barrier Physically accessible. Cheaper to access.

Employs local people, hence easier to approach them Rural people are more likely to be heard Access to radio sets in households or at the local restaurant / public place.

 Mobile phones come with inbuilt radio receivers Quick and easy access to the listeners during emergencies

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CR Movement

  Nature of the movement varies across countries Three examples  Nepal   Thailand India

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Nepal

    One official language and about 90 more recognized regional languages.

There are currently about 150 active stations, which cover a significant part of Nepal.

No legal distinction between CR Stations and commercial stations.

Unifying theme is to promote social justice and social change.

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Nepal – Radio Sagarmatha

     Radio Sagarmatha (Mt. Everest) setup in 1997.

 First in South Asia Broadcasts in Nepali as well as many ethnic languages  Newari, Maithali, Tamang… Emphasizes political freedom   Freedom of expression Right to information for the citizen Temporarily closed due to airing politically sensitive interviews.

Significant role in pushing Nepal towards democracy.

 Nepal became a Federal Democratic Republic in 2008

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Nepal – Radio Sagarmatha

    Very active, broadcasting for 18 hours daily, from 5.00am to 11.00pm.

Transmitting power has gone up from 100w to 1kw. They have established a network of about 50 CR stations.

They claim a regular listenership of 2.5 million people, with programs being relayed to even more

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Nepal – Radio Sagarmatha

    Outgrown its role of serving the local community.

They are very much still a CR Station.

Listeners are invited to walk-in to the station, and interact with the producers.

Palpable impact on Nepalese society    National Politics Policy making Sensitizing society to issues like gender inequality  Rescue and rehabilitation efforts – fires, floods and landslides (2002, 2008)

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Thailand

      Constitution of 1997 laid the foundation Number of CR Stations picked up after 2002 The agency responsible for distributing broadcast rights was not yet setup, leaving a bureaucratic loophole.

Currently estimated to be more than 3000 Predominantly rural Political developments are expected to affect their functioning.

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Thailand

      Made use of by environmental campaigns, anti-mining campaigns in Udon Thani Rural empowerment Political mobilization, Espousing democratic values There are anecdotes about how it has spread goodwill across the Thai-Laoitian border They have been effective in supporting minority ethnic communities, by speaking their language and voicing their opinions.

Emergency response and rehabilitation

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India

    First laws in 2002  Recognized Educational Institutions only. (Campus Radio) By 2006     NGOs and Civil Society Organizations with a good track record NGOs must have been active for at least 3 years.

Not allowed to broadcast news.

Limitation on funding Currently, about 50 GoPs (Grant of Permission) have been issued, the vast majority to educational institutions.

Country with 18 major languages, thousands of dialects spread over 600,000 villages.

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India

  Namma Dhwani (2002) CMC     SHGs Narrowcasting – cassettes, loud speakers, cable connection to classroom, direct to home Put pressure on local government to solve problems related to drinking water, drainage and street lights Women’s empowerment First FM CR stations setup in 2008,   Radio Sangham (AP) – run by local women’s collective Radio Bundelkhand (MP) setup by the NGO - Development Alternatives.

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Radio Bundelkhand

      Financial support from NGO Staff  Couple of people with professional experience  Reporters - young people, volunteers Received training on interviewing techniques – not much on the technical aspects of content production Subsistence agriculture practiced in the region. Programmes on agriculture are popular Programmes on lives of people in the community, culture and heritage, job opportunities, Bundeli Idol “We are not investigative reporters!”

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CR Movement in Developed World

     Australia (450) Sweden (150) out of 290 local communities UK (150) in 5 years Pacifica Network in USA (150) Canada (90)  Shared characteristics – Access, Volunteerism, Diversity, Localism, Independence, Public Media

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Challenges

    Policy  Bureaucracy in licensing Financial sustainability  Capital, Operating Training  Technical, Content creation Ownership & Accountability   NGO vs. Community How it influences the station –Voice, Agenda

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Operational Challenges

      Sustaining volunteers Maintaining Equipment Unreliable Infrastructure  Internet connection  Power Supply Quality sources of content  Language barrier Lack of co-operation from local government bodies Vested interests

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Social Challenges

    Inclusion / Exclusion based on narrow definitions of community Organizational Structure of the station affects its direction  Who has a voice in steering its direction?

Partisanship – ethnic, religious, casteism Local culture  Medium used purely for entertainment

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How can technology help?

   Participation   Increased Equitable – rich/poor, literate/illiterate Funding   Enabling commerce like an application for a market place Suitable commercials Interactivity

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How can technology help?

