Capacity estimation for IoT devices on an African mobile network

Abstract

Improvements in the Internet of Things (IoT) enabling technology to lead to increased potential for creating smart and safe cities for the future. While many first world countries already reap the benefits of this technology, developing countries, specifically those in Sub-Saharan Africa, still need to overcome significant barriers before experiencing the same value. Two of these barriers are a) existing network infrastructure and b) limited financial backing to implement a stand-alone IoT network. In most African cities repeated and extensive cable theft lead to the degradation of the fixed line infrastructure to such an extent that operators are reluctant to replace copper or fibre cables. The uptake of wireless technology, however, increased significantly. While cellular communication technology is prevalent in Africa, it should be noted that in most towns and cities the available technology would be a third-generation (3G) or earlier implementation. If an IoT deployment were to be considered for this environment, the currently available technology should be taken into account. In this dissertation, capacity estimation is performed for a typical town in South Africa, using the existing cellular technology as an input parameter. As an initial step towards the creation of a smart city, the case of using IoT technology for traffic light management is considered in a simulation environment. The results of the simulation verify that the current network can accommodate the load of this implementation and the maximum number of devices that can communicate using the current infrastructure is calculated.