A Pilot of a QoS-Aware Wireless Back-Haul Network for Rural Areas

Rural areas in emerging regions often lack affordable broadband Internet connectivity, which limits the access to, for example, knowledge, government services or education. Themajor limiting factors are the Capital Expenditure (CAPEX) and theOperational Expenditure (OPEX) related to traditional wireless carrier equipment, its relatively large energy footprint and the vast but sparsely populated areas to be covered. Since in many rural regions access to a power grid is not available or highly instable, ensuring a 24/7 operation of cell site is a very costly task. To address those issues, we have developed a carrier-grade heterogeneous back-haul architecture in order to complement, extend or even replace traditional operator equipment. OurWireless Back-Haul (WiBACK) network technology provides wireless back-haul coverage while building on cost-effective and low-power equipment. In this paper we present a pilot scenario in Maseru, Lesotho, where an entrepreneur starts out with three eKiosk/VoIP sites with the goal to cover large parts on the city of Maseru. Using a testbed resembling the initial deployment scenario and identical hardware as planned for Maseru, we validate the self-configuration mechanisms, evaluate their performance in cases of node failures and show that the remaining network can quickly be reorganized.