ARA Shows How Multi-Modal Networks Can Bridge the Rural Connectivity Gap

Multi-Modal Networks Can Bridge the Rural Connectivity Gap

When ARA was first envisioned, one of the goals for the platform was to help lower the cost curve for rural broadband deployments. What technology could you use to make it less expensive to deploy broadband to areas with fewer customers?

The answer is not one technology, but multiple – and the ability to apply multiple technologies in different ways depending on user need. (Continue below)

Check out the photo gallery from AraFest’24 and the ARA and Iowa State University exhibit at the annual Farm Progress Show.

Continued… At AraFest’24, the ARA team demonstrated how the platform can now support research and testing with different types of wireless connectivity that can be mixed, matched, and optimized to meet a variety of cost and performance requirements. The testbed has been multi-modal since its launch. However, it has added components recently like satellite broadband access and made it possible to: 1) conduct new experiments that combine connectivity modes, and 2) compare performance across different types of wireless links under a range of conditions.

The demo showed at AraFest involved video streaming from a drone to the Internet across a network using three types of wireless links.

1. Video taken from a modem-connected camera on the drone traveled via mid-band spectrum to a commercial Ericsson 5G SA radio at ARA’s Ag Farm base station.
2. The video then streamed across an Aviat microwave backhaul/x-haul link from the Ag Farm base station to a second base station at Wilson Hall.
3. Finally, the video traveled out to the Internet via a Hughes satellite terminal connected to satellite broadband service.

At each point along the way, the ARA team showed network performance results comparing metrics like latency and signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR). These metrics and others make it possible to determine the ideal network configuration for a given use case.

In the future, researchers could change the drone flight pattern, measure outcomes in different types of weather, and compare combinations of different hardware and software in both the RAN and network backhaul. A network could then theoretically be optimized to meet specific requirements, such as providing reliable, low-cost connectivity as a baseline service with the option to increase performance at a higher cost as needed.

The goal for future networks is to be able to dynamically leverage resources including spectrum, time, power, and more. That is beginning to happen as more network functions become virtualized and controlled through software, but there is a lot of research and development work still to do.

A flexible, multi-modal network like the one at ARA makes that work possible.