open spectrum

When talking about affordable, ubiquitous access to communication in developing countries, wireless technologies offer the most hope for effectively bridging the digital divide. This paper examines its challenges and opportunities.    

Unused TV white spaces could be the way to get highspeed wireless internet to millions living outside major African cities. Manufacturers are gearing up for mass production of white space devices and now is the time to act. APC and partners are coordinating an important workshop for govt officials, regulators and professionals in October.    

The programme will be developed by APC together with the programme with Google Africa and the Open Spectrum Alliance and Steve Song.

There is no simple definition of spectrum. From a technical viewpoint, spectrum is the range of electromagnetic waves that can be used to transmit information. From a practical point of view, however, the effective management of spectrum embraces not only electromagnetic waves, but the technology used to transmit those waves, as well as the economic and political aspects of what is now a valuab...

The problem of internet access in a country the size of Brazil is as complex as its geography or its population. The government is currently working on a national broadband plan which would establish high-speed fibre optic connections in the major cities. In order to reach the most distant towns, signals transmitted over the air will be used (through waves that circulate on a set frequency or s...

For about 75 years up to the sixties, nearly all telecommunications services in the country were in private hands, distributed among hundreds of local operators. Telephony authorizations were issued and controlled by the state governments. In this process Companhia Telefônica Brasileira emerged as a major operator of local and long-distance services, covering about 80% of the telephone termina...

“Open spectrum is important because access is important” says Steve Song, telecommunications fellow at the Shuttleworth Foundation in an interview with APCNews. But in South Africa, the problem is not lack of access – it’s that access is not affordable. Freeing up wireless spectrum, such as television white spaces —the space between channels— or making more information available on ...

Most communications policies around the globe have been developed on models based on the economic, political and social realities of North America and Europe – which assume large private companies build expansive national wired infrastructures. So laws and regulations have evolved with the understanding that these wired networks are the main communication infrastructure and that wireless netw...