93 THE TRANSACTIONS OF THE SA INSTITUTE OF ELECTRICAL ENGINEERS September 1994

TELECOMMUNICATI ON NE1WORKS AND SERVICES FOR RURAL

APPLICATION IN AFRICA

S.H. MNENEY & A.V. OTIENO

ABSTRACT

This paper investigates the average national telephone densities may

telecommunication networks and services vary from 50% to 80%. It is common to
which countries in Africa can assimilate in find a single city in the developed world
order to disseminate information to the having more telephones than a whole
rural population. The most efficient and country in Africa, an extreme example
cost effective networks are those using being the city of Tokyo which has more
flexible radio links and in this paper they telephones than the whole continent of
are given more emphasis. In this survey Africa. A clearer picture is formed when
terrestrial radio systems including point- one considers the distribution which is not
to-point, point-to-multipoint and uniform as there is a concentration of
multiaccess technologies are investigated. services in the urban areas where
The use of mobile communication government and business communities are
techniques and equipment for fixed located.
services is considered and the network
options offered by satellite links are also The rural areas have an average of less
presented. Such networks can provide the than 0.1% which includes the rural-to-
traditional services of telephony, urban links serving the district
telegraphy, telex and data dissemination headquarters, the police and some
but due to the unique educational needs of institutions like mining and co-operative
the rural population audio-visual services, societies. These serV'ices are normally not
using the same networks are available to the rural general public.
recommended for spreading news and
information for tele-education, The main reason for little progress in the
entertainment and advertising. telecommunications sector in Africa is
generally due to inadequate resources to
INTRODUCTION develop the telecommunications sector.
The meagre resources available are so
The telecommunications services in Africa desperately and urgently needed in health
are sparse, in fact in many locations they services, education and food supply
are non-existent. The average national relegating development in
densities, for instance, are less than 1 % [1] telecommunications to the background.
which should be compared with the The rural areas have suffered the most
situation in developed countries where the because telecommunication utilities invest
where there are profitable financial returns
and in rural areas the immediate returns
are meagre obviously attributable to the
Submitted August 1993
Accepted October 1 994
September 1994 THE TRANSACTIONS OF THE SA INSTITUTE OF ELECTRICAL ENGINEERS 94

low traffic levels which characterise these services can be rapidly and economically
areas. Further, telecommunication services implemented in rural Africa. Flexible
require higher investment capital in rural radio systems, including terrestrial and
areas due to the generally hostile terrain, satellite radio systems are considered, and
difficult vegetation, and vast distances the use of satellite links for rural
involved to serve a scattered population. telecommunication application is also
However, it has been shown [2] that there discussed.
are indirect benefits which outweigh the
immediate financial returns. The economic TERRESTRIAL RADIO SYSTEMS
growth rate, for instance, is higher when
services are introduced in the least Radio telecommunication systems are
developed zones; the remote rural regions. simple to install and recover making fast
Such servic~s stimulate the whole deployment possible and unlike wired or
economy of a region and do not benefit the cable systems they are not susceptible to
telecommunications sector alone. damage and theft. They are able to access
remotely located communities without
African governments, often with external having to clear the whole wayleave in
financing, have initiated rural order to install and maintain. The most
telecommunications projects to serve the common are UHF and VHF systems which
general public or as a part of a broader have direct line-of-sight radio paths with
development project. Examples of these maximum distances of between 60km to
[3] include the Kagera River Basin project 70km. This makes the system suitable for
in Tanzania, the provincial and rural rural zones where villages are scattered
system project outside the greater Banjul with average distances of about 15km.
area in the Garn bia and the development Frequency pairs have to be used for the
project outside Cairo in Egypt, to mention full duplex systems and these can be re-
only a few. In Botswana a feasibility study used after approximately 150km. Re-use of
for a nation-wide programme to bring frequencies is also employed in cellular
telephone services to all villages with a radio systems in the same way enabling
population of over 500 people has been the frequency spectrum to be employed
done. There are many such projects in more efficiently thus serving more
Africa. subscribers.

