RFC 7962
Alternative Network Deployments: Taxonomy, Characterization, Technologies, and Architectures
Alternative Network Deployments: Taxonomy, Characterization, Technologies, and Architectures 💖
RFC 7962 🦋 is an IRTF Informational document from August 2016, with ISSN 2070-1721. The editor is J. Saldana (University of Zaragoza), and the co-authors are A. Arcia-Moret and A. Sathiaseelan (both University of Cambridge), B. Braem (iMinds), and E. Pietrosemoli and M. Zennaro (both The Abdus Salam ICTP). It doesn't list any RFC it obsoletes or updates, so it's standing on its own 🌸
Abstract
okay so this doc lays out a taxonomy (a fancy sorting system 🧚) for something called "Alternative Network Deployments." These popped up over the last decade to get people online, or to just give a community its own local communication setup for all sorts of needs ✨ They're built with architectures and topologies that look different from mainstream networks, and they run on different governance and business models 💅
It also surveys the technologies these networks use and how their architectural characteristics differ. There's a set of definitions and shared properties in here too 🎀
The classification covers Community Networks, Wireless Internet Service Providers (WISPs), and networks owned by individuals but leased out to network operators, who use them as a cheap medium to reach underserved populations 😭 It also covers networks that connect people by sharing the wireless resources of their users, plus rural utility cooperatives 🫶
Status of This Memo
okay this part is the paperwork bit, but it matters 🙈 This document is not an Internet Standards Track specification. It's published for informational purposes only 🌈
It's a product of the Internet Research Task Force (IRTF), which publishes the results of Internet-related research and development work 🔥 Those results might not be suitable for deployment, so keep that in mind 💀 This RFC represents the consensus of the Global Access to the Internet for All Research Group of the IRTF. Documents approved for publication by the IRSG are not a candidate for any level of Internet Standard, so check out Section 2 of RFC 7841 for the details ✨
If you want the current status of this document, any errata, or a way to send feedback, head to http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7962 💌
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2016 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the document authors. All rights reserved. 💜
This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info), as in effect on the date this document was published. Read these carefully, bestie, because they spell out your rights and restrictions for this document 📜
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.1. Mainstream Networks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.2. Alternative Networks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2. Terms Used in This Document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3. Scenarios Where Alternative Networks Are Deployed . . . . . . 7
3.1. Urban vs. Rural Areas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
3.2. Topology Patterns Followed by Alternative Networks . . . 9
4. Classification Criteria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
4.1. Entity behind the Network . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
4.2. Purpose . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
4.3. Governance and Sustainability Model . . . . . . . . . . . 12
4.4. Technologies Employed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
4.5. Typical Scenarios . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
5. Classification of Alternative Networks . . . . . . . . . . . 13
5.1. Community Networks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
5.2. Wireless Internet Service Providers (WISPs) . . . . . . . 16
5.3. Shared Infrastructure Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
5.4. Crowdshared Approaches Led by the Users and Third-Party
Stakeholders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
5.5. Rural Utility Cooperatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
5.6. Testbeds for Research Purposes . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
6. Technologies Employed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
6.1. Wired . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
6.2. Wireless . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
6.2.1. Media Access Control (MAC) Protocols for Wireless
Links . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
6.2.1.1. 802.11 (Wi-Fi) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
6.2.1.2. Mobile Technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
6.2.1.3. Dynamic Spectrum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
7. Upper Layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
7.1. Layer 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
7.1.1. IP Addressing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
7.1.2. Routing Protocols . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
7.1.2.1. Traditional Routing Protocols . . . . . . . . . . 26
7.1.2.2. Mesh Routing Protocols . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
7.2. Transport Layer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
7.2.1. Traffic Management When Sharing Network Resources . . 27
7.3. Services Provided . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
7.3.1. Use of VPNs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
7.3.2. Other Facilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
7.4. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
8. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 421. Introduction ✨
okay so the first thing to know is the GAIA IRTF Research Group. Its aim is "to document and share deployment experiences and research results to the wider community through scholarly publications, white papers, Informational and Experimental RFCs, etc." [GAIA]. This doc is part of that mission 🎀 It proposes a classification of "Alternative Network Deployments."
The term covers a set of network access models that showed up in the last decade to provide Internet connections. They follow topological, architectural, governance, and business models that are different from the so-called "mainstream" ones 💅 In mainstream networks, a company builds the infrastructure that connects users, and those users pay a subscription fee to get connected and use it.
Lots of initiatives around the world have built these large-scale networks 🌍 Most use wireless tech, including long-distance links, because unlicensed spectrum is cheap to use. Some of them also use wired tech like fiber 🧡
The classification covers several kinds of alternate deployments 🦋 Community Networks are self-organized and wholly owned by the community. Then there are networks acting as Wireless Internet Service Providers (WISPs). There are also networks owned by individuals but leased out to network operators, who use them as a low-cost medium to reach the underserved population 🫶 Next are networks that connect people by sharing the wireless resources of their users. Last, there are some rural utility cooperatives that connect their members to the Internet too 🌸
Why do these networks even exist? Well, a big reason is the lack of wired and cellular infrastructure in rural and remote areas [Pietrosemoli] 😭 Sometimes Alternative Networks give more localized communication services, and they can also provide Internet backhaul through peering agreements with mainstream network operators 🔥 Other times, they're built as a complement to, or an alternative to, commercial Internet access from mainstream operators 💜
This document gives you a broad overview of the initiatives, technologies, and approaches used in these networks, including some real examples 🧚 It also points to references that describe each kind of network 📚
1.1. Mainstream Networks
Here, "mainstream networks" means networks with these characteristics 👑
- Regarding scale, they are usually large networks spanning entire regions.
- Top-down control of the network and centralized approach.
- They require a substantial investment in infrastructure.
- Users in mainstream networks do not participate in the network design, deployment, operation, governance, and maintenance.
- Ownership of the network is never vested in the users themselves.
1.2. Alternative Networks
The term "Alternative Network" in this document refers to networks that don't share the characteristics of "mainstream network deployments" 🌈 So they may share some of the following characteristics ✨
- Relatively small scale (i.e., not spanning entire regions).
- Administration may not follow a centralized approach.
- They may require a reduced investment in infrastructure, which may be shared by the users and commercial and non-commercial entities.
- Users in Alternative Networks may participate in the network design, deployment, operation, and maintenance.
- Ownership of the network is often vested in the users.
Next up is Section 2, where the terms get defined, and it's giving very important vibes 🌈💖
2. Terms Used in This Document ✨
okay so before we get into the good stuff, this doc is about some seriously big real-world stuff: society, politics, money, the whole vibe 🌍💅. Lots of these ideas have been debated by people outside of networking for ages, and we are NOT settling those debates here 🙈. Just know the terms below are how we're using them.
- "Global north" and "global south". Okay so nobody agrees on the best words for "countries at different development levels," but we're going with "global south" for nations with a relatively lower standard of living 🌏. That split is meant to reflect basic economic conditions in a country. Japan in Asia, Canada and the United States in northern America, Australia and New Zealand in Oceania, and Europe are usually called "developed" regions [UN], so those get the "global north" label 🦋.
