Ghana’s communications regulator, the National Communications Authority (NCA), has announced plans to deploy television white space (TVWS) technology to improve the availability of broadband internet in the country
The NCA said that its choice of TVWS was because of the technology’s ability to reach individuals in scarcely populated areas where telecoms operators are reluctant to set up base stations.
At a public consultation workshop on TVWS in Accra, NCA director general William Tevie said that the authority had collaborated with Google and other institution in 2013 to carry out TVWS trials in particularly in Labadi and East Legon, and the results of the initiative helped them determine the capacity of the technology to reach remote locations.
“Operators are more open to prioritising the expansion of their services to densely populated areas over areas with fewer inhabitants because of the comparatively bigger financial gains. But with TVWS, the inability to serve scarcely-populated areas with internet connectivity will become a thing of the past,” he said.
He noted that deploying TVWS will facilitate the creation of smart cities with inter-connected devices at home, schools, shopping centres, municipal areas and many more other places. The emergence of TVWS will make the issue of inability to serve remote areas a thing of the past, he added.
NCS director of engineering Henry Kanor also assured stakeholders, especially broadband service providers, that the introduction of TVWS technology will not pose a threat to broadband internet services, but instead strengthen it.
