Final Project

TV White SpacesSolution for broadband access in Rwanda

Alejandra PenillaTyler SamuelsonJuan M. Roldan

Technology and International Development

Carnegie Mellon University

Fall 2013

Outline

1. Rwanda Overview1.1. Socio-economic overview1.2. ICT infrastructure1.3. ICT services and applications

2. What is TVWS?2.1. White space technologies2.2. TVWS Data base

3. Current deployments of TVWS 3.1. South Africa3.2. Kenya3.3. United Kingdom

4. TVWS in Rwanda4.1. Objective4.2. Viability4.3. Policy and regulation4.4. Conclusions and Applications for Rwanda

1. Rwanda Overview

Rwanda is a country funded in 1907 and located in central Africa and is totally enclosed by land, i.e., landlocked country. It is surrounded by the Democratic Republic of the Congo at the east, 134 miles of border, Uganda at the north with 105 miles of border, Tanzania at the west with 134 miles of border, and Burundi at the south with 180 miles of border, thus the total international border is 553 miles. Rwanda’s total geographic area is 10,169 square miles, slightly smaller than the state of Maryland in the United States.1

The highest point above sea level in Rwanda is at 14.8 thousand feet -volcano Karisimbi- in the Virguna Mountains on the north border with Democratic Republic of the Congo. Rwanda’s geography is highly dominated by mountains to the west with decreasing altitude to the east savanna and lowest point is at 3.1 thousand feet above sea level. There are two rainy seasons from February to April and from November to January.2

Rwanda map

Source:

Rwanda is divided in five administrative regions and thirty districts. Total population estimated to be 12 million in July 2013, with a density equal to 1,180 pop/sq. mi., corresponding to the most densely populated country in Africa. Most of the population live in rural areas, 85%, living 15% of total population in urban areas (2010).3 The spoken languages are Kinyarwanda, Kiswahili used in commercial centers, and French and English both official. The capital of Rwanda is Kigali.

The population in 2009 and geographic area of the five administrative regions are the following4:

1 CIA “The World Fact Book”, https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/rw.html. 2 Idem.3 Idem. Note: The Report done by Freedom House states that “over 90% of the population lives in rural areas”. Available at: http://www.freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-net/2012/rwanda#_ftn1. 4 Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rwanda_Districts_Map.jpg.

– Northern Population: 1.7 million Area: 1,200 sq. mi.– Southern Population: 2.3 million Area: 2,400 sq. mi.– Eastern Population: 2.1 million Area: 3,800 k sq. mi.– Western Population: 2.0 million Area: 2,300 k sq. mi.– Kigali Region Population: 1.0 million Area: 300 sq. mi.

Administrative Regions (5) and Districts (30) in Rwanda

Source: Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rwanda_Districts_Map.jpg

In this following sections, a general overview of the history of Rwanda, socio-economic characteristics, the ICT infrastructure, as well as ICT application and services will be presented.

1.1. History and socio-economic characteristics

In 2012 Rwanda’s GDP was ~$4.1 billion, increase of 7.7% with respect to 2011, and gross national income, GNI, per capita was $570.5 In the last 12 years, Rwanda’s GDP has had an average growth rate of 8.2% quarterly.6 In 2012 GDP growth rates was lower than the average due to government’s reduction of aggregate demand –fiscal consolidation- and global economic uncertainties.7 Consumer price index, although high, it still was in one digit and equal to 6% for 2012, raising 0.4 percentage points from 2011.8 Youth unemployment is estimated at 42% of young people, which represent 40% of the population. High unemployment levels end up in 57% of households living below poverty line.9

Rwanda’s population is mostly young due to past civil wars and poverty, with a median age of 18.7 years (18.4 for men, 19 for women).

5 World Bank: http://data.worldbank.org/country/rwanda. 6 Trading Economics: http://www.tradingeconomics.com/rwanda/gdp-growth. 7 African Economic Outlook: http://www.africaneconomicoutlook.org/en/countries/east-africa/rwanda/. 8 Idem.9 United Nations Development Programme, http://www.undp.org.rw/Poverty_Reduction.html.

Population distribution by age and gender

Source:

History

In Rwanda, there are three main ethnic groups: the Twa, Hutu and Tutsi. The Twa group is the minority, and they are the pygmies. The Tutsi group migrated into the area in the 14th century, and thanks to their ownership of cattle, and advanced combat skills, over the time had control over the Hutu group. With the pass of the time, the Tusti group took the land ownership away from the Hutu group, and became property of Tutsi king10.

