NetSE:Medium:VillageNet: Intelligent Wireless Networks for Rural Areas

通信的普及在任何国家的社会经济发展中都发挥着关键作用。虽然互联网彻底改变了工业化世界的经济、社会、金融和教育部门的发展，但它也造成了一种“数字鸿沟”，将富裕和发达国家与世界上的发展中国家和欠发达地区隔开。在缩小这一数字鸿沟方面取得了重大进展，通过网吧和网吧将互联网连接到农村地区，公民常常步行前往这些中心地区上网。虽然通过这种模式接入互联网显然比根本没有接入要好得多，但这些公共终端并不是令人满意的最终解决方案，因为距离家庭很远，可用时间有限，使用成本高，等待时间长。本研究的目标是从通过长途链路(即卫星、远程WiFi等)进入社区的点扩展互联网连接，使其覆盖整个村庄，使居民能够在他们的家中、办公室、学校和公共建筑中接入互联网。这项研究包括一套雄心勃勃的综合研究项目，为发展中地区的一个村庄提供互联网连接。这项工作与以前关于农村无线网络的工作不同，也是对以前工作的补充，因为重点不是将本地网络连接到互联网的长途链路，而是开发解决方案，在地理上分散的社区中为当前可用的终端设备提供广泛的本地覆盖。将与赞比亚农村人合作，开发一种网络架构，大大加强非洲农村和其他地方的互联网接入。这项工作做出了几个关键贡献：-为了在地理上分散的农村社区提供广泛的连接，将为空白空间频谱开发一个定制的跨层协议栈。该堆栈包括一个集成的PHY/MAC层，称为传输层，它联合考虑干扰属性、能量限制和应用要求，以选择传输参数和信道接入策略，从而最有效地利用可用频谱。-为了最大限度地减少对已经拥堵的互联网网关链路的影响，将设计一种名为VillageShare的新型网络架构和支持应用程序，以隔离本地网络流量：在本地社区网络内始发和结束的流量完全避免网关链路。初步工作发现，网关链路上的不必要传输对农村社区构成灾难性问题，导致会话中断、连接中断和终端用户体验不佳。-为了降低连接成本并为没有家庭计算机的用户提供互联网接入，这项工作将开发VillageCell，这是一种受毫微微蜂窝启发的低成本系统，利用空白空间网络作为主干，为现成的蜂窝电话提供免费的本地互联网、语音和聊天接入。-为了评估工作的效率并影响解决方案设计，将通过与合作机构的合作，对赞比亚马查社区的ICT进行定性的民族志研究。这项研究将探索开发的解决方案的社会、文化和经济影响，并确保与赞比亚农村人合作设计解决方案。-为了展示我们综合系统的好处，我们开发了RemoteMath，这是一个基于短信/语音的数学辅导系统，学生可以通过它在放学后获得数学作业方面的帮助。更广泛的影响。该奖项的工作将对发展中地区扩大互联网接入的效用产生深远的影响。先前的研究清楚地表明，在农村社区连接互联网可以带来巨大的经济、社会和教育效益。通过首席调查员与两个非洲组织的伙伴关系，这项工作将通过开发和部署技术直接影响当地非洲人，这些技术可以解决复杂的技术问题，同时实现实际的、可部署的解决方案。在当地，这项工作的直接影响是教育本科生和研究生，让他们了解计算机科学研究对社会产生巨大影响的巨大潜力。PIS将利用他们在UCSB信息技术和社会中心(CITS)的参与，为发展中地区创建一门关于技术的跨学科课程。在CS招生人数减少的时候，PI将利用这项工作的社会影响来提高学生的积极性、招生人数和多样性。

Access to communication plays a pivotal role in the socio-economic development of any nation. While the Internet has revolutionized the development of economic, social, financial and educational sectors of the industrialized world, it has also created a 'digital divide' that separates the affluent and developed nations from the developing and under-developed regions of the world. Significant progress has been made in bridging this digital divide by bringing Internet connectivity to rural regions through Internet kiosks and cafes whereby citizens travel, often by foot, to these central areas in order to access the Internet. While clearly Internet access through this model is much better than no access at all, these public terminals are not a satisfactory end solution due to long travel distances from homes, limited hours of availability, high usage costs, and long wait times.The goal of this research is to extend Internet connectivity from the point where it is brought into the community by a long distance link (i.e., satellite, long range WiFi, etc.), to provide coverage throughout the village such that residents have Internet access in their homes, offices, schools and public buildings. The research consists of an ambitious, integrated set of research projects that provides Internet connectivity throughout a village in a developing region. The work differs from, and is complementary to, prior work on rural wireless networks in that the focus is, not on the long-distance links that connect the local network to the Internet, but on the development of solutions that provide widespread, local coverage across a geographically dispersed community for currently available end devices. Working in partnership with rural Zambians, a network architecture will be developed that greatly enhances Internet access in rural Africa and elsewhere. This work makes several key contributions:- To provide widespread connectivity across a geographically dispersed rural community, a customized cross-layer protocol stack for the white spaces spectrum will be developed. This stack includes an integrated PHY/MAC layer, called a transmission layer, that jointly considers interference properties, energy constraints and application requirements to select transmission parameters and channel access strategies to most efficiently utilize available spectrum. - To minimize impact on already congested Internet gateway links, a novel network architecture and supporting application, called VillageShare, will be designed to isolate local network traffic: traffic that originates and ends within the local community network completely avoids the gateway link. As discovered in preliminary work, unnecessary transmissions on the gateway link constitute a catastrophic problem for rural communities and lead to aborted sessions, dropped connections, and poor end user experience.- To decrease connectivity cost and provide Internet access to users without home computers, this work will develop VillageCell, a low-cost femtocell-inspired system that provides off-the-shelf cellular phones with free local Internet, voice and chat access utilizing the white spaces network as a backbone.- To evaluate the efficacy of the work and influence the solution design, a qualitative ethnographic study of ICT in the community of Macha, Zambia, will be conducted through cooperation with partner institutions. The study will explore the social, cultural and economic impacts of developed solutions, and ensure solutions are designed in partnership with rural Zambians.- To demonstrate the benefits of our integrated system, we develop RemoteMath, an SMS/voice-based mathematics tutoring system through which students can obtain after school assistance on math homework.Broader Impact. The work from this award will have far-reaching impact by expanding the utility of Internet access in developing regions. Prior research clearly indicates the vast economic, social and educational benefits of Internet connectivity in a rural community. Through the principal investigators' (PIs) partnership with two African organizations, the work will directly impact local Africans through the development and deployment of technology that solves complex technological problems while enabling practical, deployable solutions. Locally, the immediate impact of this work is the education of undergraduate and graduate students about the vast potential for societal impact of computer science research. The PIs will leverage their participation in the UCSB Center for Information Technology and Society (CITS) to create an interdisciplinary course on technology for developing regions. In a time when CS enrollments are shrinking, the PIs will use the societal impact of this work to increase student enthusiasm, enrollment, and diversity.