ELECTRONIC DISTRIBUTION OF ENTITLEMENTS TO GOODS AND SERVICES IN RURAL AREAS

摘要

Systems and methods for electronically distributing entitlements to goods and/or services in an environment, such as a rural area, where there is poor and/or unreliable access to wireless data communications networks (e.g. areas where there is limited infrastructure such as few wireless base stations or access points). The method includes implementing a people-powered mesh network where individual people physically transport mobile devices 104, 106 from a first area 124 (in coverage of a data communications network) to another area 112, 114 (in which no or little data communications infrastructure exists) to exchange data with remote devices 108, 110. A central server 102 maintains information about entitlements to goods and/or services that can be distributed to one or more remote users 108, 110. Entitlements to goods and/or services may be in the form of electronic vouchers / coupons, e.g. e-coupons, which can be transferred / shared between devices using a delay tolerant networking (DTN) technique such as store-carry-forward, employing a short range communications protocol such as BluetoothTM to transfer data relating to an entitlement between devices.