- The "Digital Divide". To figure out how digitally developed a country is, we look at a few dimensions 📊: infrastructure (is it available and affordable?), the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector (people with skills and a tech industry), digital literacy, the legal and regulatory framework, and content and services. When one or more of these is lacking, that's what gets called the "Digital Divide" [Norris] 💔. Also, the gap isn't just between countries. It can show up between zones inside the same country too, no matter how developed that country is 👀.
- "Urban" and "rural" zones. Honestly there's no single definition here 🙃. Every country and international organization has its own version, usually based on how many people live there, how dense the population is, and how far apart the houses are [UNStats]. For networking, the big question is probably how far apart customers are on average (usually measured by population density) 🏘️. Also important: how far it is to the nearest Internet point-of-presence, aka the distance that "middle mile" or backhaul connectivity has to cover 🛣️. Some low-density regions still pack almost everyone into a few dense little towns, while in other places people are spread out more evenly 🌾.
- Demand. In economics, this is a consumer's desire for a specific good or service, plus their willingness to pay for it 💸.
- Provision. This is the act of making an asset available for sale. In this doc, we mostly mean making a network service available to the people living in a zone 🎀.
- Underserved area. An area where the telecom market keeps failing to provide the information and communications services the population wants 😤.
- Free, open, and neutral networks. Their principles have been summarized this way [Baig] 🌈:
- You have the freedom to use the network for any purpose, as long as you don't harm how the network itself runs, the rights of other users, or the neutrality principles that let content and services flow without deliberate interference 🕊️.
- You have the right to understand the network, to know its components, and to spread knowledge about how its mechanisms and principles work 🧠.
- You have the right to offer services and content to the network on your own terms 💅.
- You have the right to join the network, and the responsibility to extend these same rights to anyone on these same terms 🫶.
3. Scenarios Where Alternative Networks Are Deployed 🦋
Different studies have reported that as much as 60% of people on the planet have no Internet connectivity [Sprague] [InternetStats] 😭. Even worse, the gap is super uneven: only 31% of people in "global south" countries had access in 2014, compared with 80% in "global north" countries [WorldBank2016] 💀. This is one of the reasons the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) [SDG] include the target to "significantly increase access to information and communications technology and strive to provide universal and affordable access to the Internet in least developed countries by 2020." That target is part of "Goal 9. Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation." 🌟
For this document, we split things into "global north" and "global south" zones, paying attention to the ICT factors that can be measured in these terms:
- The availability of both national and international bandwidth, as well as equipment 📡.
- How hard it is to pay for the services and devices needed to get online 💳.
- Unstable or missing power supply ⚡.
- A shortage of qualified staff 🧑🔧.
- A policy and regulatory framework that gets in the way of these models by favoring state monopolies or incumbents 🙄.
In this context, the World Summit of the Information Society [WSIS] aimed for "a people-centred, inclusive and development-oriented Information Society, where everyone can create, access, utilize and share information and knowledge. Therefore, enabling individuals, communities and people to achieve their full potential in promoting their sustainable development and improving their quality of life." 🥹 It also called on "governments, private sector, civil society and international organizations" to actively engage in bridging the digital divide 🌉.
Some Alternative Networks have popped up in underserved areas, where citizens may be pushed to take a more hands-on role in designing and building ICT solutions 🛠️. Alternative Networks (e.g., [Baig]) also exist in some "global north" countries, where they're built as an alternative to the commercial networks run by mainstream network operators 🌿.
Mature Alternative Networks (e.g., Community Networks) have set a precedent: civil society members are becoming more active in looking for alternatives that give them affordable access 🙌. On top of that, Alternative Networks could help close the digital divide by building up human capital and encouraging the creation of localized content and services 📚✨.
3.1. Urban vs. Rural Areas 🌾
The differences from the previous section aren't just between countries, they show up inside them too 🗺️. This is especially true for rural inhabitants, who make up roughly 55% of the world's population [IFAD2011], with 78% of them living in "global south" countries [ITU2011] 🥺. According to the World Bank, adoption gaps "between rural and urban populations are falling for mobile phones but increasing for the internet" [WorldBank2016] 📉.
It's impossible to generalize, but there are some common features in rural areas that have kept incumbent operators from providing access, and that also make it harder to deploy alternative infrastructures 🚧 [Brewer] [Nungu] [Simo_c]. For example, [Johnson_b] reported high network latency that could reach the order of seconds during some hours ⏳.
These challenges include:
- Low per capita income, since the local economy is mainly based on subsistence agriculture, farming, and fishing 🐟.
- Scarce or missing basic infrastructure, like electricity, water, and access roads 🔌.
- Low population density and distance (spatial or effective) between population clusters 📍.
- Underdeveloped social services, like healthcare and education 🏥.
- A lack of adequately educated and trained technicians, plus a high chance that the (few) trained people leave the community for better opportunities, higher salaries, or the chance to start their own companies [McMahon] 🏃♀️💨.
- High cost of Internet access [Mathee] 💸.
- Harsh environments that lead to failures in electronic communication devices [Johnson_a], which hurts the reliability of the network 🥀.
Some of these factors make Alternative Networks and the services they provide less stable: scarce spectrum, scale, and heterogeneous devices 📶. Still, the spread of Alternative Networks [Baig], together with the rise of low-cost, low-consumption, low-complexity off-the-shelf wireless devices, has made it easier and cheaper to deploy and maintain alternative infrastructures in rural areas 🎉.
3.2. Topology Patterns Followed by Alternative Networks 🕸️
Alternative Networks are self-managed and self-sustained, and they follow different topology patterns [Vega_a] 💖. Generally, these networks grow spontaneously and organically: they grow without a specific plan or deployment strategy, and the routing core tends to fit a power law distribution 📈. These networks also have lots of heterogeneous devices, all working toward the same goal of freely connecting and increasing network coverage and reliability 🤝. Those traits do add entropy (for example, by adding more routing protocols) 🌀, but they still make an inexpensive way to grow the network size effectively 💅. A great example is Guifi.net [Vega_a], which has seen exponential growth in operating nodes over the last decade 🚀.
Regularly, rural areas in these networks connect through long-distance links and/or wireless mesh networks, which then carry the Internet connection to relevant organizations or institutions 🏫. In urban areas, users tend to share and need mobile access instead 📱. Since those areas are also likely to be covered by commercial ISPs, virtual operators like [Fon] may offer wireless access as a way to extend user capacity on the network 📡. Other proposals, like "Virtual Public Networks" [Sathiaseelan_a], can extend the service too 🌐.
4. Classification Criteria 📋
The classification of Alternative Network Deployments in this document is based on the following criteria 🎀:
4.1. Entity behind the Network 🧑🤝🧑
The entity (or entities) or individuals behind an Alternative Network can be:
- A community of users 🏡.
- A public stakeholder 🏛️.
- A private company 🏢.
- Supporters of a crowdshared approach 🤲.
- A community that already owns the infrastructure and shares it with an operator, who may in turn also use it for backhauling purposes 🔁.
- A research or academic entity 🎓.