After being territory of Germany since 1884 as part of German East Africa, Rwanda was ruled by Belgium during World War I with the use of more centralized power structure. In 1961, Rwanda finally gained its independency thanks to the mobilization of the Hutus, the majority ethnic group, overthrowing the power of king Tutsi. Over these years, thousands of Tutsis were killed, and many more were exile to near countries. A civil war would came in 1990, formed by the children of those Tutsi’s exiles, the rebel group was better known as the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF). Unfortunately, the political tension between these ethnic groups ended with a fatal genocide that took the life of at least 800,000 people. Tutsi rebels finished the killing in July 1994 after defeating the Hutu regime, who migrated to neighbors countries such as Burundi, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zaire. Since then, many Hutu refugees have returned to Rwanda but several remain in Democratic Republic of the Congo11.

The Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) took the power of Rwanda in 1994, and on March 2000, Paul Kagame became President of Rwanda. The first national elections were in August 2003.After the fatal event of 1994, 40% of Rwanda’s budget comes from foreign aid12.

However, Rwanda has shown an outstanding recovery since that tragedy, and has relied on ICT’s initiatives to foster its economy, e.g., projects such as the installation of a fiber-optic backbone, the highest density of VSAT terminals for satellite communications in Africa, and the privatization of many companies such as Rwandatel, that will be presented in the next section.

10 African Studies Center, University of Pennsylvania http://www.africa.upenn.edu/NEH/rwhistory.htm11 History of Rwanda. Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Rwanda12 Africa Research Bulletin: Political, Social and Cultural Series.” Wiley Online Library. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com

To illustrate this efforts, back on August of 2005, Rwanda was the only African country where official business by members of the legislature – the House and Senate – was conducted online, including voting on motions and the circulation of bills and documents.

On September 13, 2013, Rwanda launched an economic development plan that pretends to increase the economy growth by 11.5% each year over the next five years. President Paul Kagame announced that the goal is to reduce poverty by at least 15% - from 45% to fewer than 30% over the next years13.

Loss of International support

Despite its economic growth, the country has been facing several challenges, such as the suspension in 2012 of several donor countries by following accusations from the United Nations that Kigali was supporting rebels in the eastern of the Democratic Republic of Congo. For instance, on October 3rd the US invoked the 2008 Child Soldiers Protection Act in sanctioning Rwanda, this will terminate financial and military assistance in the fiscal year 2014 (starting October 1st). Rwanda criticized this statement by saying the child soldier claim had no factual basis14.

As a result, president Kagame stressed the new government plan to rely heavily on private sector development. The International Monetary Forum (IMF) visited Kigali from September 18 to October 2 and negotiated a new three-year Policy Support Instrument (PSI). They also declared that the economic growth decelerated to 5.9% during the first half of 2013 as a result of the reduction in donor budget support. However, the external sector contributed strongly to its growth, increasing exports – especially minerals.

1.2. ICT infrastructure

ICT infrastructure development in Rwanda in the last years have increased tremendously. However, this increase has been mainly at the backbone national network with the deployment of near 2,300 km of fiber optic network connecting all 30 districts. However, last-mile infrastructure is still very low and currently the bottleneck to increase Internet access.

In this section, we will briefly summarize the current ICT infrastructure deployed in Rwanda, mainly, the national fiber optic backbone, existing mobile networks, fixed Internet access and finally, broadcast television.

1.2.1. Fiber optic national backbone

As mentioned before, the fiber optic national backbone completed in December 2010 with an extension of ~2,300 km connecting all 30 districts in Rwanda, has been one of the recent most important advances in ICT infrastructure in Rwanda. It also includes cross-border fiber connectivity with Uganda and Tanzania to the international undersea cable running along the east African coast SEACOM,15 and connecting in two different places to it: (i) Mombasa in

13 Africa Research Bulletin: Political, Social and Cultural Series.” Wiley Online Library. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com14 Africa Research Bulletin: Political, Social and Cultural Series.” Wiley Online Library. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com15 See SEACOM Network at http://www.seacom.mu/network.

Kenya through Uganda and (ii) from Dar es Salam in Tanzania. Total cost of the deployment done by South Korea Telecom was $40 million. 16, 17

Fiber optic grid and points of presence

Source: http://lauramann.blogspot.com/2011_12_01_archive.html.

International bandwidth through Uganda and Tanzania has been recently increased from 2.4 Gbps to 3.5 Gbps, thus “Internet wholesale bandwidth costs were slashed by about 75%”, from prices ranging between $500 and $700 to prices between $60 and $125 (Ministry of Youth and ICT, 2012).

