Network performance analysis of the television white space (TVWS) connectivity for telemedicine: A case for Botswana

Television white spaces (TVWS) refers to vacant channels in the ultra-high frequency (UHF) band between 470 MHz and 698 MHz assigned for television broadcast and can be used opportunistically by secondary users (SUs). Research has shown that when the spectrum allocation is managed appropriately, SUs can co-exist on the same radio frequency (RF) spectrum band with licensed networks. This paper introduces the Botswana TVWS trial network, which provides point-to-point Internet connectivity to 6 rural healthcare facilities. A set of 24 hour RF monitoring results of the TVWS trial network over a one year period are presented which shows the behaviour of white space devices with respect to incumbent TV band services. The network performance results with respect to average throughput and latency are presented. The performance results show good throughput for each site, which is in the magnitude of 0 to 4 Mbps and average latency of less than 10 ms for typical packet sizes ranging from 32 to 1500 bytes.