Understanding Internet Usage and Network Locality in a Rural Community Wireless Mesh Network

Community networks owned and operated by local communities have recently gained popularity as a low cost solution for Internet access. In this paper, we seek to understand the characteristics of Internet usage in community networks and provide useful insights on designing and improving community networks in rural areas. We report the results of a socio-technical study carried out during a three month measurement of a community wireless mesh network (CWMN) which has been operating for two years in a rural area of northern Thailand. An on-site social interview was also conducted to supplement our analysis. The results reveal several interesting findings: rural users do use online social networks, instant messaging applications and online games similarly to urban users; they install unnecessary applications on their mobile phones and are completely obvious to their side effects – the traffic from these applications accounts for a major share of the traffic leading to numerous networ...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2015
• Where: AINTEC
• Authors: Adisorn Lertsinsrubtavee, Liang Wang, Arjuna Sathiaseelan, Jon Crowcroft, Nunthaphat Weshsuwannarugs, Apinun Tunpan, Kanchana Kanchanasut
• Keywords: AINTEC 2015, Computer Networks