The actors above can play different roles in the design, financing, deployment, governance, and promotion of an Alternative Network 🎭. For example, each member of a Community Network keeps ownership of the equipment they contributed 🧺, whereas in other setups a single entity, like a private company, owns the equipment or at least part of it 🏗️.
4.2. Purpose ✨
Okay so Alternative Networks can be sorted by their purpose 🎯, meaning what they're trying to achieve and how they beat mainstream options. We're talking economic, technological, social, or political goals 💅. Sometimes the perks go to the people running the network (like saving money or getting real technical skills), sometimes to the local community (like internet access in places that get ignored), and sometimes to society as a whole (like network neutrality) 🌍.
The benefits Alternative Networks bring include, but are not limited to:
- Extending coverage to underserved areas (users and communities) 🗺️
- Providing affordable Internet access for all 💸
- Reducing initial capital expenditures (for the network and the end user, or both) 🧾
- Providing additional sources of capital (beyond the traditional carrier-based financing) 💰
- Reducing ongoing operational costs (such as backhaul or network administration) 📉
- Leveraging expertise and having a place for experimentation and teaching 🧑🏫
- Reducing hurdles to adoption (e.g., digital literacy, literacy in general, and relevance) 📚
- Providing an alternative service in case of natural disasters and other extreme situations 🌪️
- Community building, social cohesion, and quality of life improvement 🫶
- Experimentation with alternative governance and ownership models for treating network infrastructures as a commons 🌱
- Raising awareness of political debates around issues like network neutrality, knowledge sharing, access to resources, and more 📢
Note that the different purposes of Alternative Networks can be more or less explicitly stated, and they can also evolve over time based on internal dynamics and external events 🔄. For example, the Red Hook WIFI network in Brooklyn [Redhook] started as a Community Network focusing more on local applications and community building [TidePools], but it became widely known when it played a key role as an alternative service available during the Sandy storm [Tech] [NYTimes]. Iconic glow-up 🌟.
Moreover, especially for networks with more open and horizontal governance models, the motivations of the people involved can be super diverse 🦋. They range from altruistic ones, like wanting to freely share Internet connectivity and various forms of activism, to personal benefits from gaining experience and expertise by actively taking part in deploying and managing a real, operational network 🛠️.
4.3. Governance and Sustainability Model 🏛️
Different governance models show up in Alternative Networks 👀. They can range from open and horizontal models, with active participation from users (e.g., Community Networks), all the way to a more centralized model, where a single authority (e.g., a company or a public stakeholder) plans and manages the network, even if it is (total or partially) owned by a community.
Regarding sustainability, some networks grow "organically" as new users join and extend the network, contributing their own hardware 🌱. In other cases, existing infrastructure (owned by the community or the users) may lower the capital expenditures of an operator, who can then provide the service under better economic conditions 💅.
4.4. Technologies Employed 📡
- Standard Wi-Fi. Many Alternative Networks are based on the standard IEEE 802.11 [IEEE.802.11] using the Distributed Coordination Function. Classic, reliable, no drama 🧃.
- Wi-Fi-based Long Distance (WiLD) networks. These can work with either Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision Avoidance (CSMA/CA) or an alternative Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) Media Access Control (MAC) [Simo_b]. Long-range energy 🔭.
- TDMA. It can be combined with a Wi-Fi protocol, in a non-standard way [airMAX]. This configuration allows each client to send and receive data using pre-designated timeslots ⏰. Very organized, very "everyone gets a turn" 🎀.
- 802.16-compliant (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMax)) [IEEE.802.16] systems over non-licensed bands. 📶
- Dynamic Spectrum Solutions (e.g., based on the use of TV White Spaces). A set of television frequencies that secondary users can utilize in locations where they are unused, e.g., IEEE 802.11af [IEEE.802.11AF] or 802.22 [IEEE.802.22]. Borrowing the unused frequencies is giving resourceful 📺✨.
- Satellite solutions can also be employed to give coverage to wide areas, as proposed in the RIFE project (
https://rife-project.eu/). Going to space for the internet?? Iconic 🚀. - Low-cost optical fiber systems are also used to connect households in different places 🔆.
4.5. Typical Scenarios 🗺️
The scenarios where Alternative Networks are usually deployed can be sorted into:
- Urban/rural areas.
- "Global north" / "global south" countries.
5. Classification of Alternative Networks 🧩
This section sorts Alternative Networks according to the criteria we just went over 📋. Each kind has its own incentive structures, maybe some shared technological challenges, but most importantly its own usage challenges, which feed into both the incentives and the technological challenges 🔁.
At the start of each subsection, there's a table that classifies each network according to the criteria listed in the "Classification Criteria" subsection 💕. Real examples of each kind of Alternative Network are cited too.
5.1. Community Networks 🏘️
+----------------+--------------------------------------------------+
| Entity behind | community |
| the network | |
+----------------+--------------------------------------------------+
| Purpose | all the goals listed in Section 4.2 may be |
| | present |
+----------------+--------------------------------------------------+
| Governance and | participatory administration model: non- |
| sustainability | centralized and open building and maintenance; |
| model | users may contribute their own hardware |
+----------------+--------------------------------------------------+
| Technologies | Wi-Fi [IEEE.802.11] (standard and non-standard |
| employed | versions) and optical fiber |
+----------------+--------------------------------------------------+
| Typical | urban and rural |
| scenarios | |
+----------------+--------------------------------------------------+Table 1: Characteristics Summary for Community Networks 📊
Community Networks are non-centralized, self-managed networks, and they share these characteristics 🫶:
- They start and grow organically, and they're open to participation from everyone, sharing an open participation agreement. Community members directly contribute active (not just passive) network infrastructure 🔌. The network grows as new hosts and links are added 🌿.
- Knowledge about building and maintaining the network, and ownership of the network itself, is non-centralized and open 🗝️. Different degrees of centralization can be found in Community Networks. In some of them, a shared platform (e.g., a website) may exist where minimum coordination happens 💻. Community members with the right permissions have an obvious and direct form of organizational control over the overall organization of the network (e.g., IP addresses, routing, etc.) in their community (not just their own participation in the network) 👑.
- The network can serve as a backhaul for a whole range of services and applications, from completely free to even commercial ones 💼.
Hardware and software in Community Networks can be very diverse and customized, even inside one network 🌈. A Community Network can have both wired and wireless links. Multiple routing protocols or network topology management systems may coexist in the network 🧶.
These networks grow organically, since they're formed by aggregating nodes that belong to different users 🌱. A minimal governance infrastructure is required to coordinate IP addressing, routing, etc. Several examples of Community Networks are described in [Braem]. A technological analysis of a Community Network is presented in [Vega_b], which focuses on technological network diversity, topology characteristics, how the network evolves over time, robustness and reliability, and networking service availability 🔬.
These networks follow a participatory administration model, which has been shown to be effective at connecting geographically dispersed people, thus enhancing and extending digital Internet rights 🌸.
Users adding new infrastructure (i.e., extensibility) can be used to formulate another definition: A Community Network is a network in which any participant in the system may add link segments to the network, in such a way that the new segments can support multiple nodes and adopt the same overall characteristics as the joined network, including the capacity to further extend the network. Once these link segments are joined to the network, there is no longer a meaningful distinction between the previous and the new extent of the network 🧚. The term "participant" refers to an individual, who may become the user, provider, and manager of the network all at the same time 🙌.
