Cost effective restoration of wireless connectivity in disaster hit areas using OpenBTS

In this paper, we have proposed a cost effective method for rapid restoration of wireless connectivity in disaster hit areas, which face large scale failure of wireless infrastructure. This method includes setting of a reconfigurable Base Transceiver Station (BTS) based on Software Defined Radio (SDR) technology. The setup covers the drawbacks of existing methods for establishing connectivity in disaster hit areas such as Ham radio. It also extends the connectivity to almost every individual in the area having a GSM handset at no additional cost. This low cost deployment will encourage government to implement such models in areas struck by major catastrophe. For demonstration, we have used OpenBTS along with Universal Software Radio Peripherals (USRP) N210, to set up the BTS infrastructure. We have also analyzed scaling up of the experimental system model to set up a Macrocell network in practical scenario.