The co-regulation of TV-white spaces: The Southern Africa development community approach

Abstract

TV-White Spaces (TVWS) is among the promising solutions for extending internet broadband reach in the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC). White Spaces are often called the “gold spectrum resource”, the industry, regulators and academia from SADC have been effervescently working in new ways towards flexible govern the usage of these bands by embracing standards such as IEEE 802.11af, 802.19.1 and 802.22. This article analyses the deployment of TVWS in six SADC countries namely Botswana, Tanzania, Namibia, Malawi, Mozambique and South Africa, the study, demonstrates the steps and standards adopted to deploy trials and the adoption of co-regulation as an approach for regulating the TVWS.