During 2012, taken advantage of the fiber optic infrastructure, a National Data Center began operations with the capability of hosting private and public sector applications and services. A new company, Broadband Systems Corporation, BSC, will commercialize the National Data Center, as well as the fiber optic national backbone capacity and Kigali’s metropolitan network (Ministry of Youth and ICT, 2012)

1.2.2. Mobile phone networks

A new licensed mobile provider launched services in the first quarter of 2012 increasing the number of mobile providers to three and therefore improving competition environment (Ministry of Youth and ICT, 2012). By the second quarter of 2013 mobile subscriber penetration increased up to 61% from 15% five years ago (National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda, 2012). Mobile Telephone Network Group, MTN, has 60% of mobile market share, followed by Millicom, Tigo, with 33% and Airtel with 7%.

Mobile phone subscribers and penetration (right). Mobile market share (left).

16 Telegeography, January 2011. http://www.telegeography.com/products/commsupdate/articles/2011/01/07/rollout-of-national-fibre-optic-backbone-complete/ . 17 Reuters Africa, March 2011, “Rwanda completes $95 mln fibre optic network”, http://af.reuters.com/article/investingNews/idAFJOE72F07D20110316.

2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013Q20

1000

2000

3000

4000

5000

6000

7000

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

2429

3549

4842

5601

6415

2% 3%

7%

15%

25%

34%

42%

53%

61%

Mobile phone lines Mobile phone penetration %

Mob

ile p

hone

sub

scri

bers

Mob

ile p

hone

pen

etati

on

MTN60%

Tigo33%

Airtel7%

Source: National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda (NISR), “Statistical Year Book 2012”, 2012. Ministry of Youth and ICT, “Rwanda ICT Sector Profile – 2012”, December 2012.

Mobile providers in Rwanda have deployed 2G and 3G technology covering more than 97% of the population. For 4G technology, South Korean Telecom will be deploying LTE networks after reaching an exclusivity license for 25 years to avoid competition.18 The LTE network will be connected through the fiber optic national backbone points of presence.

1.2.3. Internet access

Internet access in Rwanda is very low. Even though Rwanda has deployed a robust and resilient backbone national network, last-mile infrastructure to connect households and business is very poor and prevents Internet access growth. In 2011 the percentage of households with Internet access was a low 5%, even more, the percentage of households with a computer was lower, 2%. Thus, the population using Internet by 2011 was only 8% and there were no fixed wired-broadband connections (Ministry of Youth and ICT, 2012). However, these two last indicators should be read with caution given that in 2012 the population using Internet tripled up to 26.2% and there was an incipient 3% fixed wired-broadband connections penetration, according a survey conducted by the Rwanda Utilities Regulatory Agency (Ministry of Youth and ICT, 2012). Nevertheless, last-mile infrastructure is very low in Rwanda, there is only 4% of fixed-telephone subscription penetration and no cable TV, which hinders future Internet access growth.

1.2.4. Broadcast television

Regarding broadcast, Rwanda has only one government owned TV station and managed by the Rwanda Broadcasting Agency, RBA. It is very possible the entrance of one or two new private broadcasters in the near future,19 however, this has not been confirmed. Given the existence of very few TV stations, spectrum allocated for TV broadcasting would be mainly idle. Currently, RBA has only 8 channels assigned from 58 possible channels in analogue standard. Once the transition from analogue to digital is over, RBA will be assigned only one channel using a single frequency network.20

18 Information obtain through email with CMU-R faculty members. 19 Idem.20 Idem.

Currently there are 472 MHz of spectrum allocated to TV broadcasting in Rwanda. Taking into account only spectrum in UHF and not counting future spectrum for 4G mobile technologies,21 there will be 360 MHz of spectrum allocated to TV broadcasting from which only one channel would be used for television. Even if we include the additional two channels from future private broadcasters and assuming they will use single frequency networks, most of the 360 MHz of spectrum will be still idle.

Rwanda TV spectrum use (in yellow channels assigned to RBA)VHF MHz

Channel

UHF MHz

Channel

UHF MHz

Channel

UHF MHz

Channel

222 230 238 246 254174 182 190 198 206 214

10 11 12 134 5 6 7 8 9

838 846 854 862790 798 806 814 822 830

750 758 766 774 782 790702 710 718 726 734 742

630

630 638 646 654 662 670 678 686 694

582 590 598 606 614 622534 542 550 558 566 574478 486 494 502 510 518 526

61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69

58 59 6052 53 54 55 56 5746 47 48 49 50 5141 42 43 44 45

38 39 4032 33 34 35 36 3726 27 28 29 30 31

470

21 22 23 24 25

Source: Russell Southwood, “Snapshot of Progress of Analogue to Digital Migration in Africa: Outcome of ATU Survey”, African Telecommunication Union Digital Migration and Spectrum Policy Summit, 2011.

