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Reconsidering Network Management Interfaces for Communities

Authors:

Ndinelao Iitumba,

Siddhant Shinde,

Naveen Bagalkot,

Nervo Verdezoto,

Melissa DensmoreAuthors Info & Claims

AfriCHI '23: Proceedings of the 4th African Human Computer Interaction Conference

Pages 162 - 169

https://doi.org/10.1145/3628096.3629050

Published: 30 January 2024 Publication History

Abstract

Community-owned mesh wireless networks enable cost-effective sharing of networked resources, expanding internet and local service accessibility through low-cost WiFi hardware. However, maintaining these networks comes with expenses. In addition to hardware costs, community members need extensive training to install, monitor, and troubleshoot the networks using Network Management Interfaces (NMIs). Effective network management is crucial for CWN resilience within communities. This paper presents qualitative interviews with 25 stakeholders from two CWNs in India and four in South Africa, examining challenges to CWN resilience. Workshops were conducted with network operators and users in India (Janastu) and prospective operators in South Africa (FOCUS Network) to reimagine NMIs, discussing challenges and prototyping interfaces. Our findings highlights diverse network management approaches, revealing difficulties in technical capacity building, troubleshooting, and prototyping. Designing NMIs with local network operators’ insights and skills is crucial for CWN sustainability. The paper outlines design opportunities to improve network management interfaces for CWNs, fostering network resilience for critical infrastructures.

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Cited By

Bagalkot NShinde SVerdezoto NManuel GRamakka MIitumba NOrtega DDinesh TDensmore M(2024)Collective Infrastructural Speculations: A Situated Understanding of Pasts, Presents & Futures of Resilient Community Networks.Proceedings of the Participatory Design Conference 2024: Full Papers - Volume 110.1145/3666094.3666111(159-172)Online publication date: 11-Aug-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3666094.3666111

Index Terms

Reconsidering Network Management Interfaces for Communities
1. Computer systems organization
  1. Dependable and fault-tolerant systems and networks
    1. Redundancy
  2. Embedded and cyber-physical systems
    1. Embedded systems
    2. Robotics
2. Networks
  1. Network properties
    1. Network reliability

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AfriCHI '23: Proceedings of the 4th African Human Computer Interaction Conference

November 2023

343 pages

ISBN:9798400708879

DOI:10.1145/3628096

Copyright © 2023 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected].

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Publication History

Published: 30 January 2024

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AfriCHI 2023

AfriCHI 2023: 4th African Human Computer Interaction Conference

November 27 - December 1, 2023

East London, South Africa

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Cited By

Bagalkot NShinde SVerdezoto NManuel GRamakka MIitumba NOrtega DDinesh TDensmore M(2024)Collective Infrastructural Speculations: A Situated Understanding of Pasts, Presents & Futures of Resilient Community Networks.Proceedings of the Participatory Design Conference 2024: Full Papers - Volume 110.1145/3666094.3666111(159-172)Online publication date: 11-Aug-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3666094.3666111

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