A Software-Defined Networking Solution for Rural Connectivity

Universal access is crucial for the development of any society, as no part of the world should be without the benefit of information and communication technology (ICT) services today. The International Telecommunications Union, the United Nations agency for telecommunication development, notes that the major barrier to the deployment and dissemination of ICT networks and services is hardware cost. To overcome this problem, a combination of Software-Defined Networking and access point (WiFi and wire) architecture is investigated in this paper. Voice and video conference call services are considered with particular attention to the problem of jitter. The impact of the traffic level is evaluated based on the occupied bandwidth. The various tests performed on the considered equipment show that the proposed solution could be cost-effectively deployed to reach rural and underserved communities, thereby enhancing social and economic development.