1.3. ICT Services and Applications in Rwanda

At the very core of Rwanda Vision 2020 is the desire to transform from a subsistence agriculture economy to a knowledge-based society (Rwanda Vision 2020). In an effort to make the vision a reality, ICT services have been given high priority across the healthcare, education, finance and government sectors.

Education is vital to realizing the lofty goal of transforming Rwanda into a knowledge-based society. In addition to improving enrollment numbers and quality of education, ICT training in schools was targeted by Vision 2020 as an area in need of improvement (Rwanda Vision 2020). At the primary school level, One Laptop per Child is bringing an opportunity for improved education to Rwanda. OLPC serves as a building block for Rwanda’s ICT development. The OLPC program in Rwanda began in 2007. Over 100,000 laptops have been distributed in 227 schools, and President Kagame hopes to see the number of laptops distributed to primary schools grow to 500,000 in the next five years (Rwanda | One Laptop Per Child, 2012). Although simply providing students access to laptops does not automatically improve education, it does serve as a platform upon which learning can happen.

In addition to distributing laptops, OLPC helped found a learning center at the Kigali Institute for Science, Technology and Management (Rwanda | One Laptop Per Child, 2012). The center was established to, “…create the highest quality examples of learning with connected laptops in 21 This spectrum refers to the Digital Dividend band from 790 MHz up to 862 MHz for a total 72 MHz.

schools and communities, support ongoing laptop implementation plans in Rwanda, and create an African regional laptop network.” (OLPC learning center opens in Kigali) Both the Rwandan government and OLPC expect OLPC to play an important role in the general education and ICT education of students across the country. Although OLPC represents incredible learning potential for Rwandan students, schools are still limited by lack of internet connectivity. The 2012 ICT Sector Profile indicated that the total number of schools connected to the Internet is only 6.17% (Ministry of Youth and ICT, 2012).

In Kigali, Rwanda’s capital city, a number of ICT focused education centers have opened to ensure a well trained workforce is available to build Rwanda’s economy. Carnegie Mellon University began offering a Master of Science degree in Information Technology as well as a Master of Science in Electrical and Computer Engineering at a campus in Kigali. The programs began last year with 24 students, and CMU-R plans to grow to 150 incoming students by 2017. Additionally, kLab (knowledge Lab), an innovation incubator, opened in Kigali in July 2012 (Rwanda ICT Sector Profile - 2012). The mission of kLab is “… to promote, facilitate and support the development of innovative ICT solutions by nurturing a vivid community of entrepreneurs and mentors.” (kLab About, 2013) These programs are providing the training and support students and entrepreneurs need to begin establishing Rwanda as the technology hub of East Africa.

The Healthcare sector is another area in which ICT based services have the potential to improve the quality of services rendered. A number of information system projects have been implemented in Rwanda’s healthcare system including an electronic medical record system, OpenMRS, and a health management system, TRACnet. OpenMRS is an open source electronic medical record systems that has been implemented at several health facilities across the country (OpenMRS Atlas, n.d.). The Rwanda Ministry of Health endorsed the system and built their EMR system using the OpenMRS system (e-Health Rwanda Case Study, 2008).

TRACnet was implemented in 2005 by the Treatment and Research AIDS Centre to support the treatment of HIV/AIDS. HIV affects an estimated 0.5 million people in Rwanda, and TRACnet enables healthcare practitioners to submit reports electronically as well as access up to date treatment information (TRACNet, Rwanda, n.d.). HIV/AIDS practitioners are able to monitor drug stocks in real time as well as quickly receive blood test results. Authorities can also utilize TRACnet to monitor HIV/AIDs patterns of transmission.

In 2012, the Rwanda Government launched several ICT services for businesses and citizens. An online tax filing system for citizens was launched as well as a payment system to allow citizens to pay their taxes online (Rwanda ICT Sector Profile - 2012). The usage of these systems in 2012 was fairly low; this is likely due to the ICT penetration and literacy rates remaining low in the country. The government also launched the Single Electronic Window System. This system allows business to file documents fulfilling import and export regulatory requirements online. As evidenced by these types of projects, the Rwandan government is pursuing continual development of ICT based services for its citizens.

One of the more notable ICT projects in Rwanda was the World Bank-funded eRwanda program. This program began in 2005 and was completed in 2010 (eRwanda Project, 2011). Several successful ICT projects came out of the eRwanda program. One project was eSoko.

This application enables farmers to obtain market prices of goods via SMS. The application also allows the Ministry of Agriculture a way to monitor market activities and interact with farmers (Towards Transformation? ICT in Post-Conflict Rwanda, 2013).

The ICT Bus program was another successful eRwanda project. The ICT Bus is essentially a remote telecenter equipped with 20 Internet-connected laptops. The bus is taken to rural communities for 2 to 3 months to provide ICT training and services to locals (Towards Transformation? ICT in Post-Conflict Rwanda, 2013).