In Community Networks, profit can only be made by offering services, not simply by supplying the infrastructure, because the infrastructure is neutral, free, and open 🆓. (Mainstream Internet Service Providers base their business on controlling the infrastructure, so this is a whole different vibe 🙃.) In Community Networks, everybody usually keeps ownership of what they've contributed, or leaves the stewardship of the equipment to the network as a whole (the commons), even losing track of who owns a particular piece of equipment, in favor of the community 🫂.
The majority of Community Networks comply with the definition of Free Network, included in Section 2 💜.
5.2. Wireless Internet Service Providers (WISPs) 📡💖
+----------------+--------------------------------------------------+
| Entity behind | company |
| the network | |
+----------------+--------------------------------------------------+
| Purpose | to serve underserved areas; to reduce capital |
| | expenditures in Internet access; and to provide |
| | additional sources of capital |
+----------------+--------------------------------------------------+
| Governance and | operated by a company that provides the |
| sustainability | equipment; centralized administration |
| model | |
+----------------+--------------------------------------------------+
| Technologies | wireless, e.g., [IEEE.802.11] and [IEEE.802.16] |
| employed | and unlicensed frequencies |
+----------------+--------------------------------------------------+
| Typical | rural (urban deployments also exist) |
| scenarios | |
+----------------+--------------------------------------------------+
Table 2: Characteristics Summary for WISPsOkay so WISPs are commercially operated wireless Internet networks 💅 that give you Internet access and/or Voice over Internet (VoIP) services. They pop up mostly in areas that the big telecom companies or ISPs just don't cover, which is honestly so relatable 🥺. Most of the time they use wireless point-to-multipoint links on unlicensed spectrum, but they often have to switch to licensed frequencies 🔥. Licensed frequencies are popular in places where unlicensed spectrum seems too crowded or too unreliable for commercial service, or where regulations get in the way of using unlicensed spectrum. It's giving "we make it work no matter what" energy ✨.
Most WISPs are run by local companies that spotted a gap in the market and said "we got this" 👑. There's a small but growing group of WISPs that started local and grew into multiple locations, like [Airjaldi] in India. Iconic glow-up 🌈.
Since 2006, cloud-managed WISPs have been possible thanks to hardware from companies like [Meraki] and, later, [OpenMesh] and others 🦋. Honestly though, most of these services were aimed at "global north" markets for a long time 🙈. Then in 2014, a cloud-managed WISP service aimed at "global south" markets launched [Everylayer]. Finally 😭🫶.
5.3. Shared Infrastructure Model 🧚🍓
+----------------+--------------------------------------------------+
| Entity behind | shared: companies and users |
| the network | |
+----------------+--------------------------------------------------+
| Purpose | to eliminate a capital expenditures barrier (to |
| | operators); lower the operating expenses |
| | (supported by the community); and extend |
| | coverage to underserved areas |
+----------------+--------------------------------------------------+
| Governance and | the community rents the existing infrastructure |
| sustainability | to an operator |
| model | |
+----------------+--------------------------------------------------+
| Technologies | wireless in non-licensed bands, mobile |
| employed | femtocells, WiLD networks [WiLD], and/or low- |
| | cost fiber |
+----------------+--------------------------------------------------+
| Typical | rural areas, and more particularly rural areas |
| scenarios | in "global south" regions |
+----------------+--------------------------------------------------+
Table 3: Characteristics Summary for Shared InfrastructureSo in mainstream networks, the operator usually owns the telecom infrastructure it needs for the service, or sometimes rents it from other companies 💜. The tricky part is big areas with low population density, where neither the operator nor other companies have built anything. Those builds usually don't happen because the return on investment just isn't there 😔.
But here's the plot twist 🎀: when users already own infrastructure, whether they own it individually or as a community, sharing it with an operator can be a win for both of them, and it's something that's been done in some areas 🤝. For the operator, it's a huge cut to the upfront investment needed to serve small rural localities, because the capital expenditure only applies to the access network. Renting capacity on the users' network for backhaul only needs a bump in operating expenditure, which is so much easier 💅. The users get two perks too: they get better access to telecom services they couldn't get otherwise, and they earn some income from the operator that helps cover the network's running costs, especially maintenance 💖.
One super clear example of what the "shared infrastructure model" can do today is deploying 3G services in rural areas that already have a broadband rural Community Network 🌸. Ever since femtocells came along (small, low-power cellular base stations), there are complete technical solutions for low-cost 3G coverage that use the Internet as a backhaul ✨. If a user or group of users has an IP network connected to the Internet with some spare capacity, putting a femtocell on their premises benefits everyone: the user gets better coverage, and the operator doesn't have to pay for the backhaul infrastructure 🙌. This idea was originally conceived for better indoor coverage, but it also works for 3G coverage in underserved rural areas with low population density (basically villages), where the number of simultaneous users and the service area are small enough for low-cost femtocells. And the traffic these cells produce can be easily carried by most community broadband rural networks 🦋.
Some real examples come from the TUCAN3G project, which deployed demonstrator networks in two regions in the Amazon forest in Peru [Simo_d] 🌳. In these networks [Simo_a], the operator and several rural communities teamed up to provide services over rural networks built with WiLD links [WiLD] 🫶. In these cases, the networks belonged to public health authorities and were deployed with funds from international cooperation for telemedicine purposes 🩺. Publications that back up the feasibility of this approach can also be found on that website 📚🔥.
✨ okay so we're picking up mid-section 5.4 🦋
5.4. Crowdshared Approaches Led by the Users and Third-Party Stakeholders 💜
+----------------+--------------------------------------------------+
| Entity behind | community, public stakeholders, private |
| the network | companies, and supporters of a crowdshared |
| | approach |
+----------------+--------------------------------------------------+
| Purpose | sharing connectivity and resources |
+----------------+--------------------------------------------------+
| Governance and | users share their capacity, coordinated by a |
| sustainability | Virtual Network Operator (VNO); different models |
| model | may exist, depending on the nature of the VNO |
+----------------+--------------------------------------------------+
| Technologies | Wi-Fi [IEEE.802.11] |
| employed | |
+----------------+--------------------------------------------------+
| Typical | urban and rural |
| scenarios | |
+----------------+--------------------------------------------------+
Table 4: Characteristics Summary for Crowdshared ApproachesCrowdshared networks are basically a squad of nodes whose owners share common interests 🫶 (like sharing connectivity, resources, and peripherals) no matter where they physically are 🌍. The way it works is that the home router makes two wireless networks 📶: one is for the owner to use, and the other one is public 💖. A small slice of the bandwidth goes to the public network so anyone in the immediate area using the service can hop on ✨. Check out [PAWS] and [Sathiaseelan_c] for some examples 🧚. City councils also run networks like this, see [Heer] 🏛️. And the "openwireless movement" (https://openwireless.org/) is all about sharing private wireless networks too 🌸.
