Document Actions

Boulsat Project - Radio network implementation by low cost technology

by Federico Longobardi — last modified 2007-10-09 02:00

F. Longobardi's Master Thesis

Summary:

BoulSat is a technical cooperation project carried out by ISF (Engineering Without Borders) in Burkina Faso about the development of low cost telecommunication networks. BoulSat provides the Internet access of the rural community of Boulsa implementing an outdoor Poor-WLAN connected to a satellite system (VSAT). This book want be a detailed report of the scientiﬁc study which is behind the network design and of the project’s realization itself; there are analyzed the typical troubles and the possible solutions building a WLAN/VSAT network in a critical environment as the South of the World2 . There are also included technical and economical considerations about commercial and home-made solutions of components and equipments for WLAN networks.

The Poor-WLAN is the arrival point of a project study responding to the requirements of local (global) reproducibility, sustainability and minimization of costs based on a valutation costs/beneﬁts. The Poor-WLAN put together standard solu- tions in outdoor WLAN designing at enterprise level, with handicraft components (antennas, PoE devices, weatherproof enclosures, antenna-masts) achieving considerable performance at low costs. An important result, in this direction, has been the implementation of a directive antenna (gain about 8 dB) perfectly matched over the WLAN frequency band around 2.4 GHz (IEEE 802.11b/g standard) and realized recycling circular metal cans as waveguides. The WLAN/VSAT systems have shown to be a winner team able to guarantee, with sustainable costs and technologies, the Internet access to rural and remote communities. This book traces the guide lines to consider a WLAN project feasibility and dimensioning; it suggests a telecommunication network model (the Poor-WLAN) particulary suitable in the South of the World.