Networking in Rural Environments: Benefits, Feasibilities, and Requirements

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.5130/ajict.v2i2.325
Keywords:
Rural areas, communication system planning, network planning, social benefits

Main Article Content

Yang Li
University of Cape Town
H Anthony Chan
University of Cape Town
Johnson I Agbinya
University of Technology, Sydney

Abstract

Building networks in rural areas is difficult because of the tough rural environments and low return to the service operators on investment. Rural networking and their applications in education, health, community development, and business development are essential to the daily life for both inhabitants and visitors. They further bring opportunities in job and business which play a key role in developing most underdeveloped rural areas. Moreover, rural communication will grow with the initial investment in rural networking. It will become the major communication market and generate large profits to service operators and equipment manufacturers. Wireless networking is generally considered a solution to these difficulties in rural conditions. Compared with the wireline construction, setting up wireless networks is faster, more flexible, and less expensive. In addition, many new and advanced wireless technologies have enabled universal communication to rural and remote areas in a profitable manner. Yet special technological requirements need to be met for wireless networking to become feasible in rural areas.

Article Details

Issue
Vol. 2 No. 2 (2006)
Section
Wireless and Mobile Communications
Author Biographies

Yang Li, University of Cape Town

Yang Li received her B.Eng. from Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, P.R.China in 2001, her M.Sc. from the University of the Western Cape, RSA in 2005, and is currently studying for a Ph.D. in the Department. of Electrical Engineering, University of Cape Town, South Africa. From 2001 to 2002, she was an assistant Engineer in the Technical Division of former SCNB, where her work focused on upgrading the intelligence part of the EWSD switch.

H Anthony Chan, University of Cape Town

H. Anthony Chan received his PhD in physics at University of Maryland, College Park in 1982 and then continued post-doctorate research there in basic science. After joining the former AT&T Bell Labs in 1986, his work moved to industry-oriented research in areas of interconnection, electronic packaging, reliability, and assembly in manufacturing, and then moved again to network management, network architecture and standards for both wireless and wireline networks. He designed the Wireless section of the year 2000 state-of-the-art Network Operation Center in AT&T. He was the AT&T delegate in several standards work groups under 3rd generation partnership program (3GPP). During 2001-2003, he was visiting Endowed Pinson Chair Professor in Networking at San Jose State University. In 2004, he joined University of Cape Town as professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering. Prof. Chan was Administrative Vice President of the IEEE CPMT Society during 1997-2005 and has chaired or served numerous technical committees and conferences. He is a distinguished speaker of the IEEE CPMT Society and has been in the speaker list of the IEEE Reliability Society since 1997.

Johnson I Agbinya, University of Technology, Sydney

Johnson Agbinya (Editor in Chief) is an Adjunct Professor of Computer Science at the University of the Western Cape, Cape Town South Africa and Senior Lecturer at University of Technology, Sydney, Australia Johnson I. Agbinya received his PhD in Electronic Engineering at La Trobe University in 1994 and subsequently joined Australia’s Premier Research Institute, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) as a Senior Research Scientist where he undertook research in biometrics, pattern recognition and signal processing. At CSIRO he developed patented speech recognition and face recognition systems. He joined Vodafone Australia in 2000 as a Principal Engineer responsible for its industrial research administration on mobile and wireless communication where he served as its sole representative in several international standard bodies and the Australian Telecommunication CRC Executive Committee. He also contributed to Vodafone Australia’s preliminary design of 3G radio access network in the Emerging Technologies Group. He has represented Vodafone Australia in the Vodafone Research Group from where he was spotted and appointed as Adjunct Professor in 2002 at the Department of Computer Science, University of the Western Cape (UWC). He is a key member of the Telkom / Cisco Centre of Excellence in Internet Computing at UWC and a rated researcher by the National Research Fund (NRF, South Africa). Prof. Agbinya is currently a Faculty member in Information and Communication Group at the University of Technology, Sydney. His research interests are in wireless communications, application of biometrics in digital identity management systems and behaviour tracking in video, networks on mobile platforms (and in uncovered areas) and sensor networks.