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Community Radio for Social
Development
Balachandran C.
Technical Architect
Gram Vaani Community Media Pvt. Ltd.
AIT, Bangkok
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
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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
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
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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
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!
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 Speaker-phone booths in different areas and
villages
Panchayat
School
Meena
community
Gurjar
community
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• Discussions
• Antakshari
• Games
• Inter-village
communication
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
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the local cable operator
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
UI Service
Servlet
IPCServer
SBC
Preview Service
Archiver Service
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Library Service
Index Service
Monitor Service
Servlet
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
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Service
Function
Dependency
Audio
Play audio files
GStreamer
Archiver
Record streams to file
GStreamer
Index
Plain text search
Lucene
Library
Database, Media life cycle
MySQL, Servlets
Mic & Monitor
Routes audio between SCs
GStreamer
UI
Graphical Interface
Java Swing
Telephony
Handle telephone calls
Asterisk PBX
Playing Media
Playlist Controller
Playout Provider
API: play(file-id)
IPC Server
Audio Service
GStreamer
Create IPC
message
PLAY file-id
Forward the
message
PLAY file-id
Create session and
Invoke GStreamer
API: play(filename)
return value
STATUS code
STATUS code
API: Callback(status)
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SUCCESS
or
FAILURE
Archiving Media
Controller
Archiver Provider
API: startArchive()
IPC Server
Archiver Service
Index Service
Create IPC
message
START ARCHIVE
Forward the
message
START ARCHIVE
Invoke GStreamer
API: updateIndex
STATUS code
STATUS code
API: Callback(status)
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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
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 Backup & restore
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
 Interface type
Buffer Size
 hw:0
 plughw:0
 default:0
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Latency Size
Data Path
Archiving
Sound Card
ALSA
GStreamer
ALSA
Sound Card
Playout
GStreamer
Monitor
SoundCard
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ALSA
GStreamer
ALSA
SoundCard
Audio Quality
Audio Quality
Clicks
Latency
IRQ Rates
Period Size
Archiver
Playout
Monitor
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CPU Utilization
Encoding
Resampling
Buffer Size
Archiver
Playout
Monitor
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
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Uni-directional
One-to-one
One-to-many
Bi-directional
Mobile phones
Television, Radio
Community media
Leverage the existing infrastructure of radio, cable
TV, and telephone networks to deliver interactive
community media applications
Uniplanar applications
Communication planes
Uniplanar applications
Internet plane
Email
Telephone plane
Voice communication,
SMS
Radio plane
Radio broadcast
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Multiplanar applications
Communication planes
Internet +
Telephone planes
Telephone +
Radio planes
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Multiplanar applications
Google Voice: Read
voicemail over the Web
Interactive radio
through dial-in support
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
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Services
Solns
Multiplanar communication
Community media
Videos
Slides
Distance learning
Playout
Television
Audio
Radio
Online
Offline
Telephony
PSTN and Cellular
Search
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Share
Content
Internet
Infrastructure
CATV
Archive
Agri consultancy
The MINP platform can leverage available infrastructure to
deliver rich community media applications
A platform oriented approach
 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
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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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b
Agriculture
 MINP can be used to support applications for agricultural consultancy and
community marketplaces in a novel manner
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c
Community media
 MINP can enable the delivery of community media in a low-cost and appropriate
manner
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Available technologies for different verticals
Layer
Service
Technology
Broadcast reception
Radio sets,TV sets
Layer 5. End-device in
speakerphone or video booths, Interaction
or at the end-user
Mobile interaction (field reporting)
Landline, cellphone
Layer 4: Intra community
network (assuming Internet is
not already available)
Landline, cellphone network
Voice connectivity
PSTN phone + ATA
Android based phones
Lo3 or WiFi meshes
Video connectivity
CATV network
Radio broadcast
FM PCI transmitter
Television broadcast
Network to CATV headend
Telephony service
Asterisk on FXO cards
Layer 2: Inter community
network (assuming Internet is
not already available)
Voice connectivity
Landline, cellphone network
Online data connectivity
Long distance WiFi links
Offline data connectivity
KioskNet
Layer 1: Aggregation point
Data aggregation
Information portal
Telephony service with toll-free #
Asterisk on E1 cards
Layer 3: Media outlet
Offline connectivity with KioskNet
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Offline connectivity with KioskNet
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Infrastructure
Platform services
Apps
System design 1/3: One-box automation
platform at media outlets
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Info broadcast
Education
Marketplace
Online
Video
Playout
CATV
headend
FM
transmitter
Cable
network
Radio
broadcast
Archiver
Offline
Search
Library on
HDD
Syndicate
Telephony
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
Syndication over
PSTN-to-SIP
Syndication over
PSTN voice call
Only
Internet
Phone calls to media outlet
End-device:
PSTN phones
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No landline
within
community
End-device: PSTN
phones with ATA
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
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Offline
synchronization
Online
synchronization
Internet
available
Overarching technology goals
Goals
Meeting the goals
 Open architecture and protocols
 Multiplanar Application
 Seamless integration of different
Management Protocol
 Service API
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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
Research challenges
(1/2)
 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
 Stream routing: Construction of multicast tree instances? Cost,
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fairness
 Routing of recorded content: Time varying graph in
disconnected environments? Latency, load, urgency
Research challenges
(2/2)
 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 and low-power consumption
 CPU scaling Vs temperature, IRQ reduction Vs buffer latency
 Duty cycling
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