Low Cost Test Bed Design for VoIP over WMN based Architecture for future eGovernance of Indian

Rural Areas

Name: DR.SIVAKUMAR.D
Designation: PROFESSOR
Address: EASWARI ENGINEERING COLLEGE, Salai, Ramapuram, Chennai,
Tamil Nadu -600089
Telephone No:9659954347
E-mail: dgsivakumar@gmail.com
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Project Objectives (In bullet form)

9.

To design and implement IEEE 801.11 based VoIP over Wireless

Mesh Network Test Bed.

To extend the e-governance of GOI to digitally cornered rural areas of

India by leveraging VoIP over Wireless Mesh Network.

Deliverables (In bullet form)

The VoIP over Wireless Mesh Network based Test Bed.

Low Cost Infrastructure Protoype for future e-governance of

digitally cornered Indian rural areas.

Architecture and Trainiing manual for instant setup of VoIP over

Wireless Mesh Network.

National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) targets to provide all government services to

the common man in his own locality, through state wide area networks SWAN.
Latest survey shows that operators are not conducive to cover rural areas of India
as the customer density is lower and they spend lesser on phone calls. For the
efficient e-governance of Government of India, this project puts forth the design and
development of VoIP over Wireless Mesh Networks in order to extend the low cost
communications to the Indian rural areas. An exhaustive literature survey shows
that VoIP over Wireless Mesh Networks would be a potential solution to connect the
digitally cornered rural areas of India. For the efficient e-governance of Government
of India, this project proposes the architecture to extend the low cost

communications and e-governance services and survey of rural areas by

leveraging the VoIP over Wireless Mesh Networks. VoIP over Wireless Mesh
Networks would be a potential solution to connect the digitally cornered rural areas
of India. The test bed utilizes IEEE 802.11 Mesh Points to form State Wide Area
Network in order to route phone calls and other services by not using any base
stations or landlines. The 802.11a of 5 GHz is used for the backbone mesh routers
and the 802.11b/g/n of 2.4 GHz is used for the mesh clients. The ARM-based
embedded Linux development board and Intel x86-based laptop pc were used to
implement the mesh routers and mesh clients. All mesh nodes are equipped with
wireless mini PCI WLAN cards as well as Ethernet port and madwifi-opensource
WLAN driver. LAMP (Linux,Apache,MySQL,PHP) posses the application server of
e-governance services and haxpax-gosms provides API over HTTP to push
messages to gateway. Asterisk SIP server and Private Branch eXchange (PBX) are
employed for routing the VoIP calls to the PSTN. Mesh router node performs
internal routing, when a call is made. e-Governance software is a LAMP (Linux
Apache MYSQL and PHP) application that sits on top of Asterisk and connected to
State Data Centre, which serves the purpose. The VoIP over WMN based
architecture would provide the phenomenal platform for future e-governance of
Indian rural areas.The WMN test bed is completely includes off the shelf products
and open source softwares wherever possible that ensures the cost is optimally
lower.

Governance must be ubiquitous. The Union Government has approved the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP),
incorporating of 27 Mission Mode Projects (MMPs) and 10 components on May 18, 2006 [7]. The NeGP intends to
boost Government services delivery to country people and businesses with the vision: Provide all Government services
to the any citizen in his own locality, via general service delivery outlets and guarantee efficiency, transparency &
reliability of such services at bearable costs to realize the basic needs of the common man. Deployment of eGovernance is a very convoluted process need provisioning of hardware & software, networking, process reengineering and change management. NeGP execution necessitate setting up of IT infrastructure such as:
State Wide Area Networks (SWANs)
State Data Centers (SDCs)
Common Services Centers (CSCs) and
Electronic Service Delivery Gateways.
But, Latest survey shows that operators are not conducive to cover rural areas of India as the customer density
is lower and they spend lesser on phone calls. Wireless mesh networks are at present rising as a promising technology
for broadband ubiquitous networking would be suitable to construct SWAN (State Wide Area Network). For the
efficient e-governance of Government of India, this paper proceeds a case study on the VoIP over WMN test bed to
extend the low cost communications such as phone calls, complaint filing calls and services such as government orders,
bills, civil welfare scheme benefits, rural banking, agricultural, educational, AEPS alerts, weather forecast alerts for
farmers, health care services and survey of rural areas by leveraging the VoIP over Wireless Mesh Networks. VoIP
(Voice over IP) over Wireless Mesh Networks would be a potential solution to implement SWAN in order to connect the
digitally cornered rural areas of India. Wireless mesh networks (WMNs) are becoming a feasible solution for network
operators to provide broadband wireless Internet access in a flexible and cost effective way. In this paper, we presented
an exhaustive case study on test bed design for VoIP over Wireless Mesh Network to utilize multiband IEEE 802.11
access points as mesh router nodes, Asterisk SIP server with Private Branch eXchange (PBX) and gateways with
UTRAN interface in order to route phone calls and other services by not using any base stations or landlines. The
802.11a of 5 GHz is utilized to form the backbone of mesh routers and the 802.11b/g/n of 2.4 GHz is employed for the
mesh clients. A mesh router works as a wireless router and incorporates other functionalities such as multi-hop
forwarding and creates the backbone of wireless mesh networks by having two wireless interfaces. One interface is for
backhaul communication and the other is for client communication. For a mesh router to communicate with mesh
clients in an IEEE 802.11 wireless LAN, it must be seen as an access point for mesh clients. A mesh client has one
wireless interface and it should support mobility. Therefore, it is essential to support a low-delay handover in the datalink layer and the mobility management in the network layer.WMN in its intrinsic nature, supports and offer good
quality for VoIP. VoIP performance is investigated and results shows that WMNs are able to support VoIP with good
quality. The Mesh router includes the FXS port, glue logic, Ethernet, 802.11b/g WiFi, 32 M SDRAM, 8 M SPI, and the
Atheros SoC. The mesh client communication can be via Ethernet interface or 802.11 b&g interface. Asterisk SIP server

