A Low Cost Connectivity Solution for Rural Mobile Telemedicine

Reliable connectivity of sufficient data rate capability at affordable cost is a major requirement for low cost rural mobile telemedicine projects. In developing countries, the connectivity infrastructure has not been highly developed, especially in rural areas. A mobile telemedicine facility was planned in Cherthala, India with the objective of bringing super specialty hospital facilities to the doorstep of rural households within 15 km range from the specialty hospital. Fifteen different wireless communication technologies were evaluated so as to get an optimal connectivity solution in thickly vegetated area of operation with coconut trees as high as 18 meters. The technologies included non-line of sight solutions, IEEE 802.20, mesh network solutions, VSAT, IEEE 802.11g based outdoor solution, IEEE 802.16d, GPRS, EDGE, CDMA 2000 1X and EVDO-Rev0. The optimal connectivity solution for the application was identified as CDMA 2000 1X (Wireless in Local Loop - WLL) from BSNL, the National telecommunication company. Various solutions were evaluated for link aggregation of multiple CDMA 2000 1X links, such as Multi link solution on Microsoft Windows platform, Link aggregation control protocol, Multilink PPP and Software based link aggregation. A multilink policy management tool from Vicomsoft was customized and configured to meet the specific requirements of teaming multiple links. The paper provides details of wireless communication technology options identified, link aggregation methods, their evaluation and test results.