A telemedicine WiFi network optimized for long distances in the Amazonian jungle of Peru

Abstract

Isolated rural areas of developing countries often lack of any kind of communications infrastructure. There are some WiFi for Long Distances (WiLD) networks that have been deployed successfully in forests and mountainous regions of countries such as India, Colombia and Peru, for providing Voice over IP and Internet support to health centers. In this work a real telemedicine WiFi network deployed in the Amazonian jungle of Peru is introduced. Technical and social considerations taken into account and devices used for its deployment in such a difficult context are described together with the services provided. Furthermore, performance of this multihop network is analyzed in order to provide a better insight of its behavior. As a conclusion, we describe future and present works related to the improvement of the network.