SONIC: Cost-Effective Web Access for Developing Countries
Journal:
arXiv
Published Date:
May 22, 2025
Abstract
Over 2.6 billion people remain without access to the Internet in 2025. This
phenomenon is especially pronounced in developing regions, where cost and
infrastructure limitations are major barriers to connectivity. In response, we
design SONIC, a low-cost, scalable data delivery system that builds on existing
infrastructures: FM radio for downlink broadcasting, and SMS for personalized
uplink. SONIC is motivated by the widespread availability of FM radio and SMS
infrastructure in developing regions, along with embedded FM radio tuners in
affordable mobile phones. SONIC offers several innovations to effectively
transmit Web content over sound over FM radio, in a reliable and compressed
form. For example, we transmit pre-rendered webpages and leverage pixel
interpolation to recover errors at the receiver. We further modify Android to
offer a simpler deployment pipeline, supporting a wide range of devices. We
deployed SONIC at an FM radio station in Cameroon for six weeks with 30
participants. Our results demonstrate a sustained downlink throughput of 10
kbps, less than 20% loss for a majority of transmissions with signal strength
above -90 dbM, and a strong user engagement across both Web browsing and
ChatGPT interactions.
