Recommendations for Energy Efficient SoDIP6 Network Deployment at the Early Stage Rural ICT Expansion of Nepal

Abstract

The use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has major impacts on social welfare, economic growth, transparency and good governance in the society. Due to the difficult geographic and demographic situation, ICT enhancement in rural Nepal is however quite challenging since private operators mostly confined their businesses to urban areas. Other reasons for this phenomenon are the lack of energy for power supply, content, security issues and high deployment costs with low return on investment. Currently, there is less than 1% broadband penetration in rural Nepal. Thus, there are benefits and challenges for the operators to deploy their fresh networking system focusing towards green ICT by the implementation of energy efficient Software Defined IPv6 (SoDIP6) Network. Nepal Telecommunications Authority (NTA), collects 2% royalty form Internet Service Provider (ISP) and Telecom operators to enhance ICT particularly for rural Nepal under Rural Telecommunications Disbursement Fund (RTDF). Recently, the NTA has initiated broadband deployment project utilizing its RTDF to expand ICT infrastructure by subsidizing service providers to expand their services towards rural Nepal. This paper presents benefits and challenges of green networking with respect to Software Defined Network (SDN) and Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) as an enabler of energy efficient next generation networking system recommended to be deployed for rural connectivity at the early stage network expansion for service provider sustainability. Proposed approach is evaluated with university campus network. Findings show that the proposed system would significantly reduce the energy consumption and carbon footprint leading to economic benefits for service providers.