Commercial TV White Spaces in Africa: Microsoft tries to calm operator fears

[Jan]

TV White Spaces goes commercial in Africa – Microsoft seeks to calm the jitters of the mobile operators

The long-term shift in power between the OTT players and mobile operators is a bit like watching a Samuri wrestling bout.

They move round each other threateningly, making loud grunts, then hang on to each other for a while before one falls over.

As TV White Spaces goes commercial, some of the mobile operators have got the jitters again. Russell Southwood spoke this week to Fernando de Sousa, General Manager – Africa Initiatives about its TV White Spaces projects. Microsoft and Google have been pioneering TV White Spaces technology on an increasingly large-scale.

 

[Chris.Geerdts]

From what I know of the Kenya project, it was rolled out to work with Wi-Fi links at 2.4GHz as well as TV White Spaces and is in a rural area so suffers minimal congestion from this license-exempt spectrum usage.

It is the extension of that proof-of-concept into changes in legislation that is the issue rather than those links for the original pilot project actually being challenged by Safaricom (they can challenge the TV White Spaces links, but the Wi-Fi links will still be in place)

 

[Swa]

So what are they offering in South Africa as our tv white space is still in use and therefor not white space?