An Opportunistic Connectivity Network for Rural Areas in Senegal

Abstract

In this paper, we present an opportunistic connectivity approach to building a network for rural areas in Senegal. Our proposed solution is based on a simple principle: given any situation, use the best connectivity solution available; and when no solution is available at the moment, use delay/intermittence tolerant solutions to offer “offline” services. Our network is built using point-to-point Long Distance Wifi links which are used wherever available. If a LD-Wifi link is not available, we use SMS service as a support for data communication. In areas with no coverage, we use DTN (Delay Tolerant Networking) solutions. For the seamless integration of all these technologies, we implement our lightweight platform on NDN (Named Data Networking), a new architecture proposed for the future Internet. A low cost implementation of the solution has been deployed in a test environment using Raspberry Pis and GSM dongles.