The eRwanda program made a number of government services available online to citizens and companies. However, Rwanda still ranked 140th in the UN’s E-Government rankings in 2012 (UN). The Ministry of Youth and ICT has set a goal to improve Rwanda’s ranking in the coming year by launching an initiative called “Rwanda Online”. This project will “…serve as the main vehicle to deliver e-government services…” (Ministry of Youth and ICT, 2012). They hope to also improve awareness of government services currently offered.

While numerous ICT based services are available to citizens in Rwanda, usage of these services remains low. Internet availability is likely a primary contributing factor in the limited utilization of these services. The Ministry of Youth and ICT identified the absence of a last mile network as a key challenge to the steady growth of Internet penetration rates. The National Backbone provides a great base infrastructure in the country, but more work must be done to provide access to the people.

2. What is TVWS?

Television White Spaces (TVWS) is a term that refers to the unused radio spectrum in the bands that have traditionally been reserved for television broadcasting. As demand for spectrum increased over the past years, unused television spectrum was identified as a potential source of spectrum. Typically, the radio spectrum allocated for television broadcasting is not completely used across all geographic locations. TV White Spaces exist because vacant channels were historically necessary to protect against interference from other stations or because there are simply few broadcasters in a region (Carlson, et al., 2013).

This unused spectrum can be utilized for a variety of services; providing wireless broadband Internet access to rural, last-mile users has been identified as one of the most promising potential uses. One significant feature of signals transmitted over TVWS spectrum is that they can penetrate barriers and travel long distances due to the low frequency (under 1 GHz) (Flores, Guerra, Knightly, Ecclesine, & Pandey, 2013). This characteristic combined with the abundant spectrum available in rural and developing areas has led to TVWS network trials in countries all over the world.

2.1. White Spaces Technologies

TV White Spaces devices can be built on a variety of technologies. TVWS usage is technology-neutral with the basic assumption that the end user devices can operate without causing interference (Carlson, et al., 2013). The IEEE has developed the 802.11af standard for

spectrum sharing between white space devices (WSD) and TV services. They have attempted to develop a standard that can be utilized and adapted to regulatory domains around the world (Flores, Guerra, Knightly, Ecclesine, & Pandey, 2013). The IEEE has also developed the 802.22 standard for TV white space devices. This standard was the first worldwide standard based on cognitive radio operating over TV white space (Kang, Lee, & Jeong, 2011). Additional proprietary technologies have been developed for the TVWS spectrum as well. Generally, these technologies all rely on TVWS databases and spectrum sensing to enable their coexistence with existing users of the TV spectrum.

2.2. TVWS Databases

As previously mentioned, the primary challenge for TVWS technologies is ensuring that the existing, licensed users of the TV band are protected from interference by new WSDs. To enable WSDs to operate without interfering with licensed services, geo-location enabled databases are being developed that will communicate with devices about what channels are available at their location. In addition to storing availability information, TVWS geo-location databases must store operating parameters that dictate how a WSD can operate in a given area as defined by local regulations. These operating parameters allow WSDs to avoid interfering with any service in channels that neighbor its chosen channel. TVWS database regulations vary from country to country; in the United States, the FCC authorizes the database systems with which devices can communicate.

3. Current Deployments of TVWS Networks

Numerous TVWS trials have been conducted or are being conducted all over the world to test white space devices’ potential to bring broadband connectivity to previously underserved locations. A large group of partners from across the telecom industry in South Africa completed a network trial in Cape Town in September 2013. The primary objective of this research was to demonstrate that TVWS devices could operate without interfering with other services. A network trial project is currently ongoing in Kenya that is focusing on determine the commercial feasibility of TVWS technology in delivering broadband to underdeveloped areas. In Tanzania, an ongoing trail is testing the technology as a means of deploying broadband in an urban setting to university students. In the United Kingdom, a trails was conducted to evaluate the technical capability and end user applications of the technology.

3.1. South Africa TVWS Trial

In South Africa, numerous partners worked together to research whether WSDs could operate without interference and to develop a regulatory framework on which the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) could build their regulatory policy. The trial partners included CSIR Meraka Institute, Carlson Wireless Technologies, Comsol Wireless Solutions, Open Spectrum Alliance, Tertiary Education and Research Network (TENET), e-Schools Network, Wireless Access Providers’ Association (WAPA) and Google.

The project took place in Tygerberg, South Africa, a suburb of Cape Town. The site was chosen partially because Cape Town has the highest broadcast spectrum use in South Africa and

therefore the highest potential for interference (Carlson, et al., 2013). Another reason the project was conducted is because the South African government has identified broadband access a central policy objective because of its critical role in becoming an e-literate society by 2030.

