Abstract
Provision of internet access in infrastructure deficient areas is expected to bring profound economic and humanitarian benefit to developing countries. Notwithstanding, achieving this goal poses an economic and technical challenge. Due to technological and economical reasons cellular networks are regarded to be unable to deliver affordable distribution in the short term. Instead 802.11s wireless mesh networking standard is identified to be a more viable and affordable partial solution to deliver broadband internet in the periphery of developing countries. A general focus is the individual incentive to participate in a mesh network rather than reliance on organisational bodies. This paper designs an architecture and business model for a low cost, low range distribution of internet access. The technical architecture is evaluated using simulation and is found to be viable, but demands optimisation.
Chapter PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Jorgenson, D.: Information technology and the US economy. American Economic Review, 1–32 (2001)
Colecchia, A., Schreyer, P.: ICT investment and economic growth in the 1990s: is the United States a unique case? A comparative study of nine OECD countries. Review of Economic Dynamics 5(2), 408–442 (2002)
Bhavnani, A., et al.: The Role of Mobile Phones in Sustainable Rural Poverty Reduction, p. 22 (retrieved November 2008)
Muente Kunigami, A., Navas Sabater, J.: Options to Increase Access to Telecommunications Services in Rural and Low Income Areas. World 1(2), 3–4 (2010)
Qiang, C., Rossotto, C., Kimura, K.: Economic impacts of broadband. Information and Communications for Development 2009: Extending Reach and Increasing Impact, 35–50 (2009)
Aker, J.: Does Digital Divide or Provide? The Impact of Cell Phones on Grain Markets in Niger (2008)
Jensen, R.: The Digital Provide: Information (Technology), Market Performance, and Welfare in the South Indian Fisheries Sector*. The Quarterly Journal of Economics 122(3), 879–924 (2007)
Marasinghe, V., Abeykoon, P., Wootton, R.: Strategies to promote ehealth and telemedicine activities in developing countries. Telehealth in the Developing World, 79 (2009)
Lucas, H.: Information and communications technology for future health systems in developing countries. Social Science & Medicine 66(10), 2122–2132 (2008)
UNCTAD, Information Economy Report 2006: The Development Perspective. United Nations Publications (2006)
Williams, M.: Advancing the Development of Backbone Networks in Sub- Saharan Africa. Extending Reach and Increasing Impact, 51
Mbarika, V.: Re-thinking Information and Communications Technology Policy Focus on Internet versus Teledensity Diffusion for Africa’s Least Developed Countries. EJISDC 9, 1–13 (2002)
Knisely, D., et al.: Standardization of Femtocells in 3GPP. IEEE Communications Magazine, 69 (2009)
Lehr, W., McKnight, L.: Wireless internet access: 3G vs. WiFi? Telecommunications Policy 27(5-6), 351–370 (2003)
Wellenius, B., Neto, I.: The radio spectrum: opportunities and challenges for the developing world. Info-Cambridge-Camford Publishing Limited 8(2), 18 (2006)
Garber, L.: Will 3G really be the next big wireless technology? Computer, 26–32 (2002)
Open-Mesh. Open-Mesh Webpage (2010), https://www.open-mesh.com/
Technologies, S.N.: Qualnet Product Webpage (2010), http://www.scalablenetworks.com/products/qualnet/ (cited 2010 05/11/2010)
UCLA, P.C.D., Global Mobile Information Systems Simulation Library (2010)
Gunasekaran, V., Harmantzis, F.: Emerging wireless technologies for developing countries. Technology in Society 29(1), 23–42 (2007)
Ishmael, J., et al.: Deploying rural community wireless mesh networks. IEEE Internet Computing, 22–29 (2008)
meraka.org. testbed networks (2010), http://wirelessafrica.meraka.org.za (cited 20.01.2010)
Barcelo, J., Oliver, M., Infante, J.: Adapting a Captive Portal to Enable SMS-Based Micropayment for Wireless Internet Access. In: Stiller, B., Reichl, P., Tuffin, B. (eds.) ICQT 2006. LNCS, vol. 4033, pp. 78–89. Springer, Heidelberg (2006)
Njenga, A.: Mobile phone banking: Usage experiences in Kenya
Hiertz, G., et al.: Principles of IEEE 802.11 s (2007)
Jun, J., Sichitiu, M.: The nominal capacity of wireless mesh networks. IEEE Wireless Communications magazine 10(5), 8–14 (2003)
Hiertz, G., et al.: IEEE 802.11 s: WLAN mesh standardization and high performance extensions. Language 890, 8044
Kyasanur, P., et al.: Multichannel mesh networks: challenges and protocols. IEEE Wireless Communications 13(2), 30–36 (2006)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2010 IFIP
About this paper
Cite this paper
Seibel, R., Klann, NH., Waage, T., Hogrefe, D. (2010). Wireless Mesh Networks for Infrastructure Deficient Areas. In: Pont, A., Pujolle, G., Raghavan, S.V. (eds) Communications: Wireless in Developing Countries and Networks of the Future. WCITD NF 2010 2010. IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology, vol 327. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-15476-8_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-15476-8_4
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-15475-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-15476-8
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)