Csep-561-Reading-9C

CoLTE: A Community LTE Solution

This is another exciting research avenue: getting broadband Internet to the three billion people in rural/developing regions via a distributed, cooperative, community-led effort. Most of the examples prior to this paper deployed 2G and 3G; however the paper proposes and implements CoLTE: an LTE-based community networking solution.

While LTE has a lot of advantages over 2G/3G for community networks (wide area, inexpensive, high-bandwidth), there were also a number of hurdles to overcome in building CoLTE, such as:

1. As with the previous paper, push EPC to the edge
2. Remove the need for phone numbers and telecom interconnect (design choice to depend on apps like WhatsApp over SMS/Voice)
3. Bill based on IP
4. Leverage SIM-based auth