On Software-Defined Networking for Rural Areas:Controlling Wireless Networks with OpenFlow

Software-defined networking (SDN) is gaining interest among the traditional vendors of networking devices and network operators. Promises such as simplified network control and resource management are valuable features for network operators. However, the SDN paradigm cannot suddenly bring more bandwidth to existing networks; it merely offers tools for more efficient use of available resources. Together, these benefits could provide means for network providers in rural areas to gain cost-efficiency. To this day, less research has been done on how to utilise SDN in practice in wireless rural area networking. This paper presents an on-going work on utilising SDN capabilities in wireless networks. It describes some design ideas and evaluates basic building blocks that enable SDN in low-cost wireless networks