On the reliability of WiFi multihop backhaul connections for rural areas

In this paper, reliability of WiFi multihop backhaul connections, in terms of probability of successful packet delivery, is analyzed in detail. The major issue in providing a cost-effective rural broadband network is to connect the remote sites to the existing network and with each other over distances of tens or hundreds of miles. There has been a lot of research activity around long distance WiFi links. These links require high-gain directional antennas and very expensive tall towers to maintain LoS (Line-of-Sight). In this paper, we evaluated, using empirical models, the idea of using multiple hop connections in linear topology, also termed as multihop chains, for rural backhaul. Reliability of WiFi chains is evaluated in adverse conditions of radio propagation and in the presence of node failures. This analysis shows promising potential of cost-effective WiFi chain networks as backhauls with reasonable reliability. Considerable improvement in reliability and robustness can be achieved by providing some redundancy in network topology. Networks with redundant nodes can tolerate larger separation between adjacent nodes, thus reducing the overall deployment cost.