Designing and deploying a rural ad-hoc community mesh network testbed

Rural communities suffer from a lack of infrastructure for inexpensive high-speed access to the Internet. One approach to providing high-speed access in these environments is to share a small number of more expensive high-speed connections across the community. A wireless mesh network can provide a low-cost backbone to enable this sharing. Existing solutions to building community mesh networks use proprietary technology or typically require rooftop or other outdoor antenna deployment. We examine the feasibility of constructing a community mesh network in a rural neighborhood at Dartmouth College using off-the-shelf hardware and software components and without using an outdoor antenna. We identify several challenges to construction of such networks including network density, hardware limitations, and US electrical code. In this paper, we outline some of the key challenges we faced during our deployment and suggest solutions