Some companies, like [Fon] 🍓, also push Wi-Fi routers with dual access: one Wi-Fi network for the user and one shared one 💅. Adequate Authentication, Authorization, and Accounting (AAA) policies are put in place so people can join in different ways 👑. You can buy a router, share your connection, and in return you get access to all the routers in the community 🎀. Some users even earn a little revenue every time someone else connects to their Wi-Fi Access Point 💸. People who aren't part of the community can buy passes to use the network 🎟️. Some mainstream telecom operators work with these communities too by building the functionality needed to create the two access networks into their routers 🔥. A few of these efforts are surveyed in [Shi] 📚.
The elements involved in a crowdshared network are summarized below:
- Interest 💭: A parameter that gives a measure (cost) of how attractive a node is in a specific location, at a specific instance in time.
- Resources 🌈: A physical or virtual element of a global system. For instance, bandwidth; energy; data; and devices.
- The owner 🏠: End users who sign up for the service and share their network capacity. As a counterpart, they can access another owner's home network capacity for free. The owner can be an end user or an entity (e.g., operator; virtual mobile network operator; or municipality) that is to be made responsible for any actions concerning his/her device.
- The user 🙋: A legal entity or an individual using or requesting a publicly available electronic communications service for private or business purposes, without necessarily having subscribed to such service.
- The VNO 🧠: An entity that acts in some aspects as a network coordinator. It may provide services such as initial authentication or registration and, eventually, trust relationship storage. A VNO is not an ISP given that it does not provide Internet access (e.g., infrastructure or naming). A VNO is not an Application Service Provider (ASP) either since it does not provide user services. VNOs may also be stakeholders with socio-environmental objectives. They can be local governments, grassroots user communities, charities, or even content operators, smart grid operators, etc. They are the ones who actually run the service 👑.
- Network operators 📡: They have a financial incentive to lease out unused capacity [Sathiaseelan_b] at a lower cost to the VNOs.
VNOs pay the sharers and the network operators, which creates an incentive structure for everyone 💖: end users get money for sharing their network, and network operators get paid by the VNOs, who in turn get to accomplish their socio-environmental role 🌸✨.
5.5. Rural Utility Cooperatives 🌾
+---------------------+---------------------------------------------+
| Entity behind the | rural utility cooperative |
| network | |
+---------------------+---------------------------------------------+
| Purpose | to serve underserved areas and to reduce |
| | capital expenditures in Internet access |
+---------------------+---------------------------------------------+
| Governance and | the cooperative partners with an ISP who |
| sustainability | manages the network |
| model | |
+---------------------+---------------------------------------------+
| Technologies | wired (fiber) and wireless |
| employed | |
+---------------------+---------------------------------------------+
| Typical scenarios | rural |
+---------------------+---------------------------------------------+
Table 5: Characteristics Summary for Rural Utility CooperativesA utility cooperative is a type of co-op that delivers a public utility to its members 🤝. For example, in the United States, rural electric cooperatives have been providing electric service since the 1930s 💡, especially in areas where investor-owned utilities wouldn't bother, because they figured there wouldn't be enough revenue to justify the capital expenditures 😭. Similarly, in lots of low-population-density regions, traditional Internet Service Providers like telephone companies or cable TV companies either aren't providing service at all or only offer low-speed DSL 🐌. Some rural electric cooperatives started installing fiber optic lines to run their smart grid applications, but then realized they could offer fiber-based broadband to their members at little extra cost [Cash] 🪄. In some of these cases, rural electric cooperatives have teamed up with local ISPs to provide Internet connections to their members [Carlson] 🫶. You can find more info about these utilities and how they're managed in [NewMexico] and [Mitchell] 📖.
5.6. Testbeds for Research Purposes 🔬
+------------------+------------------------------------------------+
| Entity behind | research/academic entity |
| the network | |
+------------------+------------------------------------------------+
| Purpose | research |
+------------------+------------------------------------------------+
| Governance and | the management is initially coordinated by the |
| sustainability | research entity, but it may end up in a |
| model | different model |
+------------------+------------------------------------------------+
| Technologies | wired and wireless |
| employed | |
+------------------+------------------------------------------------+
| Typical | urban and rural |
| scenarios | |
+------------------+------------------------------------------------+
Table 6: Characteristics Summary for TestbedsSometimes the spark for a network doesn't come from the community at all, but from a research entity (like a university) that wants to use it for research 🧪 [Samanta] [Bernardi] 🎓.
The administration of these networks often starts out centralized (run by the academic entity), and may later move to a non-centralized model where other local stakeholders take on part of the administration 🌷 (see [Rey] for an example) 🙌.
6. Technologies Employed 🛠️
6.1. Wired 🔌
In lots of countries, both "global north" and "global south," national service providers sometimes decline to connect tiny, isolated villages 🥺. So in some cases, the villagers build their own optical fiber networks 💪. That's what happened in Lowenstedt, Germany [Lowenstedt] and in some parts of Guifi.net [Cerda-Alabern] 🌟.
6.2. Wireless 📶
The vast majority of Alternative Network Deployments are built on different wireless technologies [WNDW] 💜. Here's a rundown of the options and trends for using these features in Alternative Networks 👀.
6.2.1. Media Access Control (MAC) Protocols for Wireless Links 📡
Lots of different MAC protocols, which also include physical layer (PHY) recommendations, are widely used in Alternative Network Deployments 🧩. Wireless standards keep things interoperable and usable for the people who design, deploy, and manage wireless networks 🫧. On top of that, they keep equipment cheap thanks to economies of scale and mass production 💰.
The standards used in the vast majority of Alternative Networks come from the IEEE Standard Association's IEEE 802 Working Group 🏆. Standards from other international bodies can also be used, such as the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) 🌍.