  Bring CR closer to the people      Speakerphone booths – town halls, schools Debates, games Call-ins to the station IVR for accessing content and leaving opinions/questions Use internet for live streaming, offline access  Long distance Wi-Fi links, KioskNet Need to keep it low cost!

30  Speaker-phone booths in different areas and villages School Panchayat • Discussions • Antakshari • Games • Inter-village communication Meena community Gurjar community

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Gramin Radio Inter - Networking System (GRINS)

Architecture

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Design Criteria

   Fault tolerance    Hardware and software will fail Rest of the system should work Try our best to recover Flexibility   There is no unique set of requirements applicable to all CR Stations System should provide the best performance for available resources Geographical distribution of resources  Connect to other CR stations, content providers, maybe even the local cable operator

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Service Oriented Architecture

Widgets Providers Network Services

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IPC

Controller Machine Server Node Stub Node Service Machine Server Stub Node

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IPC

    Any addressable node implements IPCNode, has a unique name Synchronous messages – RPC Asynchronous messages Persistent messages

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Sample Configuration

UI Machine Controller Resource Manager Playout Service Servlet UI Service IPCServer Preview Service SBC Archiver Service Library Service Monitor Service Index Service Servlet

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Resource Manager

  Availability of resources    Resource Table  Resource Name -> (Type, MachineID, State, List of holders, Persistent Requests) Resource Reservation Resource Interests – Notification Link Monitor

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Services

Service

Audio Archiver Index Library Mic & Monitor UI Telephony

Function

Play audio files Record streams to file Plain text search Database, Media life cycle Routes audio between SCs Graphical Interface Handle telephone calls

Dependency

GStreamer GStreamer Lucene MySQL, Servlets GStreamer Java Swing Asterisk PBX

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Playing Media

Playlist Controller

API: play(file-id)

Playout Provider

Create IPC message PLAY file-id

IPC Server

Forward the message PLAY file-id

Audio Service

Invoke GStreamer

GStreamer

Create session and API: play(filename) return value SUCCESS or FAILURE STATUS code STATUS code API: Callback(status)

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Archiving Media

Controller Archiver Provider

API: startArchive() Create IPC message START ARCHIVE

IPC Server

Forward the message

Archiver Service

START ARCHIVE

Index Service

Invoke GStreamer API: updateIndex STATUS code API: Callback(status) STATUS code

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Robustness

  Need  Rural setting – lack of experts, difficult to reach Approach     Error Avoidance  Testing, Extensive Logging, Log shipping for continuous monitoring Error Isolation  Errors in one service should not affect functionality of others Proactive Checking  Heartbeats Diagnostics for hardware  Error Recovery

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Diagnostics

   Network connections  Ping Audio connections   Check for audio levels Distortions Give feedback (graphical) to the user.

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Error Recovery

    Hardware Errors  Encourage users to use diagnostics before using the system Network disruption   Timely detection Important messages – Persistent messages Service crashes   Wrapper scripts to bring them back up Registration IDs for instances help in maintaining state consistency  Notifications Content  Backup & restore

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Performance

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Hardware Configuration

SBC

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Audio Errors

   Noise Clipping  Adjust gains Clicks

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Audio Click

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ALSA Parameters

    Sample Rate  8kHz, 44.1kHz, 48kHz Period Size  Size (in bytes) of data written to the soundcard at a time.

Buffer Size  Size of buffer expressed in the number of Period Size worth of data Buffer Size Interface type    hw:0 plughw:0 default:0 Latency Size

Data Path

Archiving Sound Card Playout GStreamer Monitor 49 SoundCard ALSA ALSA ALSA GStreamer GStreamer Sound Card ALSA SoundCard

Audio Quality

Audio Quality Clicks Latency 50 IRQ Rates Period Size Archiver Playout Monitor CPU Utilization Encoding Resampling Buffer Size Archiver Playout Monitor

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Audio Quality

  40ms in delay insensitive streams 10ms in delay sensitive streams

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Experience at Bundelkhand

   Playlist management Content management Validating fault tolerance

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Multiplanar Inter-Networking Platform (MINP)

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More Than Just Radio

 Dial-in to the station for live commenting  IVR system for offline commenting, and to access archived content  Text messaging for personal messages, audience feedback, and polls/surveys  Internet connectivity for live streaming and offline sharing of content

One-to-one One-to-many Uni-directional Television, Radio Bi-directional Mobile phones Community media Leverage the existing infrastructure of radio, cable TV, and telephone networks to deliver interactive community media applications

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Uniplanar applications

Communication planes

Internet plane Telephone plane Radio plane

Uniplanar applications

Email Voice communication, SMS Radio broadcast

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Multiplanar applications

Communication planes Multiplanar applications

Internet + Telephone planes Telephone + Radio planes Google Voice: Read voicemail over the Web Interactive radio through dial-in support

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Why multiplanar applications?

