Connecting the last billion

The last billion people to join the online world, are likely to face at least one of two obstacles:/nPart I: Rural Internet Access/nRural, sparsely populated, areas make conventional infrastructure investments unfeasible: Big/ncorporations attempt to address this challenge via the launch of Low-Earth-Orbiting (LEO) satellite/nconstellations, fleets of high-altitude balloons, and giant solar-powered drones; although these/ngrandiose initiatives hold potential, they are costly and risky. At the same time, small local operators,/nWireless Internet Service Providers (WISPs), are growing in numbers, in subscribe base and/nin territory covered. WISPs can play a major role in serving a growing number of rural communities,/nas well as offer real competition to incumbent operators in urban and semi-urban markets,/nleading to better service at reduced costs./nThe key motivation for this work is to lower the barriers-to-entry for small rural WISPs, and to/nsustainably grow their operation — this has been my research focus for over 15 years./nThe core of this work is based on a case-study of a WISP, FurtherReach — which we have/nbuilt from the ground up. This WISP brings broadband Internet service to hundreds of subscribers/nat the south coast of Mendocino county in California. Through designing, deploying and operating/nthis venture, we learn about the real challenges faced by WISPs, develop technical solutions as/nwell as business models, operational methodologies and deployment strategies. The FurtherReach/ncase study is presented in chapter 2. Chapter 1 introduces the overall WISP ecosystem. In chapter/n3 we discuss the potential of Software Defined Networks (SDN) to aid in WISP operations. Finally,/nchapter 4 discusses the often overlooked computer-security concerns that are unique to rural/ncommunities, especially in developing countries./nPart II: Dissent Networking/nOppressive regimes censor and restrict information flow. Sadly, Internet censorship, in some/ncountries, does not seem to be going away, and presents a growing challenge. The degree and effectiveness/nof censorship varies greatly, as does the risk of getting caught circumventing it. Similarly,/nthe technologies to aid dissenters vary accordingly. My work in this field predates smart-phones,/nwhich I believe could be made to offer safe and effective solutions even in the most dangerous/nof countries. Should we consider these technologies Internet access? Once again the degree of/nconnectivity, and especially interactivity, from behind a censoring firewall, varies greatly./nIn chapter 5, I present our attempt at defining the threats and narrating the exceptionally challenging/nproblem space. I find this chapter quite discouraging as it dictates exceptional restrictions/non the design space, yet ignoring these constraints may put users of the technology in greater risks/nthan without it. It makes us question if technology can help at all?/nI continue in chapter 6, to present Rangzen, our initial attempt at designing a solution that/nadheres to the strict constraints presented in 5. While limited in functionality, especially given/nits delay-tolerant approach, which is incompatible with many Internet applications that expect/nreal-time interactivity, it does successfully follow our design guidelines for dissent technologies/nas presented in chapter 5. We have built an Android app, Rangzen, based on these design specifications,/nwhich undergoes a beta testing program at the time of this writing. The app will be/ndistributed freely on the Android store in January 2016, and the code is open source and available/nto the public.

Advisor: Brewer, Eric A