Research Article
An Experimental 5G Standalone Testbed for Rural Connectivity
@INPROCEEDINGS{10.1007/978-3-031-86493-3_9, author={Mahamadou Diawara and Andre Faye}, title={An Experimental 5G Standalone Testbed for Rural Connectivity}, proceedings={Innovations and Interdisciplinary Solutions for Underserved Areas. 7th International Conference, InterSol 2024, Dakar, Senegal, July 3--4, 2024, Proceedings}, proceedings_a={INTERSOL}, year={2025}, month={4}, keywords={5G Standalone OpenAirInterface VoNR}, doi={10.1007/978-3-031-86493-3_9} }- Mahamadou Diawara
Andre Faye
Year: 2025
An Experimental 5G Standalone Testbed for Rural Connectivity
INTERSOL
Springer
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-86493-3_9
Abstract
Digital transformation in service sectors like agriculture, education and healthcare has to be accelerated specifically in African countries to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) in 2030. 5G technology allowing flexibility and scalability in networks service deployment is among the technologies that can help this acceleration but its deployment is expensive with proprietary and vendor specific hardware and software. Therefore, open-source implementation allowing low-cost system design gains importance mainly for rural areas where the duration of a return on investment is long or even not guaranteed for operators, thus promoting private initiatives. Even though non standalone 5G networks (5G NSA) deployment approach is seen as an economic way for 5G migration, it is not suitable in contexts where 4G LTE is barely deployed or for private networks. This is the case for most Sub-Saharan countries where 4G LTE coverage is foreseen to be lower than 30% in 2025. We deployed a low cost standalone 5G network (5G SA) using the open source OpenAirInterface (OAI) and commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) equipment to leverage 5G technology. This testbed helps to test and validate 5G services with private networks affordable to low budget laboratories for digital transformation in rural zones. Two types of experiments were conducted to validate the platform: (1) to assess enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB), massive machine-type communications (mMTC), and ultra-reliable low latency (URLLC) capabilities, (2) to assess common users needs by implementing and testing Voice over New Radio (VoNR).