and Private Branch eXchange (PBX) are employed for routing the VoIP calls to the PSTN. Mesh router node performs
internal routing, when a call is made. e-Governance software is a LAMP (Linux Apache MYSQL and PHP) application
that sits on top of Asterisk, which serves the purpose.

Wireless Mesh Network Architecture Design & Setup:

The Mesh Bed architecture of WMNs consists of mesh backbone part and an access network. The mesh
backbone is the core of the Mesh Bed since it provides routing as well as mobility functions and
integrates the whole system with the Internet. The backbone is based on the multi-hop paradigm and is
formed by Mesh Points (MPs), which are nodes that fully support mesh relaying, meaning that they are
capable of forming an association with their neighbors and forwarding traffic on behalf of other MPs.
High-speed wireless backbone links in the 5 GHz frequency band (802.11a) are used for communication
between the MPs. The 5 GHz band was selected to avoid the interference problematic of the 2.4 GHz
frequency band in order to assure stability in the backbone. Mesh Point Portals (MPPs) in the backbone
act as gateways between the Mesh Bed and other networks. Internet connection is provided via the
Ethernet interfaces of each MPP. Backbone routing is done using the Optimized Link State Routing
protocol (OLSR) .The access network is used to connect user equipment (UEs) and thus users to the
MeshBed in order to provide Internet access. The user connections can be either wired via the Ethernet
interface of each MP for xed UEs (F-UEs) or wireless via the second wireless interface of the MPs for
mobile UEs (M-UEs). This second WLAN card is congured in the access point mode for the operation
in the 2.4 GHz frequency band (802.11g - already implemented in many mobile devices). MPs with an
access enabled WLAN interface are called Mesh Access Points (MAPs).
Mesh Clients: Any user devices with IEEE 802.11 b/g interface. The mesh client communication can be via
Ethernet interface or 802.11 b&g interface.

PBX Exchange Design & Setup: The test bed consists of a server, which represents PBX exchange
software. The installed operating system (OS) is GNU / Linux Debian Squeeze. The OS is set up and
secured like a normal Linux server. The heart of the system is formed by Asterisk software, Version
l.8.2l.0 (April 2013) and the web interface is FreePBX version 2.10 (April 2013). The exchange is
secured and set to operate in the public switched telephone network. Asterisk is issued under an open
source GNU GPL. FreePBX is a web GUI (Graphical User Interface), which is built into the entire
Asterisk PBX software and provides simplified management and surveillance of the entire exchange. All
settings are made only via this application, and therefore there is no necessity to access the Asterisk
configuration files. FreePBX requires an Apache web server, MySQL database server and Asterisk for its
operations.
LAMP server Design & Setup: e-Governance application is a LAMP (Linux Apache MYSQL and
PHP) application that sits on top of Asterisk, which manages VoIP calls and services from State Data
Centre (SDC). It takes advantage of the Asterisk Manager Interface (AMI) and Asterisk Gateway
Interface (AGI) to deal with the call logic. It is a three-tier architecture package. It has an installation
wizard and a simplified management inter-face for administrators, agents, and clients.
Gateway Design & Setup:
The MP runs BATMAN (Better Approach To Mobile Ad hoc
Networking) mesh routing software, Asterisk,h Speex,j GSM voice codecs, and OSLECk acoustic echo
canceler. It is based on Atheros SoC hardware, thereby allowing the use of the MadWiFi open source
WLAN driver.
Drivers & Modems Setup: OpenWRT is a Linux distribution for embedded devices and is particularly
well suited for WiFi routers. MadWiFi is a WLAN driver firmware. The developed FXS hardware,
drivers, and other firmware are generic and could be ported to other routers.

Power Consideration
In order to cope up the Indian villages, the wireless mesh router is able to work completely from
batteries and solar panels. One of the design goals is to make the mesh router endure 240V mains, in case of

have connected to any of its input ports which is the standard power supply in India.

Integration: MPs perform an internal routing, when a call is made. The interaction
of the MPs is based on IP (Internet Protocol). The MPs can have connections across
the mesh to other MP, to other wireless devices, to other wired VoIP phones and to
the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN), with the aid of the built-in Session
Initiation Protocol (SIP) server called Asterisk. In this work, Asterisk SIP server
and Private Branch eXchange (PBX) are used for supporting SIP phones and
routing the VoIP calls and services to the PSTN.