6.2.1.1. 802.11 (Wi-Fi) 📶
okay so the star of the show is 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac 💖 this is the one that defines Wireless LAN, and everybody calls it "Wi-Fi" 🫶 the original release (a/b) dropped in 1999 and could hit rates up to 54 Mbit/s 🌸 the latest one (802.11ac, approved in 2013) goes all the way up to 866.7 Mbit/s ✨ then in 2012 the IEEE pulled every previous amendment together into one 802.11 standard, which is so organized 💅 [IEEE.802.11]. you can download the whole thing for free from the IEEE Standards Association [IEEE] 🎀
now the MAC protocol here is CSMA/CA 🦋 and it was built for short distances 🙈 the transmitter expects an acknowledgment for every unicast packet it sends, and if the wait runs too long, the packet gets sent again 😭 so when 802.11 is used on long links, several MAC parameters have to be adapted [Simo_b]. even with that adaptation, distance still hurts performance a lot 💀 which is why lots of vendors add alternative medium access techniques next to standard CSMA/CA in their outdoor 802.11 products 🌈 those proprietary MAC protocols usually use some kind of TDMA, and low-cost gear using them can deliver high throughput at distances above 100 kilometers 🔥 literally wild, bestie
one more thing: different 802.11 specs live in different frequency bands ✨ 802.11b/g/n is on 2.4 GHz, while 802.11a/n/ac is on 5 GHz 🧚 Community Networks use this to split ordinary nodes from "backbone" nodes, and it's giving smart design 👑
The two node types are:
- Typical routers running mesh firmware in homes, offices, and public spaces operate at 2.4 GHz. 🏠
- Special routers running mesh firmware as well, but broadcasting and receiving on the 5 GHz band, are used in point-to-point connections only. 🦋 They help build a "backbone" that can connect neighborhoods to one another when reasonable connections with 2.4 GHz nodes aren't possible, and they make sure users of 2.4 GHz nodes are within a few hops of strong, stable connections to the rest of the network 💜
6.2.1.2. Mobile Technologies 📱
GSM, from ETSI, has also shown up in Alternative Networks as a Layer 2 option 🌸 you can read about it in [Mexican], [Village], and [Heimerl] 💖 open source GSM projects like OpenBTS (http://openbts.org) or OpenBSC (http://openbsc.osmocom.org/trac/) have built a whole ecosystem 🫶 with companies like [Rangenetworks], [Endaga], and [YateBTS] involved 👑 this makes voice, SMS, and Internet services possible over Alternative Networks with an IP-based backhaul, so iconic 🔥
internet browsing is usually limited to pretty low bit rates 😭 see [Osmocom] for that one. BUT 🫢 thanks to the evolution of Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) standards, there's a trend toward adding 4G [Spectrum] [YateBTS] or 5G [Openair] features, and the achievable bit rates go way up ✨ main character glow-up, periodt 🦋
licensed spectrum can be a big win over the higher frequencies Wi-Fi uses, depending on factors like the allocated frequency band 🌈 that's because of signal propagation and, as a result, coverage 🧚 GSM and other 3GPP technologies also get bonus points for low-cost, low-energy handsets, which makes them easier for low-income communities to use 🫶💜
6.2.1.3. Dynamic Spectrum 🌈
some Alternative Networks use TV White Spaces [Lysko] 📺 these are UHF and VHF television frequencies that secondary users can use in places where licensed primary users, like TV broadcasters, aren't using them 🦋 devices using TV White Spaces are required to detect unused TV channels, either through a spectrum database and/or spectrum sensing, so that no harmful interference is caused to primary users 😭 to smartly pick interference-free channels, they use cognitive radios that can change their frequency, power, and modulation techniques to meet the strict operating conditions for secondary users 🧠✨
people often say "White Spaces" when they mean "TV White Spaces," since the VHF and UHF TV frequencies were the first ones used on a secondary basis 💅 there are two dominant standards for TV White Space communication: (i) 802.11af [IEEE.802.11AF], which is an adaptation of 802.11 for TV White Space bands, and (ii) IEEE 802.22 [IEEE.802.22] for long-range rural communication 🌸
6.2.1.3.1. 802.11af 📡
802.11af [IEEE.802.11AF] is a modified version of 802.11 that runs in TV White Space bands and uses cognitive radios to avoid interfering with primary users 🫶 it's often called "White-Fi" or "Super Wi-Fi" and was approved in February 2014 🎀 it carries a lot of the advances from all the 802.11 standards, including recent 802.11ac features like up to four bonded channels, four spatial streams, and very high-rate 256 QAM (Quadrature Amplitude Modulation) 🔥 but with improved in-building penetration and outdoor coverage 🏠 the maximum data rate is 426.7 Mbit/s for countries with 6/7 MHz channels and 568.9 Mbit/s for countries with 8 MHz channels 🤯 coverage is typically limited to 1 km, although longer range at lower throughput is possible with high gain antennas 🦋
devices are either enabling stations (Access Points) or dependent stations (clients) 🧚 enabling stations are authorized to control a dependent station's operation and securely access a geolocation database 💜 once the enabling station gets a list of available White Space channels, it can announce a chosen channel to its dependent stations so they can talk to it 💖 802.11af also uses a registered location server, which is a local database that organizes the geographic location and operating parameters of all enabling stations 👑
6.2.1.3.2. 802.22 🌄
802.22 [IEEE.802.22] is a standard built specifically for long-range rural communications in TV White Space frequencies, and it was first approved in July 2011 ✨ it's similar to 802.16 (WiMax) [IEEE.802.16] but with an added cognitive radio ability 🧠 the maximum throughput is 22.6 Mbit/s for a single 8 MHz channel using 64-QAM modulation 🔥 the achievable range with the default MAC scheme is 30 km, but 100 km is possible with special scheduling techniques 🌈 the 802.22 MAC is customized for long distances, so for example, slots in a frame for more distant Consumer Premises Equipment (CPE) are sent before slots for nearby CPEs 🫢 it's giving thoughtful engineering, bestie 💅
base stations are required to have a Global Positioning System (GPS) and an Internet connection so they can query a geolocation spectrum database 🛰️ once the base station receives the allowed TV channels, it tells the CPE devices which TV White Space channel it prefers to operate on 🦋 the standard also has a coexistence mechanism that uses beacons, so other 802.22 base stations can tell when a base station from a different network is nearby 📡 iykyk, it's all about playing nice 🫶
7. Upper Layers 🧁
7.1. Layer 3 🌐
7.1.1. IP Addressing 🏷️
most Community Networks use private IPv4 address ranges, as defined by [RFC1918] 💜 the reason was lower cost and simpler IP allocation, thanks to the large available address ranges 💰 ✨
most known Alternative Networks started in or around the year 2000 🎂 IPv6 was fully specified by then, but almost all Alternative Networks still use IPv4 😭 a survey [Avonts] found that IPv6 rollout was a challenge for Community Networks 💀 however, some have already adopted it, like ninux.org 🎀 slay 💖
7.1.2. Routing Protocols 🗺️
as mentioned earlier, Alternative Networks can be made of different Layer 2 devices, which results in a mesh of nodes 🕸️ a connection between nodes isn't guaranteed, and link stability can change a lot over time 🫠 to handle this, some Alternative Networks use mesh routing protocols for Mobile Ad Hoc Networks (MANETs), while others use more traditional routing protocols 🦋 some networks run multiple routing protocols in parallel, like using a mesh protocol inside different islands and traditional routing protocols to connect those islands 🏝️ very strategic, honestly 👑
