"The project BIRD (Broadband Infrastructure for Remote-Area Digitalization) is for affordably closing the digital divide that help cope with COVID-19 by enabling remote work, tele medicine etc. at every corner of the globe.
During 2016-2018, ITU-T SG5 and SG15 published ITU-T L.1700, L.110 and L.163. The president of Global Plan Inc. initiated the standardization discussions and worked as the key editor.
By meeting those standards, an affordable optical cable solution was proposed. Note that World Economic Forum at Davos 2017 identified a key challenge as “Finding solutions that connect the large rural offline populations at minimal costs”
In 2019, the practicability of the solution BIRD was confirmed in a mountain village of west Nepal (10 km) and rural areas of Mongolia (21.8 km) as the APT projects.

http://www.globalplan.jp

• Japan

The solution BIRD is simply composed of optical cable and transmission equipment that are basically commercially available.
By simply adjusting the cable layout and selecting appropriate cable installation styles (surface, underground, air, water) by considering terrain, weather and local community’s s knowledges, the cable can be installed. As such, the BIRD is flexibly replicable.

The solution BIRD is developed aiming at the best sustainability from the holistic point of view by considering not only the sustainability of the solution itself but more importantly, socio-public sustainability that is realized through broadband optical cable connectivity at every corner of the globe. The socio-public sustainability enhanced by the solution BIRD is already addressed within the answers of the present questionnaire.
Although the physical sustainability(reliability) of the solution BIRD is the 2nd most important attribute after affordability, the stainless-steel tube with sufficient wall thickness accommodating <48 fibre cores gives sufficient robustness to the cable against outer disturbances including extreme temperature, water/moisture ingress, crush, rodent and tensile strength. ITU-T L.1700 indicates acceptable mean time between failure is 7-9 months and acceptable mean time to repair is 2-4 weeks (Summer-Winter).

The main benefits/services are the unprecedentedly practicable and affordable availability of terabit-capable connectivity. Concrete beneficiaries so far include Dullu municipality, west Nepal mountain village, where a 10km L.110 cable installed following ITU-T L.163 in 2019 is supporting e-health and e-education. Tanzania, Rwanda, India, DR Congo indicated interests and the motivations behind the interests are documented in ITU L.163, Appendices. Global society altogether is another beneficiary. The BIRD solution can be quickly installed at a low cost by non-skilled local communities without using heavy machinery nor special tools. Multiple cable-lines can be simultaneously and independently constructed in parallel within one district using local people with everyday tools such as pick axes so that urban to rural digital divide is hoped to be closed and COVID-19 control become easier as soon as possible. The spread of coronavirus infection made us aware of the importance of closing the digital divide for the prevention of social loss rather than for pursuit of financial profit.