UMSI Master's Thesis: Refugee Camp Wireless Outage Analysis

Abstract

This paper addresses the gap in the literature of looking at wireless network failures in European refugee camps and the factors that may cause or even exacerbate them. After discussing the importance of connectivity for the refugees and displaced populations in general, an exploratory analysis is conducted to provide an overview of outage patterns in twelve Greek camps over the span of six months. Finally, the paper addresses three possible causes of increased outage rates - camp administration type, camp capacity status, and weather patterns. While the paper fails to confirm that any of the above factors are significant in wireless network outage patterns, it addresses limitations that future research should try to resolve.