Pictures of the Future      Fall 2005

High-Speed Internet for the Inuit

Greenland has a raw climate and relies on boats and helicopters for transportation. Almost 85 % of the world’s largest island is covered by an ice cap one kilometer thick. In summer, only the coastal areas in the west and south and some eastern areas are free of ice—and they are sparsely populated.

That’s why the island’s 57,000 inhabitants, who are almost all Inuit, need a first-class communications network. However, there are few underground copper cables connecting communities. A 1,500-km directional radio system built in the early 1990s links the centrally located city of Uummannaq with Nanortalik in the south via the capital city of Nuuk. Transmission towers fitted with parabolic dishes stand at 70-km intervals along the link. And the Intelsat satellite provides the nodes at Aasiaat and Qaqortoq as well as Tele Greenland’s central network in Nuuk with transmission rates of 32 Mbit/s for reception and 10 Mbit/s for transmission, which all users share simultaneously.

The satellites are also used for mobile communications, which were available at only 16 locations until recently. Residents also had online access at 56 kbit/s via modem and a copper cable connecting the radio link base station and the users’ homes. "But that’s much too slow if you want to compare prices and quality on the Internet before ordering a new snow plow, or for bringing online lessons to remote villages," complains Ellen K. Frederiksen, the prinicipal of the school in Qassiarsuk, a village in the south with 110 inhabitants and 16 students. Frederiksen is eagerly awaiting the arrival of faster Internet access. There’s demand for e-mail and chat rooms, but also for better educational and career opportunities, medical care via telemedicine, e-business—and simply having mobile phones to make life safer for fisherman. Shrimp, cod and halibut are Greenland’s only exports.

During the short summer of 2005, technicians from Siemens and Tele Greenland brought in tons of equipment via ship to 46 remote communities—braving all weather conditions. Their cargo also included a crane and an off-road vehicle that can climb 45-degree grades. That’s how the ADSL-equipment and GSM base stations were delivered to well-insulated trailers that formerly contained only a bed, table and kitchen for maintenance technicians. To ensure the technology would be protected from the cold and overheating at temperatures ranging from -20 to +20 °C, systems for regulating heat exchange were also brought in. And GSM antennas were mounted on the directional radio link towers. "Now, all villages with 70 or more inhabitants have GSM reception and GPRS for data services. And from December 2005 every Greenlander will have a high-speed Internet connection of up to 512 kbit/s," says Frank Gabriel, head of technology at Tele Greenland. Gabriel ordered all the equipment from Siemens in Denmark. The 43-year-old Dane was sure the new ADSL2+ transmission standard was the right choice, with its transmission rates of up to 25 Mbit/s and long range. At present, Gabriel can offer only 512 kbit/s for reception and 256 kbit/s for transmission, because the directional radio link’s capacity is limited to 2 Mbit/s. If the link is further extended in 2006, Gabriel intends to use ADSL2+ to also offer television reception, high-speed Internet and telephony—all from a single source. But cost was the deciding factor, he says: "The equipment is less expensive than normal commercial DSL equipment, and it uses less electricity."

Communities in the north and east of Greenland will have to cope without directional radio links. To make full use of the costly satellite capacity, Siemens is supplying base stations that weigh only 2.7 kg each—the smallest in the world. The base stations are Internet-based and each one can simultaneously handle seven telephone calls. Only the calls’ signalling is still done via satellite. The basis here is a special switching technology called "local switching." "This makes it possible to transfer calls directly from mobile phone to mobile phone, without a detour to the satellite," explains Bjarne Roed, head of Communications at Siemens Denmark. Local switching also eliminates those annoying voice delays via satellite. What’s more, the Inuit residents in the sparsely populated north will pay less for their mobile phone calls.
                                                                                                                Nikola Wohllaib