The rural population require services The HF systems on short-wave radio can
which can serve their information, be used for radio telephony but the
education and entertainment needs. The problem in this range is interference from
wideband service, television, which is adjacent channels and fading at certain
ideal for education and entertainment, is times of the day because the received
too costly to distribute widely and the signal strength changes with changes in
majority of rural population cannot afford the ionosphere. Such changes in
the television set. It is for this reason that propagation conditions affect the
this paper proposes narrowband audio- communication quality although HF
visual services which can be distributed systems can provide communication over
using the telephone channel. The purpose long distances up to lOOOkm.
of this paper is to examine the diff~rent
technologies by which the telephone
95 THE TRANSACTIONS OF THE SA INSTITUTE OF ELECTRICAL ENGINEERS September 1994

For reliable radio telephony UHF /VHF exchange. The system may be analogue or
systems are recommended. There are digital and the access may be FDMA or
several techniques in which UHF /VHF TDMA, respectively.
systems can be deployed for efficient
communication which depend on the (i) Analogue systems
number of subscribers, distances between
them and their distribution. These In fixed frequency assignment each
techniques can be grouped into point-to- outstation is assigned a pair of frequencies;
point, point-to-multipoint and multiaccess one for incoming and one for outgoing
radio systems. links. At the base station there can be an
operator who may route the calls
Point-to-point radio systems manually or there can be an automatic
exchange. Such a system is inefficient in
This system can link a single subscriber, or the use of the frequency spectrum but may
a cluster of subscribers up to 70km away be adequate to link a few outstations,
to the public switched telephone network, which may have underground cables or
fig.1 and can link stations not connected to overhead-line extensions to the
the public switched telephone network. subscribers. Some of the extensions can be
For a full duplex system a dual channel is linked to public telephone booths. A single
the minimum requirement in which FDM channel from an outstation may be shared
or TDM can be employed to facilitate the by several subscribers.
use of several channels. In FDM
transmission a 12 channel SSB modem can Alternatively, several carriers can be
be used as a standard. Links with channel provided and these can be accessed
capacities which are multiples of 12 up to randomly, facilitating a random access
a maximum of 120 can be implemented FDMA system in which case a few
and demand assignment can be deployed channels are adequate to serve several
to improve the use of the frequency subscribers. The random access
spectrum. Meanwhile in TDM, digital equipment is placed at the outstation and
transmission systems with channel not at the subscriber's premises. This is
capacities of 64 kbit/ s, or 30 channels with more economical as the subscribers
2Mbit/s or 60 channels with 2x2Mbit/s remain with a simple telephone set only.
capacity are possible.
(ii) Digital Systems
Point-to-multipoint radio systems
A TDMA system can also be deployed
The point-to-multipoint systems comprise having the advantage of utilising the
a central station and a number of frequency spectrum more efficiently.
distributed outstations linked by line-of-
sight paths using VHF /UHF radio links as Telephone messages for each subscriber at
shown in fig. 2. The central station is the base station are digitally encoded and
normally located near a telephone are allocated time slots. The composite
September 1994 THE TRANSACTIONS OF THE SA INSTITUTE OF ELECTRICAL ENGINEERS 96

I c.::J I
link to
PSTN

remote
subscriber

Fig. 1 point-point radio system.

outstation l
outstation 2

central
station

outstation 4
outstation 3

Fig. 2 A point to multipoint radio system.

