TakNet 2 : A rural school wireless mesh network

A rural school wireless mesh network with an educational video-on-demand system was deployed at Ban Mae Kued Luang School, Mae-Sot,Tak, Thailand in January 2014.

Location: Ban Mae Kued Luang School, Mae-Sot,Tak, Thailand

Objectives

  • To deploy cost-effective multimedia WMN in rural communities and schools for educational content distribution.
  • To research and develop some enabling technologies. For example, micro-caching of multimedia contents in rural WMN.
  • To explore other beneficial uses of low-cost WMN in developping countries. Few examples include Post-Disaster Emergency Communication and Rural Healthcare.

Our Proposed Solution: EDU Content Distribution via Low-cost WMN routers

  • Low-cost and locally available hardware running customizable embedded Linux.
  • 802.11n 2.4GHz Wi-Fi services with maximum link speed of 150Mbps.
  • Self-configuring, self-healing OLSR mesh networking.
  • USB flash storage: 16GB or 32GB per router for content caching (video or ebook files).
  • Low power consumption (max 5W). Grid electricity cost is < US$ 0.70 per router per month.
  • Optionally solar-powered (at an additional cost).
  • Internal battery can be optionally installed to operate without grid/solar electricity for 4+ hours.
  • Easy to use and maintain. Users can just switch the routers off-and-on to resolve most problems.
  • Robust -- high temperature tolerance (when battery is removed), no moving parts.

Actual Deployment

Deployed by intERLab Team in January 2014. Educational VoD service was introduced to the teachers and students in this school.





Gallery