JSE-listed Allied Electronics- (Altron-) incubated enterprise Morai Solutions is preparing to deploy its allocated television white spaces (TVWS) spectrum in the Eastern Cape.

This follows the assignment by the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) of temporary radio frequency spectrum to Morai to assist in the provision of Covid-19 affordable and reliable data access to rural communities during the pandemic.

Icasa has allowed wireless access devices to transmit using the unused spectrum located in the 470 Mhz to 790 Mhz band channels as long as they do not interfere with licensed broadcasters.

Morai, which is being incubated by Altron Nexus as part of a year-long enterprise development programme and is one of the small, medium-sized and microenterprises working on Altron’s Gauteng Broadband Network Project, will start the TVWS rollout in Mthatha and the surrounding rural communities in the King Sabata Dalindyebo local municipality of the OR Tambo district municipality.

“We are planning to deliver connectivity to these South African rural underserviced communities while expanding nationally,” said Morai CEO Tim Shete.

Morai aims to co-locate their infrastructure with other providers to offset the need to build new infrastructure during this period.

“In hilly regions, TVWS frequencies will typically cover two to six times that of the current WiFi technologies, thus needing fewer base and customer premise units to cover these expansive areas,” he said.

The TVWS access points will serve larger rural areas, allowing them to be installed in areas up to several kilometres away from where backhaul will be located, he continued.

Morai’s TVWS technology is driven by Carlson Wireless RuralConnect Gen3 TVWS broadband radios that operate in the 470 MHz to 790 MHz service bands.

The RuralConnect will be managed by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research’s secondary geolocation white space database to prevent interference with licensed users.