Project Setup

Three base stations were setup at the Stellenbosch University Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences’ hospital to cover three sectors. A terminal radio was setup at ten school within a 10 km radius of the hospital. The project first worked on identifying white space channel availability and found eight available channels. Next they tested the equipment in a lab to determine that it would operate as expected and had the appropriate spectrum mask. In the lab, they also determined the proper setup parameters for to ensure the TV broadcasts were protected. When the system was deployed, they took measurements around the schools and base station as well as crowd-sourced interference reports from radio groups and TV viewers to verify that there was no interference. (Google Inc., 2013)

Trial network diagram

Source:

Key Findings

The project successfully provided reliable broadband to multiple schools at distances as far as 6.5km. They were able to produce speeds of up to 12 mbps, but they feel confident that performance will improve as software and hardware are revised.

CT TVWS trial download throughput tests - 2013

Source:

They also demonstrated that a database that calculated channel availability enabled TVWS devices to avoid harmful interference with licensed services. The trail did not detect any interference or receive any interference complaints at all. Finally, they found that there was significant available spectrum for TVWS devices to use even in Cape Town’s relatively saturated broadcast spectrum. (Carlson, et al., 2013)

The South Africa trial was widely viewed as a success. Their unambiguous findings provided strong support for further development of TVWS networks. The trail has hopefully raised awareness of the technology surrounding TVWS and potential uses of TVWS.

3.2. Kenya

“Mawingu” is a 4Afrika initiative by Microsoft that counts with the support of Kenya Ministry of Information and Communications and the Internet service provider in Kenya, Indigo Telecom Ltd. Its goal is to provide low-cost, and high-speed wireless access. Project Setup

This project consists of solar-powered based stations and TV white spaces technology to reach rural areas with unsteady electricity. The project will not only provide Internet access to the rural communities, but also create new opportunities for education, healthcare, commerce, and delivery of government services across the country.

Mawingu, which means cloud in Kiswahili, connects those areas where other technologies are difficult to implement. This project, launched in Nanyuki located in Laikipia County; uses DSA technology in TV band white spaces – unused VHF (Very High Frequencies) and UHF (Ultra-High Frequency) TV channels. This project will provide broadband at low cost. An initial pilot project with a 300 square kilometer of network coverage will conclude in 2014. The projected broadband user base is 6,000 subscribers, which is expected to increase in the future.

In terms of education, Microsoft is also providing local schools with Office 365, Windows 8 and Windows Multipoint Servers.

3.3. United Kingdom TVWS Trial

Like the other TVWS trials conducted, the trial conducted in Cambridge, England, UK was conducted to determine the feasibility of using this technology to provide a variety of services with the primary objective of providing Ofcom (UK’s media and communications regulator) help developing a regulatory framework that will enable utilization of the technology in the United Kingdom. A consortium of 17 members including Adaptrum, BBC, BT, Microsoft, Nokia, Samsung, Spectrum Bridge and others conducted the trial. It began in June 2011 and was completed in April 2012. Cambridge was chosen as the location for this trial because of its relatively abundant white space spectrum and presence of key consortium members

Project Setup

The UK trial setup five base station devices located in public buildings on the north side of Cambridge’s city centre. Radio devices from four different manufacturers were tested and each used a base station that interfaced with the geo-location database. The project tested a variety of use cases including machine to machine communication, location-based services and local content distribution (Cambridge White Spaces Consortium, 2012).

A primary use case tested was TVWS for both rural and urban broadband access. In an urban setting, WSDs could act essentially like WiFi but with greater coverage and an increased ability to penetrate walls and buildings. The report also highlights the extended range resulting from using TV spectrum as the primary cost-cutting feature of these types of networks. Theoretically, ISPs could provide broadband with far fewer base stations than currently necessary.

The trial also demonstrated that this technology could enable the “Internet of Things” by enabling a network to be operated with limited infrastructure and low power usage. Interestingly, the trial demonstrated the possibility of using WSDs to distribute local content such as highly local television, radio or advertising content at a public venue. As the trial demonstrated, the possibilities for utilizing available spectrum are truly exciting.

Key Findings

As with the other trials, the primary findings of this project were very positive for TVWS technology. One of the key findings was that they detected no interference with incumbent users of the spectrum. The trial took measurements to test for interference as well as provided contact information to residents in the area asking them to report any interference (Cambridge White Spaces Consortium, 2012). Again, it seems clear that with careful configuration and proper utilization of the technology, WSDs can operate without causing issues.

The report on the trial highlighted the importance of a well-designed spectrum database. The databases can be utilized by WSDs to identify available channels and request usage of those channels. The geo-location database should provide a list of white space channels, transmission power limits and other configuration requirements. This database enabled, machine-to-machine communication is critical for the successful widespread adoption of WSDs as this communication allows effective spectrum sharing.

