Publication

Abstract : A novel cost-effective network architecture for providing Internet connectivity to marine fishermen has been successfully prototyped by our research center. A pilot deployment is in progress in a coastal Indian village. This will improve the quality of life of the financially constrained marine fishermen who spend 5-7 days offshore on average for a single fishing trip; it will also help in their safety and security. The architecture employs multiple long range Wi-Fi (LR Wi-Fi) based infrastructure networks stitched together as backhaul. The access network consists of Ethernet and Wi-Fi mesh. The fishermen connect to the on board Wi-Fi access point cum router using their smart phones and are able to use all the apps and services on their smart phone. While the primary infrastructure network uses onshore base stations, the secondary infrastructure networks use boats as mobile base stations. Three field trials were conducted over the ocean using one onshore base station and two mid-sized boats known as trawlers. The performance of both primary and secondary infrastructure networks was assessed during these field trials. This paper describes the impressive results obtained in assessing the performance of the secondary infrastructure network.