Research Article Assessing IEEE 802.11 and IEEE 802.16 as Backhauling Technologies for 3G Small Cells in Rural Areas of Developing Countries JavierSim´ o-Reigadas , 1 Carlos Figuera, 1 Eduardo Morgado, 1 Esteban Municio , 2 andAndr´ es Mart´ ınez-Fern´ andez 1 1 Rey Juan Carlos University, Department of Signal eory and Communications, Madrid, Spain 2 IDLab—Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Antwerp—IMEC, Antwerp, Belgium Correspondence should be addressed to Javier Sim´ o-Reigadas; javier.simo@urjc.es Received 27 June 2018; Accepted 9 December 2018; Published 17 January 2019 Academic Editor: Paolo Bellavista Copyright © 2019 Javier Sim´ o-Reigadas et al. is is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Mobile networks are experiencing a great development in urban areas worldwide, and developing countries are not an exception. However, sparsely populated rural areas in developing regions usually do not have any access to terrestrial communications networks because operators cannot ensure enough revenues to justify the required investments. erefore, alternative low-cost solutions are needed for both the access network and the backhaul network. In this sense, in order to provide rural 3G coverage in small villages, state-of-the-art approaches propose to use Small Cells in access networks and inexpensive multihop wireless networks based on WiFi for long distances (WiLD) or WiMAX for backhauling them. ese technologies provide most of the required capabilities; however, there is no complete knowledge about the performance of WiFi and WiMAX in long-distance links under quality of service constraints. e aim of this work is to provide a detailed overview of the different alternatives for building rural wireless backhaul networks. We compare both IEEE 802.11n and IEEE 802.16 distance-aware analytical models and validate them by extensive simulations and field experiments. Also WiFi-based TDMA proprietary solutions are evaluated experimentally and compared. Finally, results are used to model a real study case in the Peruvian Amazon in order to illustrate that the performance provided by these technologies may be sufficient for the backhaul network of a rural 3G access network based on Small Cells. 1.Introduction Although users would like to have universal and ubiqui- tous access to 3G services everywhere, operators limit the deployment of infrastructures to areas where reve- nues compensate the capital expenditures (CAPEX, mainly related to the deployment of infrastructures) and the op- eration expenditures (OPEX, including maintenance, op- eration, licenses, etc). Consequently, many large rural areas in developing regions that are sparsely populated lack 3G coverage, and often they do not even have any telecom- munication services at all. Hence, in the context of the current trend towards ubiquitous communications worldwide, the need for more affordable 3G access and backhaul solutions becomes apparent. Small Cells, which were initially conceived as a solution for coverage holes in urban areas, are now becoming a promising solution for rural access networks. Femtocells are generally used inside buildings and are designed to be low- cost, adaptable, and flexible and to have low power con- sumption so that a residential Asymmetric Digital Sub- scriber Line (ADSL) may be used as the backhaul. A 3G femtocell may be a suitable solution for the access network in a small village, since its cost and power consumption make it much more affordable for an operator than a common eNodeB. erefore, a few small cells may ensure cellular coverage in most human settlements over a large sparsely populated region at a very low cost. However, backhauling these 3G femtocells may become challenging. Many sparsely populated areas may be too far Hindawi Mobile Information Systems Volume 2019, Article ID 4383945, 15 pages https://doi.org/10.1155/2019/4383945