7.1.2.1. Traditional Routing Protocols 🏛️
the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP), as defined by [RFC4271], is used by a number of Community Networks because it's well studied and scales well 💅
for similar reasons, smaller networks choose to run the Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) protocol, as defined by [RFC2328] 🌸
7.1.2.2. Mesh Routing Protocols 🕸️
a large number of Alternative Networks use customized versions of the Optimized Link State Routing (OLSR) Protocol [RFC3626] 💖 the open source project [OLSR] added the Expected Transmission Count (ETX) metric [Couto] and other features for Alternative Networks, especially wireless ones 🧚 a new version, OLSRv2 [RFC7181], is becoming popular in some Community Networks [Barz] 🌈
Better Approach To Mobile Ad Hoc Networking (B.A.T.M.A.N.) Advanced [Seither] is a Layer 2 routing protocol that creates a bridged network and lets clients roam seamlessly between wireless nodes 🦋 🫶
some networks also run the BatMan-eXperimental Version 6 (BMX6) protocol [Neumann_a], which is based on IPv6 and tries to exploit the social structure of Alternative Networks 🤝💜
Babel [RFC6126] is a Layer 3 loop-avoiding distance-vector routing protocol that's robust and efficient in both wired and wireless mesh networks 🐝✨
in [Neumann_b], a study of three proactive mesh routing protocols (BMX6, OLSR, and Babel) looks at scalability, performance, and stability 📊🔥
7.2. Transport Layer 🚚
7.2.1. Traffic Management When Sharing Network Resources 🤲
hmm, I'm not sure this is the right heading level, so here it is exactly as written in the source:
7.2.1. Traffic Management When Sharing Network Resources 🤲
when network resources are shared (as, for example, in the networks explained in Section 5.4), you have to be extra careful about managing traffic at upper layers 🫶 from a crowdshared perspective, and considering just regular TCP connections during the critical sharing time, the Access Point offering the service is likely to be the bottleneck of the connection 🚧
this is the main concern of sharers, and it has several implications 💅 in some cases, an adequate Active Queue Management (AQM) mechanism that implements a Less-than-Best-Effort (LBE) [RFC6297] policy for the user is used to protect the sharer 🛡️ achieving LBE behavior requires careful tuning of well-known mechanisms such as Explicit Congestion Notification (ECN) [RFC3168], Random Early Detection (RED) [RFC7567], or other newer AQM mechanisms that help with low latency, like Controlled Delay (CoDel) [CoDel] and Proportional Integral controller Enhanced (PIE) [PIE] 🌈💖
7.3. Services Provided ✨
Okay so this section is basically a tour of what these networks actually do 🦋 Lowkey, a lot of Alternative Networks can be considered Autonomous Systems, being (or aspiring to be) a part of the Internet. Main character energy 👑
The services provided can include, but are not limited to:
- Web browsing 🌐
- Email 💌
- Remote desktop (e.g., using my home computer and my Internet connection when I am away) 🏠
- FTP file sharing (e.g., distribution of software and media) 🎀
- VoIP (e.g., with SIP) 📞
- Peer-to-Peer (P2P) file sharing 🫶
- Public video cameras 📹
- DNS 🧚
- Online game servers 🎮
- Jabber instant messaging 💬
- Weather stations 🌦️
- Network monitoring 👀
- Videoconferencing/streaming 🎥
- Radio streaming 📻
- Message/bulletin board 📌
- Local cloud storage services ☁️
Ngl, bandwidth is the villain here 💀 Due to bandwidth limitations, some services (file sharing, VoIP, etc.) may not be allowed in some Alternative Networks. In some of these cases, a number of federated proxies provide web-browsing service for the users, so people can still scroll their feeds 🙈
Some specialized services have been specifically developed for Alternative Networks, and these are giving custom-built energy 💖
- Inter-network peering/VPNs (e.g.,
https://wiki.freifunk.net/IC-VPN) 🔗 - Community-oriented portals (e.g.,
http://tidepools.co/) 🌊 - Network monitoring/deployment/maintenance platforms 🛠️
- VoIP sharing between networks, allowing cheap calls between countries 🌍
- Sensor networks and citizen science built by adding sensors to devices 🔬
- Community radio/TV stations 📺
Other services (e.g., local wikis as used in community portals; see https://localwiki.org) can also provide useful information when supplied through an Alternative Network, although they were not specifically created for them. Not built for it, but still iconic 🌸
7.3.1. Use of VPNs 🔐
Some "micro-ISPs" may use the network as a backhaul for providing Internet access, setting up VPNs from the client to a machine with Internet access. It's like a secret tunnel with a bouncer 🫣
Many Community Networks also use VPNs to connect multiple disjoint parts of their networks together. In some others, every node establishes a VPN tunnel as well. Literally everyone's in the tunnel, no cap 🚇
7.3.2. Other Facilities 🧚
Other facilities, such as NTP or Internet Relay Chat (IRC) servers may also be present in Alternative Networks. Time sync and old-school chat rooms, the vibes are immaculate 🕰️💜
7.4. Security Considerations 🛡️
No security issues have been identified for this document. 😭 Not one, bestie, so we can breathe for a sec 🫶
8. Informative References 📚
- [Airjaldi] AirJaldi Networks, "Airjaldi Service", 2015,
<https://airjaldi.com/>. - [airMAX] Ubiquiti Networks, Inc., "airMAX", 2016,
<https://www.ubnt.com/broadband/>. - [Avonts] Avonts, J., Braem, B., and C. Blondia, "A Questionnaire based Examination of Community Networks", IEEE 9th International Conference on Wireless and Mobile Computing, Networking and Communications (WiMob), pp. 8-15, DOI 10.1109/WiMOB.2013.6673333, October 2013.
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- [Barz] Barz, C., Fuchs, C., Kirchhoff, J., Niewiejska, J., and H. Rogge, "OLSRv2 for Community Networks", Computer Networks, Vol. 93, Issue P2, pp. 324-341, December 2015,
<http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.comnet.2015.09.022>. - [Bernardi] Bernardi, B., Buneman, P., and M. Marina, "Tegola Tiered Mesh Network Testbed in Rural Scotland", Proceedings of the 2008 ACM workshop on Wireless networks and systems for developing regions, pp. 9-16, DOI 10.1145/1410064.1410067, 2008.
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- [Brewer] Brewer, E., Demmer, M., Du, B., Ho, M., Kam, M., Nedevschi, S., Pal, J., Patra, R., Surana, S., and K. Fall, "The Case for Technology in Developing Regions", IEEE Computer Society, Vol. 38, Issue 6, pp. 25-38, DOI 10.1109/MC.2005.204, 2005.
- [Carlson] Carlson, S. and C. Mitchell, "RS Fiber: Fertile Fields for New Rural Internet Cooperative", Institute for Local Self-Reliance and Next Century Cities, April 2016,
<https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2016/04/rs-fiber-report-2016.pdf>. - [Cash] Cash, C., "CO-MO'S D.I.Y. Model for Building Broadband", National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA), November 2015,
<http://remagazine.coop/co-mo-broadband/>. - [Cerda-Alabern] Cerda-Alabern, L., "On the topology characterization of Guifi.net", Proceedings of the IEEE 8th International Conference on Wireless and Mobile Computing, Networking and Communications (WiMob), pp. 389-396, DOI 10.1109/WiMOB.2012.6379103, October 2012.
- [CoDel] Nichols, K., Jacobson, V., McGregor, A., and J. Iyengar, "Controlled Delay Active Queue Management", Work in Progress, draft-ietf-aqm-codel-04, June 2016.
- [Couto] De Couto, D., Aguayo, D., Bicket, J., and R. Morris, "A high-throughput path metric for multi-hop wireless routing", Wireless Networks, Vol. 11, Issue 4, pp. 419-434, DOI 10.1007/s11276-005-1766-z, July 2005.
