Simplifying fault diagnosis in locally managed rural WiFi networks
Proceedings of the 2007 workshop on Networked systems for developing regions
Proceedings of the second ACM SIGCOMM workshop on Networked systems for developing regions
Motivations, design and business models of wireless community networks
Mobile Networks and Applications
Towards high performance virtual routers on commodity hardware
CoNEXT '08 Proceedings of the 2008 ACM CoNEXT Conference
Performance and power consumption modeling for green COTS software router
COMSNETS'09 Proceedings of the First international conference on COMmunication Systems And NETworks
Analytical models for energy consumption in infrastructure WLAN STAs carrying TCP traffic
COMSNETS'10 Proceedings of the 2nd international conference on COMmunication systems and NETworks
On the design of affordable and green high-performance routers for community networks: short paper
Proceedings of the 4th ACM Workshop on Networked Systems for Developing Regions
Open-Source PC-Based software routers: a viable approach to high-performance packet switching
QoS-IP'05 Proceedings of the Third international conference on Quality of Service in Multiservice IP Networks
On powering communication networks in developing regions
ISCC '11 Proceedings of the 2011 IEEE Symposium on Computers and Communications
Experiences in using WiFi for rural internet in India
IEEE Communications Magazine
| Hi-index | 0.00 |
The development towards ubiquitous network access requires innovative solutions to get remote areas included, especially rural areas of developing regions. The challenges include robustness of network components, poor or non-existent power supply and sustainable business models. We argue that large scale user-driven community networks are becoming technically viable to deploy in areas that are short of supply of telecommunication services due to little or no commercial interest. To support this claim, we discuss the design of key network elements and careful power management based on alternative energy sources and storage. We also provide a status report from ongoing field-tests regarding provisioning of broadband network services in Serengeti, Tanzania, and outline briefly our strategy to achieve sustainability. On the technical side, we first discuss an affordable, high-performance, low-effect router based on open source software and standard off-the-shelf hardware offering both copper and fibre links. Our design is capable of forwarding more than 700 kpps at 22.3 W. The power consumption is considerably less than all alternatives in our comparison. Then we discuss power management and the use of batteries and super-capacitors as backup and storage solutions.