IEEE Spectrum September, 2016 - 56

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Through a partnership between the University of Malawi
and the ICTP's Guglielmo Marconi ICT Wireless Laboratory,
engineers have also developed a low-cost spectrum analyzer
to allow practitioners in Africa to identify TV white spaces
easily through spectrum sensing. Although spectrum-sensing
devices haven't exactly lived up to their promise in preventing radio interference [see, for example, Mitchell Lazarus's
IEEE Spectrum article on the topic last month], there's definitely a use for them in rural settings, where the spectrum
is relatively uncrowded.
The spectrum analyzer used in Malawi won an award at the
IEEE Global Humanitarian Technology Conference in October
2013 and has since been deployed in Zimbabwe and Kenya.
Mikeka's group has been training African engineers and spectrum regulators from various countries who want to use it
because they can't afford commercial spectrum analyzers.
In the future, this innovation could lead to spectrum "safaris" to map the airwaves in different parts of the continent.
The challenge now is to keep the momentum going. Many
regulators as well as many telecom-equipment manufacturers have adopted a wait-and-see attitude. As a result, there
is currently very little equipment available that is based on
broadly accepted technical standards for TV white space
such as IEEE 802.11af or 802.22. One exception is the Picasso
Gen3 chipset from Carlson Wireless, released in April. It's the
first TV white space chipset based on 802.11af, and in a press
release the company claimed that the signal "penetrates walls,
trees, foliage, and bends over hills even at long distances."
More such developments would be welcomed by the many
African scientists and engineers who remain committed to
TV white space technology. Once the telecom authorities in
South Africa and Malawi issue their decisions, we expect it to
have a ripple effect on other African countries.
The South African government has a broadband plan for
90 percent of the population to have at least 5 Mb/s by 2020
and for broadband access to cost no more than 5 percent
of a user's gross monthly income. Malawi, meanwhile, is
procuring a 622-Mb/s Internet link from Lusaka, in Zambia,
to Blantyre-Malawi's second largest city-and onward to
Maputo, in Mozambique, which will connect Malawi with the
UbuntuNet Alliance, the research and education network for
eastern and southern Africa. Among other things, the connection will give the Malawi Research and Educational Network a 1-gigabyte-per-second fiber-optic link to the Internet
at a price of less than $80 per megabit per second, less than
one-tenth of what it costs today. TV white space networks
would then connect to that fiber backbone.
TV white spaces are just one example of a broad movement,
known as dynamic spectrum access, which seeks to repurpose
licensed wireless spectrum in geographical regions where it is
underutilized. After TV white spaces are opened up for secondary use, the same model will likely be applied to other radio
services and other frequency bands. Indeed, in the coming
years, we expect to see this revolution overturn the way countries regulate and use their radio spectrum. n
post your Comments at http://spectrum.ieee.org/tvwhitespace0916

56 | SEP 2016 | NORTh AMERICAN
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SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG
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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Spectrum September, 2016