Geo-intelligence based terrain-aware mobile backhaul planning for rural India

Abstract

This paper proposes ITU-T fiber based technology specific mobile backhaul planning for rural India. More than 70% mobile towers of India are installed in rural areas. However, rural India lacks basic infrastructure e.g. connecting roads, electricity and mobile backhaul bandwidth to provide broadband services. In order to take the advantage of growing mobile technologies to address the digital divide of rural India, it is essential to provide adequate backhaul connectivity. Fiber based technologies have merits to address this demand. Technological planning of fiber based technology requires accurate digital mapping of existing, new fiber and components on GIS. The selection of appropriate technology for Cost, Coverage, Capacity, QoS and Security aspects for rural areas are of prime concern. The present research focuses on region specific technology selection with existing infrastructure considering diversity of India e.g. difficult hilly terrain in North East, Himachal, Uttrakhand, deserts in Rajasthan, costal region and ghat areas in Western India. The limited budget and bandwidth requirement of rural India, suggests tree based Passive Optic Network (PON) as the suitable technology. A case study for this approach in hilly, coastal and desert area has been carried out in the presented paper.