Morai Solutions has been assigned temporary radio frequency spectrum by The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) to assist in the provision of affordable and reliable Covid-19 data access to rural communities during the pandemic.
Television White Spaces (TVWS) are “unused” spectrum located in the 470Mhz-790Mhz band, and Icasa has allowed wireless access devices to transmit in these unoccupied channels as long as they do not interfere with licenced broadcasters.
Morai plans to start its TVWS rollout in the Eastern Cape, beginning with Mthatha and the surrounding rural communities in the King Sabata Dalindyebo local municipality of the OR Tambo District Municipality.
“We are planning to deliver connectivity to these South African rural underserviced communities while expanding nationally,” says Morai CEO Tim Shete.
Since TVWS frequencies can travel for kilometres, Morai will take advantage of this benefit and co-locate its infrastructure with other providers in order to offset the need to build new infrastructure during this period.
“In hilly regions, TVWS frequencies will typically cover two to six times that of the current WiFi technologies, thus needing fewer base and customer premise units (up to 10 times fewer than current technologies) to cover these expansive areas,” Shete says.
“The TVWS access points will serve larger rural areas, allowing them to be installed in areas up to several kilometres away from where backhaul will be located.”
Morai’s TVWS technology is driven by Carlson Wireless RuralConnect Gen3 TVWS broadband radios that operate in the 470 MHz to 790 MHz service bands. In order to prevent interference with licensed users, the RuralConnect will be managed by the CSIR Secondary Geolocation White Space Database.
Morai is being incubated by Altron Nexus as part of a year-long enterprise development programme and is one of the SMMEs on Altron’s Gauteng Broadband Network Project.