Blum Center for Developing Economies

Village Base Station

A Cellular System for Rural Off-Grid Locations

pathway-village

The Challenge

Over one billion people in rural areas worldwide lack access to the transformative technology of cellular phones.

The Technology Approach

The Village Base Station (VBTS) cellular tower is optimized for rural, off-grid deployments by drastically reducing the cost of cellular coverage through decreased required power, especially when not in active use.

2013 Updates

The VBTS is deploying three towers in rural Papua, Indonesia, aiming to serve between 1,000 and 10,000 people.

Lead Researchers

Prof. Eric Brewer, Computer Science
Prof. Tapan Parikh, School of Information

Field Location

Indonesia

[button link=”http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/~kheimerl/pubs/vbts_nsdr10.pdf” text=”White Paper”]

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