VillageNet: A low-cost, 802.11-based mesh network for rural regions

— VillageNet is a wireless mesh network that aims to provide low-cost broadband Internet access for rural regions. The cost of building the network is kept low by using off-the-shelf IEEE 802.11 equipment and optimizing the network topology to minimize cost. In this paper we describe the over-all operation of VillageNet and discuss two fundamental problems in building such a network. Nodes in VillageNet communicate using long-distance pointto-point wireless links that are established using high-gain directional antenna. VillageNet uses the 2P MAC protocol [17], that is suited for the interference pattern within such a network. However, the 2P protocol requires the underlying mesh graph (for each 802.11 channel) to be bi-partite. Thus, if K channels are available, then an important consideration is how to select K bi-partite subgraphs to activate, such that the demands of the nodes are best met. We formally pose this problem and present some initial results. Second, we observe that th...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2007
• Where: COMSWARE
• Authors: Partha Dutta, Sharad Jaiswal, Debmalya Panigrahi, K. V. M. Naidu, Rajeev Rastogi, Ajay Kumar Todimala
• Keywords: Antenna Towers, COMSWARE 2007, Mesh Network, Wireless Mesh Network