NeTS-WN: Collaborative Research: Mesh Networks for Under-Served Urban Communities: Engaging Users and Integrating Mobile Access and Health Sensing

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This project's driving vision is to provide under-resourced urban communities with cost-effective wireless mesh networks, mobile access, and transformational applications including health sensing. This vision will be realized and test-driven via a deployed experimental wireless mesh network in an under-resourced Houston community with experimental mobile devices distributed to community residents. Residents of the community will be engaged with ethnographically-driven qualitative inquiry and analysis to better understand their needs, usage, and user-perceived performance of the wireless infrastructure. This project presents an unprecedented opportunity to holistically study all components of a wireless system, from the end user to the mesh backhaul.With a multi-disciplinary approach spanning wireless networking, mobile computing, and ethnographic techniques, this project will make fundamental contributions in (i) theory and development of predictable and resilient mesh network services, (ii) design and deployment of usable and energy-efficient mobile access, and (iii) ethnographic evaluation of user impact in under-resourced urban communities.This project will produce new technologies for optimizing wireless mobile computing and understanding the technological needs of under-resourced urban communities. The experimental deployment in an under-resourced and primarily Hispanic Houston community will provide low-cost access to IT for its residents. Its success will demonstrate the possibility to achieve affordable, economically-sustainable, wireless broadband access for all. The project will offer opportunities for minority students in the universities and the served neighborhoods. Our extensive collaboration with community leaders, equipment manufacturers, and health-care providers will help transfer technologies and lessons for future IT deployments.