Building Backhaul Networks for Rural Area Connectivity towards the Fourth Industrial Revolution

Abstract

The fourth industrial revolution (4IR) is expected to change our lives. One of the main players towards 4IR will be Internet of Things (IoT). The main limiting factor for minimum IoT application implementation in Sub-Saharan Africa rural areas is that many areas do not have communication infrastructures mainly due to budget constraints. Recently Long Range (LoRA) has been gaining research for such applications. In this paper we present the concept that multi-hop networks based on IEEE802.11 and Schedule before Contention Scheduling strategies can also provide backhaul communication infrastructure. The use of the RWS-AGE Strategy tested in multi-hop networks in this paper has shown a reduction in the number of collisions, packet loss and end-to-end latency compared to Enhanced Distributed Channel Access (EDCA).