97 THE TRANSACTIONS OF THE SA INSTITUTE OF ELECTRICAL ENGINEERS September 1994

signal modulates a carrier at one between the villages. In this case each
frequency fi which is fed to an omni- station can access several other stations.
directional antenna where the signal is The simplest system would be a fixed
radiated to the outstations. At the frequency assigned FDM system with
outstations the telephone messages for the frequency pairs assigned between stations,
individual subscribers are extracted and fig.3. The extensions from the outstations
relayed through overhead open wire lines to the subscribers is through overhead
or buried cables to the subscribers. wires or undergroun d cables. However,
Meanwhile, the telephone messages from cordless phones can be used with the
the outstations are digitised, coded and outstations acting as the telepoints.
formatted into short bursts which
modulate a carrier at frequency f2, before Mobile radio technologie s
transmission . The potential in this system
is in the fact that it is digital where the use The cellular system was developed to meet
of Vl.SI technology allows the subscriber the mobile demands of Europe. However,
and the base station equipment to be built the system can be used to provide fixed
more cheaply and compactly than the service to the rural zones of Africa. The
analogue system. attraction here is that a subscriber, who
has mobile telephone· equipment, can be
The point-to-mu ltipoint system is suitable anywhere within the coverage area and no
for serving a cluster of villages. The cables or directional radio links are
outstations are placed in the villages and necessary.
the base stations are placed close to PSTN
exchange. The concept of frequency re-use The functional units of the systems include
and equipment are the same as in cellular the mobile telephone equipment, the base
radio technology. The cost of the point-to- station and the switching system. The
multipoint radio is high but the system mobile telephones can be powered from
proves to be cost effective when the solar energy. The coverage area of a base
number of subscribers is large (greater station forms a cell.• The cells can be
than 200). arranged to provide coverage to the
population centres and need not
Multiaccess radio systems necessarily cover uninhabited areas. Due
to the high investment required in the
Multiaccess radio telephone systems like switching equipment a large number of
the Philips IRT 1500 [6] can be used to subscribers is essential for the system to be
provide multipoint links which can cost effective.
provide rural-to-rura l interconnect ions
September 1994 THE TRANSACTIONS OF THE SA INSTITUTE OF ELECTRICAL ENGINEERS 98

·I. _/-,
rQJ_ I c=::J I
iri villuge I

I~ I _fID
in village 2

i11 villuge :3

Fig.3 A multiaccess radio system.

SATELLITE RADIO SYSTEMS solar powered. The NEC's SOLSTAR

system and INTELSAT's VSAT system [7]
A satellite radio link can be used lo for instance, are among systems that meet
facilitate rural telecommunication. The such specifications and can be deployed
remote earth station has to be of low cost for rural telecommunication in Africa.
because many of them are required. Small Demand assigned (DAMA) equipment, in
earth stations with antenna diameters less which each subscriber requests a
than 4.Sm are of low cost and easily connection through a common-signalling
transportable. They can be designed to use channel, can be added to provide the
low power earth station equipment with technical and economic advantages of a
simple and efficient modulation schemes. demand assigned network. In the
They can be made to be highly reliable SOISTAR system the DAMA equipment
thus requiring low maintenance. uses slotted ALOHA technique for similar
connections.
In order to minimise power consumption
the earth stations need not have redundant Such a narrowband satellite radio link can
equipment. The solid state power be used for voice telephony, telex,·
amplifier can have a voice activated power telegraph, low speed data, facsimile, and
control and there is no need for air slow-scan 1V and the best network to
conditioned operation. The system can be serve the rural areas would have a star
99 THE TRANSACTIONS OF THE SA INSTITUTE OF ELECTRICAL ENGINEERS September 1994

topology. The rural stations will all be [Ts] = satellite system noise temperature
linked to a central station in the main city (assume 29.3 dB-K),
which will have the option to re-route the [B ] = SCPC noise bandwidth per
calls to another rural station or to the carrier
public switched telephone network. A (24kHz = 43.8 dB-Hz),
rural to rural link will, therefore, be [ ] depicts quantities in dB.
provided through two satellite 'hops',
although the dialogue delay for speech Substituting values in equation (1) -
would not normally be regarded as gives
acceptable.
[C/Nup]= [BOi] + 32.6dB (2)
The best choice for providing the thin
route telephony service is the single
channel per carrier (SCPC) system in Downlink
which each half circuit is . transmitted
separately. The transponder is accessed by [C/Nan1=[e.i.r.p]+[Bo 0 ]-[n]+(VOX]-[La]
many carriers from different stations. The +[G/T]-[k]-[B] (3)
quality of the RF-linkis determined by the
baseband performance objectives and the [C/Nan]=carrier-to-nois e power ratio for
operational characteristics of the modems. the downlink (dB)
A link [C/N] = 11.SdB yields a threshold [e.i.r.p.]=the effective isotropic radiated
margin in excess of 0.4dB and provides power in the direction of the
baseband noise performance which meets received station (dBW).
the minimum requirement for a telephone [B00 ]= the total output backoff of the
network. The usable bandwidth of the transponder (dB).
transponder is filled with 666 channels of [La] = the clear sky down-link path loss
45kHz spaced carriers [8]. The link (196dB in the C-Band),
performance can be calculated as below: [G/T] = the receive station figure of merit
(T/K)
[ ] depicts quantities in dB.
Uplink
Substituting values in equation (3)
[C/Nupl=[W5]+[Boi]-[n]+[VOX]-[k]-[Ts]-[B] gives
(1)
[C/Ndn]=[e.i.r.p]+[G/l]+[B00 ]-35.4dB (4)
[Ws] =the received power to saturate
transponder (assume -98.7 dBW), The carrier-to-intermodulati on power
[Boi] = the input backoff of the ratio, C/IM, must be included to account
transponder (dB), for the intermodulation noise produced by
[n ] =total number of carriers to the the interaction of carriers in the
transponder (n=666), transponder. [C/IM] against input backoff
[VOX]= voice activation advantage has been plotted in [8]. The overall link
(=4dB), carrier-to-noise power ratio, C/N1ink1
[k ] = Boltzmann's constant for the SCPC link is given by
(=-228.6dBW /Hz.K),
September 1994 THE TRANSACTIONS OF THE SA INSTITUTE OF ELECTRICAL ENGINEERS 100

