Towards the Development and Deployment of Community LTE Networks in Rural Areas

The evolution of community cellular network (CCN) initiatives over the years has created a distinct paradigm for developing, operating, and sharing network infrastructure and for promoting the fundamental human right to internet access. In this paper, we focus exclusively on the status of the local development and deployment of community LTE Networks in the Philippines, dubbed as LokaLTE, as a component of a larger research project, Resilient Education Information Infrastructure for the New Normal (REIINN). Here, we will present a review of the past and present CCN initiatives in the Philippines and other countries. The sub-components of LokaLTE will be briefly discussed to signify their synergy with the project in general. LokaLTE operates at LTE Band 71 (617 – 698 MHz), which is supported by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) for 4G mobile broadband but has yet to be adopted by the Philippines for community LTE networks. Hence, a proposed open-source solution for LTE-based CCNs will be introduced to facilitate the deployment and operation of small-scale, community-owned and operated LTE networks in rural areas. The preliminary results of the measurements and characterization will be described. Accordingly, the plan towards an agile yet regulatory-compliant deployment will be elaborated. CNNs involve a large number of promising research opportunities in the country and, therefore, this paper aims to provide an overview of other possible directions towards future research.