Networking for Communications Challenged Communities: Report from a European project targeting conditions of poor or lacking ICT coverage

Abstract

The N4C project was funded by the European Union Seventh framework programme’s Future Internet Research and Experimentation unit and closed in May 2011. Its focus was communications for highly challenging scenarios, with sparse populations in remote and topographically complex areas. In this note the organization and work plan are summarized, together with some observations at detailed level. Combining front line technical research and development with socio-economic goals is a matter of several dimensions. The results confirmed the hypotheses that co-operating with actors in rural areas, targeting specifically challenging use situations can function as a driver for high-tech development.