(C/Nlinktl =(C/Ndnt1+(C/Nuptl [e.i.r. p / carrier]-[lup]+[Gantl

+(C/IM) -1 (5) =[Ws]-[BOiJ-[n]+ [VOX] (6)

where ( ) depicts quantities in their [Lup1 = 200dB is the uplink loss at 6 GHz,
numerical form. [Gantl = the receiver gain of the satellite
antenna.
For different operating points of [BOi]and
[Bo0 ] a plot of [C/N] for the link against When values are substituted
[e.i.r.p] + [G/T] has been made in [8].
This plot shows the minimum [e.i.r.p/carrier] = [BoiJ - [Gantl + 77.1 (7)
recommended [e.i.r.p] + [G/T] is
52dBW /K which gives the [C/Nlinkl = The optimum [BoiJ is known since it was
11.SdB. If the [e.i.r.p] is known the earth used to find [C/IM]. Thus
terminal [G/T] can be determined. This
leaves the option of trading-off between [e.i.r.p./carrier] = 71.1 + [Gantl (8)
the antenna size and the LNA noise
temperature. This determines the required transmitter
power if the antenna size is known. A
On the other hand the uplink segment is typical rural station is given in fig. 4.
defined by the following equation

Fig. 4 Rural earth station block diagram.

IOI THE TRANSACTIONS OF THE SA INSTITUTE OF ELECTRICAL ENGINEERS September 1994

The potential of the satellite radio system areas. These problems include education,
lies in its ability to provide nationwide training, hospital and medicare and any
coverage thus giving access to a telephone emergency communicat ion. TV and radio
service throughout the rural areas. If broadcast service are the best media
telephones are provided so that in the through which tele-educatio n, news and
worst cases they can be accessed within a information disseminatio n, and
one hour walk then it would be reasonable advertising can be accomplishe d. The
to place the access point at the intersection effectiveness of these services is limited
of the longitudes and latitudes located not only because they are one way
lOkm apart [9]. The maximum distance communicat ion services, but few people in
one can walk to access a telephone would the rural areas of Africa can afford them.
be about 7km. Kenya for instance, would In addition in many countries in Africa the
require about 5000 telephones. If up to 20 coverage is limited and the reception is not
telephones are radio-linked to one earth always of good quality for the whole day.
station then Kenya would need 250 earth
stations. Assuming the cost of the earth In [4] audio-visual services were defined.
station including the terrestrial links to be These are narrowband services which can
about $10000 then the total investment use the telephone for their distribution.
required by Kenya would be $2.5 million. Two telephone channels can be dedicated
excluding the space segment which must for some hours everyday to provide these
be rented. This is still an overestimate as audio-visual services to community
there is no need to install telephones in centres. The block diagram for the
uninhabited areas. baseband transmission and reception
systems are shown in fig. 5 and 6. The
SERVICE OPTIONS various sources can be multiplexed to
provide the following services: silent
The service priority in rural areas is teletext, teletext plus speech, scribophone
telephony. Once telephones are provided and still-pictures plus speech. Such
other services which can use the telephone services are suitable for tele-educatio n,
channel will follow. These include news and information disseminatio n,
telegraphy, telex, low speed data, and advertising and marketing. Interaction
facsimile. can be made possible by means of a
second dedicated line. Services for rural
However, the services in rural areas need areas should be provided in community
to be adopted to provide solutions to some centres where the costs can be
of the problems which characterise these shared.
September 1994 THE TRANSACTIONS OF THE SA INSTITUTE OF ELECTRICAL ENGINEERS 102

