A Wireless Network Infrastructure Architecture for Rural Communities

Wireless network implementation is a viable option for building network infrastructure in rural communities. Rural people lack network infrastructures for information services and socio-economic development. The aim of this study was to develop a wireless network infrastructure architecture for network services to rural dwellers. A user-centered approach was applied in the study and a wireless network infrastructure was designed and deployed to cover five rural locations. Data was collected and analyzed to assess the performance of the network facilities. The results shows that the system had been performing adequately without any downtime with an average of 200 users per month and the quality of service has remained high. The transmit/receive rate of 300Mbps was thrice as fast as the normal Ethernet transmit/receive specification with an average throughput of 1 Mbps. The multiple output/multiple input (MIMO) point-to-multipoint network design increased the network throughput and the quality of service experienced by the users.