The rural broadband test results are of most interest as this application of WSDs is most promising for Rwanda. The UK trial established a link to a residential site 5.6 km from the base station, and they were able to achieve internet speed around 8 Mbps down and around 1.5 Mbps up using a single TVWS channel (Cambridge White Spaces Consortium, 2012). The following table show estimated speeds at various distances based on the results from the trial.

Connection speeds at various distances

Source:

4. TVWS in Rwanda

4.1. Overview

Given the success of the trials in South Africa, Kenya, United Kingdom and around the world, Television White Spaces networks seem poised for broad adoption and abundantly suited for providing last mile broadband access. Even in a country the size of Rwanda, completing a fiber network to every school and residence is simply impractical. The cost of providing this type of last mile service is prohibitively high. Fortunately, this limitation can be overcome by wireless technologies.

Rwanda has an extensive national fiber backbone, but the percentage of households with Internet access was less than 10% in 2012. Clearly Rwanda’s majority rural population is underserved. The Ministry of Youth and ICT identified the absence of a Last Mile Network as the limiting factor in Internet penetration across the country (Rwanda ICT Sector Profile - 2012). The Ministry stated that increasing broadband access would be a focus in 2013. TVWS networks have the potential to be the enabling technology Rwanda needs to fulfill its widespread broadband access aspirations.

TVWS networks offer several unique advantages over other wireless technologies available today. The primary advantage is lower cost compared to cellular wireless services due to WSDs ability to operate in unlicensed spectrum. Operating in unlicensed spectrum means that there are no licensing costs that must be passed on to the consumer. TVWS networks can also be deployed with fewer towers than previously necessary for other unlicensed frequencies (1.8 GHz, 1.9/2.1 GHz and 2.6 GHz), which also reduced infrastructure costs.

The National Backbone, which reaches every district in Rwanda, combined with a TVWS network has the potential to provide Rwandans living in every part of the country with

reliable, fast Internet access. If Rwanda hopes to make the shift to an information based economy, this access is critical.

4.2. Viability

As it was shown in section 2.2., Rwanda has very few TV stations that leave idle the majority of the TV spectrum. Additionally, with the migration from analogue to digital television broadcasting, more spectrum will became idle due to the possibility of using single frequency networks for TV stations. This represents a great opportunity to cover the demand for broadband access in developing countries given the lower costs in both deployment and license fees, which in turn increases the affordability of the end user or customer to connect to the Internet.

Thus, several factors make Rwanda the perfect candidate to implement TVWS. First, the opportunity to use the unexploited spectrum since Rwanda has only one TV station, which is owned by the government. Second, even though is a small country, only ~15% of Rwanda’s population is urban, therefore, there is a strong need to reach rural areas in order to provide education, healthcare, and government services. TVWS, having large coverage areas allows to fulfill the need of Internet access in rural areas. Finally, as we have seen TVWS offers a low cost alternative that it is align with the objectives of the current government to provide ICT’s to all people in order to foster their economy and increase there welfare.

Certainly, one of the biggest pioneers in this technology is Microsoft who has spent several years investigating new technologies to increase the productivity use of spectrum. For instance, they created the Microsoft Spectrum Observatory in order to have a clear idea of the use of the wireless spectrum. This observatory counts with four stations located in Washington, DC., Brussels, Redmond, and Seattle, and provides access to the Internet through currently unused TV spectrum.

However, this technology cannot be implemented without the organization of policymakers, government, private sector, and telecommunications providers. This key factor was fundamental in the successful development in cases such as Kenya, South Africa, and the United Kingdom.

4.3. Policy and regulation

This section relates to policies and regulations regarding spectrum issues that need to be addressed by governments and regulatory agencies in order to establish the framework in which TVWS and WSD can operate and be deployed.

Given that current TVWS spectrum is assigned as a primary service to TV broadcasting, the main question is how TVWS networks and TV networks will share spectrum. There are different approaches that could be implemented presented below.

Sharing under primary/secondary rights

Given that TV stations have a primary right, this means that they can cause harmful interference to any other service using the spectrum, but any other service may not cause harmful

interference to TV broadcasting services. In this situation, TVWS network will be only allowed to use TV spectrum if necessary measures are taking in order to not cause harmful interference to TV services. To implement this spectrum sharing, several technologies such as data bases with the inventory of available frequencies need to be access in order first by WSD in order to know if it is possible to use a certain frequency or not. Other complementary solutions may also be used, such as spectrum sensor, i.e., WSD may sensor the spectrum environment and when it finds a frequency available, it uses to transmit.

