QoS-Aware Wireless Back-Haul Network for Rural Areas with Support for Broadcast Services in Practice

Rural areas in emerging or developed countries often lack affordable broadband Internet connectivity. Especially in emerging countries this limits the access to knowledge, government services, etc. The major limiting factors are the CAPEX and especially the OPEX related to traditional wireless carrier equipment, the vast and sparsely populated areas as well as the relatively large energy footprint of such equipment. Since in many rural regions access to a power grid is not available or highly instable, ensuring a 24/7 operation of a cell site is a very costly task. To address these issues we have developed a carrier-grade heterogeneous multi-radio back-haul architecture which may be deployed to extend, complement or even replace traditional operator equipment. Our Wireless Back-Haul (WiBACK) network technology extends the wireless back-haul coverage while building on cost-effective and low-power equipment. In this paper we first present a pilot scenario in Maseru, Lesotho, where an entrepreneur starts out with three eKiosk/VoIP sites with the goal of covering large parts of the city of Maseru. Using a testbed resembling the initial setup and identical hardware as planned for Maseru, we evaluate the QoS-related performance of this WiBACK-based network and show that we can meet the QoS demands of the eKiosk/VoIP systems even under heavy load and that the system is capable to support the planned future network growth.