Bringing Programmable Low-End Networks to Life: A Field Study with an Off-the-Shelf Prototype

We present a prototype that could open the doors to mitigate digital exclusion in technologically underserved pop-ulations. By converging software-defined networks (SDN) with programmable data planes (PDP), our approach enables one to customize low-cost hardware to fit the network behavior. We integrate low-power wide-area networks (LPWANs), known for their scalability and efficiency, with PDPs to propose a flexible solution for changing requirements, such as distance and terrain configurations, validated through real-world test scenarios.