Under this type of sharing, TVWS would have secondary rights, thus may not interfere with TV services and must coordinate between different TVWS networks, i.e., different providers, how to use the available spectrum.

Exclusive rights for TVWS

Given that Rwanda has the majority of the TV spectrum idle, it could relatively easy for a TVWS network or a WSD to access spectrum. Even more, the regulator could set some spectrum bandwidth for the exclusive use of TVWS, that is, frequencies which are definitely not in current use by TV services and that will not be used in the future for different than TVWS. In such case, the regulatory agency could define some channels in the TV spectrum band for unlicensed services such as TVWS. Same as the first case, TVWS providers would need to coordinate between them to not cause harmful interference between them.

This approach would similar to the unlicensed bands where today WiFi operates, however, with a very different coverage area. Today different WiFi equipment share the same spectrum band, they coexist, same would be necessary but at a much bigger scale with the area coverage of TVWS.

Licensed or unlicensed

Even though it is possible to have license exclusive bands for TVWS that would be much similar to current mobile services in which mobile providers pay a fee for the right to use the spectrum with warranty that they would not be interfered. Although this is possible, it would increase end user access price due to the higher costs that the operator must incur to provide the service. In that sense, it would not be favorable for developing countries. Thus, the recommendation is not to have licensed TVWS providers.

Neighbor countries

Rwanda is a very small country in geographical area, bordered by four countries. This could bring some challenges to deploy TVWS networks in the sense that neighbor countries could be using spectrum for TV services that would then cause or will be hurt with harmful interference. Thus, it is important to coordinate with neighboring countries what TV channels are being used for TV services, and in such case, implement a data base with the inventory of this channels. If this is the case, and knowing the current infrastructure Rwanda has deployed, i.e., fiber optic backbone, data center, etc., Rwanda could be the provider of the data base for TVWS at a regional level.

Deployment considerations

The TVWS network could take advantage of the fiber optic national backbone, connecting to it in the points of presence that exist in all 30 districts. It would be necessary to undergo a study

to know where would be the most appropriate place in terms of area to be covered and rural population and public schools that need to attended. It could be necessary a group of interconnected base stations as a mesh network to provide higher area coverage, given that at least one base station is connected to the fiber optic backbone. This will allow to go deep far from the fiber optic backbone into rural areas that need connectivity.

4.4. Conclusion and Applications for Rwanda

Television White Spaces networking is a promising technology that has the potential to provide numerous innovative services. Its potential has been demonstrated and well documented in trials all over the world. Possibly the most exciting application for TVWS is its potential to bring broadband access to previously underserved areas. Each of the trials highlighted in this paper noted that TVWS networks could bring broadband access to the last mile at a reasonable cost. This characteristic alone provides ample motivation for further research on the usage of this technology in Rwanda.

The Ministry of Youth and ICT identified the lack of a last mile network as one of the primary ICT challenges facing the country. The National Backbone provides and will continue to provide network service all over the country, but it is simply impractical to lay a fiber network to every school in the country. Building off the infrastructure in place, a TVWS network could fill a critical gap in Rwanda’s broadband build out.

Rwanda already has several ambitious ICT programs and services in place. The country has worked on developing a country-wide electronic medical record system built on OpenMRS. They also use TRACNet to electronically submit reports and obtain up to date medical information. An expanded broadband network in the country would support the expanded use of these services as well as promote the development of additional healthcare related ICT services.

E-Government is another area that could realize significant benefits from a TVWS network. Currently only 5% of the population has access to the internet; naturally this severely limits the utilization of current e-government services in place. The awareness of these services among the people is quite low. This can likely be largely attributed to simple lack of access. Rwanda fully intends to improve their E-Government ranking from 140th in 2012, but to do this, they need a last mile network that can provide access to the people (UN, 2012).

Expanding broadband access to schools across the country is likely the most important need that a TVWS network could meet in Rwanda. As mentioned, Rwanda Vision 2020 identified Education as a critical component to the realization of their goals and aspiration. Almost 40% of primary schools in Rwanda have some type of computer infrastructure in place, but only 6.17% of these schools are connected to the Internet (Ministry of Youth and ICT, 2012). While increased access to ICT devices is clearly needed in these schools, the major limiting component is Internet access. Transforming the country into a knowledge-based economy without giving children access to the Internet seems unlikely to happen.

Broadband access alone does not change a country. It is however an enabler. It enables innovation, creation and learning. Rwanda has steadfastly pushed to become the ICT center of the East Africa Community, but this pursuit has faced numerous challenges including the citizens’ limited access to the Internet. Internet access for its people is critical for the continued

development of Rwanda as the country builds itself into a technology leader in East Africa and the world.

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