- [Endaga] Alleven, M., "Endaga raises $1.2M to help it bring cellular to remote villages", FierceWireless Tech News, December 2014,
<http://www.fiercewireless.com/tech/story/endaga-raises-12m-help-it-bring-cellular-remote-villages/2014-12-03>. - [Everylayer] Everylayer, Inc. (formerly Volo Broadband), "Everylayer", 2015,
<http://www.everylayer.com/>. - [Fon] Fon, "Fon is the Global WiFi Network", 2014,
<https://corp.fon.com/en>. - [GAIA] Internet Research Task Force, "Charter: Global Access to the Internet for All Research Group (GAIA)", 2016,
<https://irtf.org/gaia>. - [Heer] Heer, T., Hummen, R., Viol, N., Wirtz, H., Gotz, S., and K. Wehrle, "Collaborative municipal Wi-Fi networks-challenges and opportunities", 8th IEEE International Conference on Pervasive Computing and Communications Workshops (PERCOM Workshops), pp. 588-593, DOI 10.1109/PERCOMW.2010.5470505, 2010.
- [Heimerl] Heimerl, K., Shaddi, H., Ali, K., Brewer, E., and T. Parikh, "Local, sustainable, small-scale cellular networks", In ICTD 2013, Cape Town, South Africa, DOI 10.1145/2516604.2516616, 2013.
- [IEEE] Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), "IEEE Standards Association",
<https://standards.ieee.org/>. - [IEEE.802.11] IEEE, "IEEE Standard for Information technology--Telecommunications and information exchange between systems Local and metropolitan area networks--Specific requirements Part 11: Wireless LAN Medium Access Control (MAC) and Physical Layer (PHY) Specifications", IEEE 802.11-2012, DOI 10.1109/ieeestd.2012.6178212, April 2012,
<http://standards.ieee.org/getieee802/download/802.11-2012.pdf>. - [IEEE.802.11AF] IEEE, "IEEE Standard for Information technology - Telecommunications and information exchange between systems - Local and metropolitan area networks - Specific requirements - Part 11: Wireless LAN Medium Access Control (MAC) and Physical Layer (PHY) specifications - Amendment 5: Television White Spaces (TVWS) Operation", IEEE 802.11af-2013, DOI 10.1109/ieeestd.2014.6744566, February 2014,
<http://standards.ieee.org/getieee802/download/802.11af-2013.pdf>. - [IEEE.802.16] IEEE, "IEEE Standard for Information technology - Telecommunications and information exchange between systems - Broadband wireless metropolitan area networks (MANs) - IEEE Standard for Air Interface for Broadband Wireless Access Systems", IEEE 802.16-2012, DOI 10.1109/ieeestd.2012.6272299, August 2012,
<http://standards.ieee.org/getieee802/download/802.16-2012.pdf>. - [IEEE.802.22] IEEE, "IEEE Standard for Information technology-- Local and metropolitan area networks-- Specific requirements-- Part 22: Cognitive Wireless RAN Medium Access Control (MAC) and Physical Layer (PHY) specifications: Policies and procedures for operation in the TV Bands", IEEE 802.22-2011, DOI 10.1109/ieeestd.2011.5951707, July 2011,
<http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/servlet/opac?punumber=5951705>. - [IFAD2011] International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), "Rural Poverty Report 2011", ISBN 978-92-9072-200-7, 2011.
- [InternetStats] Internet World Stats, "World Internet Users and 2015 Population Stats",
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okay bestie, here's the reading list 📚✨ every source this RFC leans on, so you can go check the receipts 💅
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Acknowledgements ✨
Okay so this work got some real funding, bestie 💖 It was partially funded by the CONFINE European Commission project (FP7 - 288535). Arjuna Sathiaseelan and Andres Arcia Moret were funded by the EU H2020 RIFE project (Grant Agreement no: 644663). Jose Saldana was funded by the EU H2020 Wi-5 project (Grant Agreement no: 644262). 🫶
The editor and the authors also want to thank everyone who helped draft, review, and discuss this memo. That's Panayotis Antoniadis, Paul M. Aoki, Roger Baig, Jaume Barcelo, Steven G. Huter, Aldebaro Klautau, Rohan Mahy, Vesna Manojlovic, Mitar Milutinovic, Henning Schulzrinne, Rute Sofia, and Dirk Trossen. The whole squad is iconic 👑
A special thank you to the GAIA Working Group chairs, Mat Ford and Arjuna Sathiaseelan, for their support and guidance 💜
Contributors 🎀
Here are the people who contributed to this doc, with their contact info, so you can slide into their inbox if you need to 💌
Leandro Navarro
Leandro Navarro
U. Politecnica Catalunya
Jordi Girona, 1-3, D6
Barcelona 08034
Spain
Phone: +34 93 401 6807
Email: leandro@ac.upc.eduCarlos Rey-Moreno
Carlos Rey-Moreno
University of the Western Cape
Robert Sobukwe road
Bellville 7535
South Africa
Phone: +27 (0)21 959 2562
Email: crey-moreno@uwc.ac.zaIoannis Komnios
Ioannis Komnios
Democritus University of Thrace
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Kimmeria University Campus
Xanthi 67100
Greece
Phone: +306945406585
Email: ikomnios@ee.duth.grSteve Song
Steve Song
Network Startup Resource Center
Lunenburg, Nova Scotia
Canada
Phone: +1 902 529 0046
Email: stevesong@nsrc.orgDavid Lloyd Johnson
David Lloyd Johnson
Meraka, CSIR
15 Lower Hope St
Rosebank 7700
South Africa
Phone: +27 (0)21 658 2740
Email: djohnson@csir.co.zaJavier Simo-Reigadas
Javier Simo-Reigadas
Escuela Tecnica Superior de Ingenieria de Telecomunicacion
Campus de Fuenlabrada
Universidad Rey Juan Carlos
Madrid
Spain
Phone: +34 91 488 8428
Fax: +34 91 488 7500
Email: javier.simo@urjc.esAuthors' Addresses 💅
Last but definitely not least, here's who wrote this whole thing 🦋
Jose Saldana (editor)
Jose Saldana (editor)
University of Zaragoza
Dpt. IEC Ada Byron Building
Zaragoza 50018
Spain
Phone: +34 976 762 698
Email: jsaldana@unizar.esAndres Arcia-Moret
Andres Arcia-Moret
University of Cambridge
15 JJ Thomson Avenue
Cambridge FE04
United Kingdom
Phone: +44 (0) 1223 763610
Email: andres.arcia@cl.cam.ac.ukBart Braem
Bart Braem
iMinds
Gaston Crommenlaan 8 (bus 102)
Gent 9050
Belgium
Phone: +32 3 265 38 64
Email: bart.braem@iminds.beErmanno Pietrosemoli
Ermanno Pietrosemoli
The Abdus Salam ICTP
Via Beirut 7
Trieste 34151
Italy
Phone: +39 040 2240 471
Email: ermanno@ictp.itArjuna Sathiaseelan
Arjuna Sathiaseelan
University of Cambridge
15 JJ Thomson Avenue
Cambridge CB30FD
United Kingdom
Phone: +44 (0)1223 763781
Email: arjuna.sathiaseelan@cl.cam.ac.ukMarco Zennaro
Marco Zennaro
The Abdus Salam ICTP
Strada Costiera 11
Trieste 34100
Italy
Phone: +39 040 2240 406
Email: mzennaro@ictp.it📦 where this page comes from
- ietf: rfc7962 2016-08
- 💖 girlified by claude-haiku-5-5 on : a language model's rewrite of the original, under its terms