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

获得通信在任何国家的社会经济发展中发挥着关键作用。虽然互联网使工业化世界的经济、社会、金融和教育部门的发展发生了革命性的变化，但它也造成了一个“数字鸿沟”，将世界上的富裕和发达国家与发展中和欠发达地区分开。在缩小这一数字鸿沟方面取得了重大进展，通过互联网亭和咖啡馆将互联网连接到农村地区，公民们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完全没有接入要好得多，但这些公共终端并不是一个令人满意的最终解决方案，因为距离家庭的距离很长，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距离链路（即，卫星、远程WiFi等），覆盖整个村庄，使居民在家中、办公室、学校和公共建筑都能上网。该研究包括一套雄心勃勃的综合研究项目，为发展中地区的整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，也是对它的补充，因为重点不是将本地网络连接到互联网的长距离链路，而是开发解决方案，为目前可用的终端设备在地理上分散的社区提供广泛的本地覆盖。将与赞比亚农村合作，开发一个网络结构，大大加强非洲农村和其他地方的互联网接入。这项工作作出了几个关键的贡献：-为了提供广泛的连接在地理上分散的农村社区，一个定制的跨层协议栈的白色空间频谱将被开发。该堆栈包括一个集成的PHY/MAC层（称为传输层），该层联合考虑干扰特性、能量约束和应用要求，以选择传输参数和信道接入策略，以最有效地利用可用频谱。- 为了尽量减少对已经拥挤的互联网网关链路的影响，将设计一种称为VillageShare的新型网络架构和支持应用程序，以隔离本地网络流量：在本地社区网络内发起和结束的流量完全避免网关链路。正如在初步工作中发现的那样，网关链路上不必要的传输对农村社区构成了灾难性的问题，并导致会话中止，连接中断和最终用户体验差。为了降低连接成本并为没有家用电脑的用户提供互联网接入，这项工作将开发VillageCell，这是一种低成本的毫微微蜂窝系统，利用白色空间网络作为骨干，为现成的手机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和影响解决方案的设计，将与伙伴机构合作，在赞比亚Macha社区进行一项关于信息和通信技术的定性人种学研究。该研究将探讨已开发解决方案的社会，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。为了证明我们的综合系统的好处，我们开发了RemoteMath，这是一个基于短信/语音的数学辅导系统，学生可以通过它在课后获得数学作业方面的帮助。该奖项的工作将产生深远的影响，扩大互联网接入在发展中地区的效用。先前的研究清楚地表明，互联网连接在农村社区具有巨大的经济、社会和教育效益。通过主要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，这些技术解决了复杂的技术问题，同时实现了实用的、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关于计算机科学研究的巨大社会影响潜力。PI将利用他们在UCSB信息技术与社会中心（CITS）的参与，为发展中地区创建一个跨学科的技术课程。在CS入学人数减少的时候，PI将利用这项工作的社会影响来提高学生的热情，入学率和多样性。

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.