'fR!TING
TABLET ----11 CODER

~
µ:::i

l. . __
_TEIJ:l'EXT_s_ou_RCE
1
DA:_r__ _ ~----··~~ ....
x
µ:::i

~
CHANNE
~
MODEM
ENCODE
vmr.o BUFFER
LPF
~

CAMERA +CLAMP
~

.......:l
~
AMP. :::g

SPEECH

Fig.5 Baseband transmission system for audio-visual services.

D
0::: VJDEO
w CONVERTER
:><
w
~
H:E: 000
CHANNEL 0.,
DECODER 5.5 MHz
E--<
~ LPF
:=i
~ 4 kHz
w DELTA BUFFER
Cl DEM OD. LPF AMP.

Fig.6 Baseband system for reception of audio-visual services.

~ Fast to slow data rate converter

~ Slow to fast data rate converter

103 THE TRANSACTIONS OF THE SA INSTITUTE OF ELECTRICAL ENGINEERS September 1994

CONCLUSION on Rural Telecommunications,

Londori, UK, October 29-31, 1990.
The cost of providing telecommunication [4] S.H. Mneney and A.P. Verlijsdonk,
services to the rural areas of Africa are "Audio-visual broadcast to rural areas
high compared to that of providing the over narrowband satellite channels",
same service to urban centres. The average Proceedings of the AFRICON" 83
cost per line in the urban areas stands at$ Nairobi, Kenya, December 7-9, 1983,
1300 while in the rural areas it can be up to pp. B2.2.2-B2.2.6.
$25000. This is so when the traditional [5] M.D. Farrimond," PCN and other
overhead lines or buried cables are used. radio based telecommunications
However, these costs can be reduced when technologies for rural regions of the
radio-telephony is employed. VHF /UHF world'" presented at the Conference
systems are recommended as they provide Rural Telecommunications, London
more reliable links. The distribution UK, October 29-311990, pp 104.
network may involve point-to-point, [6] T.M. Schuringa, "Planning of
point-to-multipoint, or multiaccess radio telecommunication services in rural
systems. Mobile radio technology can be areas in non-industrialised countries",
used to provide fixed services but this Philips Telecommunications Review,
technology becomes cost effective only vol. 41, No. pp. 100-112, June, 1983.
when a large number of subscribers are [7] D.J. Wedemeyer, and M.R. Ogden,
available. Telecommunications and Pacific
Development. North-Holland, 1988,
Satellite links have the advantage of wide pp. 279-292.
coverage and can provide the ultimate [8] CCITT, , Rural Telecommunications,
solution to the problem of rural Supplement No.l ITU, Geneva, 1983.
telecommunication. However, large capital [9] W. Pierce and N. Jequier,
investments are required. Low cost earth Telecommunications for
stations using solar power can be used and Development, ITU, Geneva, 1983.
these stations can be accessed by up to 20
subscribers. The space segment can be Authors:
rented or in the future a regional African
satellite can be used. Prof. S.H. Mneney, B.Sc. (Hons.)Eng.,
M.A.Sc, Ph.D., M.l.E.T., R.Eng.
REFERENCES Department of Electrical Engineering,
University of Durban-Westville.
[1] D.G. Clark and W. Laufenberg, The
Role of Telecommunications in Prof. A.V. Otieno, B.A., B.Sc., M.Sc.,
Development, ITU, Geneva. 1981. Ph.D., M.I.E.E.E., M.I.E.K., R.Eng.,
[2] A Hardy, The role of the telephone in F.K.N.A.S.
economic development, ITU, Geneva, Department of Electrical & Electronic
1983. Engineering
[3] D. Westendoerf, "Development of University of Nairobi, Kenya.
rural telecommunications and the
CTD", presented at the IEE Conference