 A single plane is not sufficient   Economic context   Broadband Internet is not available everywhere But a rich and diverse local communication infrastructure of radio stations, cellphones, and cable TV is widespread Social context  Everybody is not literate  Need to capture the best features of each plane to build novel applications

Multiplanar communication

Community media Distance learning Agri consultancy

Videos Slides Television Playout Archive Audio Online Offline Telephony Search Share Content CATV Radio PSTN and Cellular Internet 60 The MINP platform can leverage available infrastructure to deliver rich community media applications

A platform oriented approach

61  MINP allows us to build novel applications for different verticals that can:  Simultaneously use radio, telephone, television, and the Internet   Leverage existing infrastructure Work with different agencies in the value chain in a seamless manner

Example verticals

a Education b Agriculture c Community media

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Education

 MINP can be configured to support distance learning from study centers of educational institutions to local cable TV operators in the area

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Agriculture

 MINP can be used to support applications for agricultural consultancy and community marketplaces in a novel manner

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Community media

 MINP can enable the delivery of community media in a low-cost and appropriate manner

Available technologies for different verticals

Layer Service

Broadcast reception Layer 5. End-device in speakerphone or video booths, or at the end-user Interaction Mobile interaction (field reporting) Layer 4: Intra community network (assuming Internet is not already available) Layer 3: Media outlet Layer 2: Inter community network (assuming Internet is not already available) Layer 1: Aggregation point Voice connectivity Video connectivity Radio broadcast Television broadcast Telephony service Voice connectivity Online data connectivity Offline data connectivity Data aggregation Telephony service with toll-free #

Technology

Radio sets,TV sets Landline, cellphone PSTN phone + ATA Android based phones Landline, cellphone network Lo3 or WiFi meshes CATV network FM PCI transmitter Network to CATV headend Asterisk on FXO cards Landline, cellphone network Long distance WiFi links KioskNet Information portal Asterisk on E1 cards

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Offline connectivity with KioskNet

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Offline connectivity with KioskNet

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System design 1/3: One-box automation platform at media outlets

Info broadcast Video Marketplace Playout Education Archiver Online Search Offline Telephony CATV headend Cable network FM transmitter Radio broadcast Syndicate Library on HDD FXO card SIP PSTN or Cellular IP network Broad band WiFi mesh Lo3 mesh

System design 2/3: Example of voice connectivity paths

E1 cards with toll free numbers Landline within community FXO card, but no Internet Phone calls to media outlet Syndication over PSTN-to-SIP Syndication over PSTN voice call Only Internet End-device: PSTN phones No landline within community 69 End-device: PSTN phones with ATA

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System design 3/3: Example of data connectivity paths

Central library No Internet, local library Informal local information collection through USB recorders, mobile phone cameras, Android applications, etc Offline synchronization Online synchronization Internet available

Overarching technology goals

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Goals

Open architecture and protocols

Meeting the goals

  Multiplanar Application Management Protocol Service API      Seamless integration of different planes Easy installation and configuration Low cost Robust Flexible to deploy in different settings  Scalable      Pre-configured boxes, plug-n-play Off-the-shelf equipment and SBCs Rigorous testing Individual services are distributable on different machines, different platforms Focus on scalability right from the beginning

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Research challenges (1/2)

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Versatile

setup and protocols for a multiplanar Internet    Automatic device and service discovery Application development transparent to underlying infrastructure Low-cost integration with locally available communication planes   Multiplanar node

naming and addressing

  Phone number, IP address, flat/hierarchical name?

Lookup service accessible through multiple channels?

Routing algorithms

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Stream routing

: Construction of multicast tree instances? Cost, fairness 

Routing of recorded content

: Time varying graph in disconnected environments? Latency, load, urgency

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Research challenges (2/2)

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Establishment of routing tables

 Control channel over IP, or out-of-band DTMF, SMS?

Content forwarding

  Streams identified by callerid?

Recorded content identified by provenance, metadata predicates?

Content discovery

  Centralized or distributed index?

Multilingual search and indexing?

Low-cost

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low-power

consumption   CPU scaling Vs temperature, IRQ reduction Vs buffer latency Duty cycling