BPoL: A Disruption-Tolerant LoRa Network for Disaster Communication

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is vital for everyday life and especially during times of disaster. Relying on existing infrastructure is problematic as maintenance is expensive, and they can be disrupted in emergency scenarios. Cost is a major factor which limits the technologies that can be used in rural areas or for emergency response, as satellite uplinks or private cellular networks are very expensive and complex. LoRa is commonly used for IoT infrastructure worldwide in the form of LoRaWAN to cover larger distances with low costs. But it can also be used in a Device-to-Device (D2D) mode for direct communication. By combining LoRa with Disruption-tolerant Networking (DTN), we present an affordable and practical solution that can cope with challenging conditions and be used for a large variety of applications. In our evaluation, we show how adaptable our solution is and how it outperforms similar mesh-based applications for disaster communication.