Y'ello Keiskamma

The rural conundrum

The Eastern Cape (EC) is South Africa's second-largest province, and is home to more people than any other region in the country. Vast sections of it, notably the old Transkei, are still very rural. In addition, the country's already poor fixed-lined penetration is at its lowest and slowest in this region, which is also beset by great poverty and economically and socially debilitating illiteracy.

And so the vicious circle starts. The accepted wisdom in certain circles would be that you can't have access to telecoms if you can't pay for it, and that it's no use giving someone who can't read or write access to SMS facilities, the Internet or PCs. But, poor access to ICT fuels poverty, and so this kind of philosophy is only good for doing logical loops. The cycle would seem unbreakable to all but the most resilient social architects and technology thought leaders, so it's a good thing we have them in this country.

MTN Business has considerable experience with government, and has demonstrated its commitment to socially aware causes in many well-documented instances. So, when the Eastern Cape Department of Health (EC DOH) requested cellular telephony and data services for the entire department, after waiting for fixed-line data comms for "six or seven years", what it got demonstrated the additional value of pushing the boundaries.

Stewart Kennedy, a business solutions consultant of MTN Business, comments that as a result of the solution proposed by MTN Business, the DOH's IT Director, Rueben Puchert, requested voice services for an extra 261 remote clinics in the province. About 189 of these have since been connected to the outside world, and further needs are being identified by Puchert and his team.

The department settled on MTN, says Puchert, because of the appropriateness of its proposed solution within the framework of the tender, and the company's willingness to go the extra mile in offering to help with installation. Kennedy also notes MTN's standing as a provider to government and SITA, its socially-aware projects, and its wireless portfolio, given mobile's pervasive South African coverage, low infrastructure loss risk factor versus copper, and its feature set, including SMS.

For the first phase of the engagement, MTN implemented 'tellular' desk-phone units, to which a fax machine and PC can be attached, and which can send and receive SMSes. But it wasn't simply a matter of installing the phones. Some clinics were simply too remote even for MTN's extensive mobile coverage footprint. "In these remote rural cases, we were able to install directional antennas to connect them," says Kennedy.

The second phase entailed giving Internet connectivity to 25 Centres of Excellence, or premium clinics. For this, MTN provided a PC-data card bundle to the EC DOH. The final phase involves EC clinic access to government's transversal systems (financial, HR and payroll), via the SITA APN service, which is a partnership between MTN and SITA via a product called MobiGov. It was tested for the first time by the EC DOH within government.

Under Puchert's direction, six EC hospitals have been given access to transversal systems with the use of Edge cards from MTN and SITA's APN. Puchert also performed a full technical evaluation on Edge routers. Whereas an Edge card gives network access only to one PC at a time, EC DOH's IT team proved that an Edge router can be connected to serve multiple PCs.

Kennedy confirms it was not an easy task to get to every clinic or arrange coverage. "It is a huge geographic area," he says, "ranging from Queenstown right up to the border with the Free State. There was very limited road access in certain areas. The implementation team was equipped with 4x4 vehicles, but in some cases it took a whole day to get from one town to the next, which might be only 20 kilometres away as the crow flies. But, it was an excellent adventure and truly worthwhile in terms of the outcomes."

Other challenges included technological familiarity levels of the DOH staff. "We had to train staff to use what was very new technology to them." This had an initial impact on the full-feature usage by staff in some instances, but Kennedy reports good usage levels in many cases, with nurses and sisters making and receiving calls, as well as sending and receiving SMS messages. Faxing and PC-based corporate and Internet access is being piloted at some sites. Once these features are live, it will require extra training and change management.

MTN was instrumental in helping staff make the leap to sudden technological immersion. "One of the challenges faced was to sensitise the staff to the need of keeping batteries charged," says Kennedy. "Some of the clinics have no power. The devices have 11-hour battery life packs. The back-up battery packs are alternated with the primary pack, and charged as needed at the nearest hospital or even a sister's home."

It is this kind of effect that technology can have on the lives of ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances that gives credibility to Puchert's assertion that feedback from staff has been phenomenal. "You must understand that this is a big improvement. Suddenly people are able to communicate with ambulances, doctors and, in extreme cases, even helicopter dispatch personnel. They can receive pathology test results via SMS. The technology has improved their lives immeasurably."

"We can tell many higher-tech stories than this one, but we believe this one is a great example to demonstrate the value of wireless," Kennedy adds.

Other services offered by MTN to the EC DOH included: helping the department research and design the solution, putting a tariff plan together to include SMS bundles, devising a roll-out plan, overseeing the installation, and providing feedback to the IT team. MTN Business also offers a dedicated contact centre number: 083 1 809.

Next steps include MTN's proposal to provide widespread access to the Internet, the DOH's network and back-office systems, and the company has proposed spreading the beneficial effects of mobile-wireless technologies to other clinics.

MTN has certainly proved the case of its technology in trying conditions, as well as its own commitment to a worthy cause, with a success story that has reverberated throughout government.

* MTN, Africa's biggest mobile network operator, has on a number of occasions demonstrated its commitment to providing affordable, meaningful access to ICTs in SA - including a broadband-PC partnership with Microsoft in 2006, and its ICT and Rural Entrepreneurship Project in 2005.

* The company's mobile voice and data solutions have improved government's efficiency in unexpected places, such as rural KwaZulu-Natal (KZN), the province with the second lowest tele-density rate. MTN implemented a solution for the KZN Department of Arts and Culture via its data cards to offer live coverage of cultural events.
* Underpinning MTN's government projects is its strong relationship with SITA, the government IT procurement agency. The two companies have formed a partnership to give departments mobile access to government's network via a private access point network (APN), procured by SITA from MTN.