e-Infrastructure and e-Services for Developing Countries

The exponential growth in demand for higher data rates and other services in wireless networks require a more dense deployment of base stations which results in more demand of the radio spectrum. Due to the scarcity of radio spectrum and the under-utilization of assigned spectrum, government regulatory bodies have started to review their spectrum allocation policies so as to implement opportunistic spectrum access (sharing) through cognitive femtocells. The cognitive femtocell technique is however challenging due to uncertainties associated with co-tier and cross-tier interference, adjacent channel fading, path loss, and other environment dependent conditions that bring about a progressive degradation of the signal coverage. In this paper, we review the different interference solutions and prioritize the Optimal Static Fractional Frequency Re-use (OSFFR) approach. We analyze the system performance with different metrics such as throughput, number of free channels and Bit Error Rate. Simulation results show that the proposed OSFFR shows an improved result compared to other frequency reuse schemes.

The development towards ubiquitous network access requires innovative solutions to get remote areas included, especially rural areas of developing regions. We report on recent progress in the Serengeti Broadband Network, one of the first pilots established in the Tanzania ICT for Rural Development programme with the mission to design and validate a method to establish sustainable broadband markets in under-served areas. The challenges include ownership and leadership, sustainable business models, robustness of network components and poor or non-existent supply chains, including power supply.

Scheduling Algorithm performance in Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access Network (WiMAX) or IEEE802.16 promotes a huge success due to its current availability in the network, providing multiple and high rate capabilities. However, several algorithms have been proposed and designed, in order to achieve high quality of service (QoS) in the network. Not all can be selected to implement in real WiMAX, rather a need to know and choose the best ones for real WiMAX development. In order to do this, the study employs simulation scenario of considered different scheduling algorithms in order to measure their performances such as the loss rate. Their behaviours are investigated using MATLAB simulation tool and the results are compared. The end to end loss rate experienced with all the considered algorithm is high compared to International Telecommunication Union (ITU) standard. Our contribution is to minimize and improve the Algorithms as a result of the shortcomings experienced. The number of channels created in this layer to reduce the end to end loss rate is realized using the Reconfigurable Optical add-drop Multiplexer (ROADM) technique in the MAC layer. This is because MAC layer supports data communication and routing. This technique generate channels, controls and monitors flow rate of data in the MAC layer using a mathematical model to reduce the loss rate in the network. The results achieved from the qualitative analysis show that the performance of the improved algorithm is accomplished as result of low loss rate as a result of increasing the number of channels in the MAC layer. High throughput is attained due to high flow rate of real time application and more so, fair sharing of resources is achieved in different scenarios with different times and sizes.

Cognitive radio (CR) has been fronted as technology for spectrum sharing. For a CR to work efficiently and effectively, the secondary user (SU) should without any reasonable doubt detect the presence or the absence of the primary user (PU). Therefore, spectrum sensing is core to the performance of cognitive radio networks and it is shown in this paper that deploying multiple input multiple output (MIMO) at the SU, improves the performance. In addition, this paper deploys multi-slots and cooperative spectrum sensing to enhance detection in CR networks. Results show that the probability of detection increases while the probability of false alarm decreases for a MIMO implementation. An overall performance improvement in the network throughput is realized by increasing the number of antennas, sensing time slots and the number of users.

Rural and remote areas, particularly in emerging countries, often lack broadband connectivity mainly due to economic constraints. This limits the access to existing and novel application and services, which often require a high connection speed. At the same time satellite systems have evolved significantly during the last decade leading to a tremendous decrease in cost per bit. In fact, satellite systems can provide very high bandwidth links. However, mainly due to the high signal propagation time, the latency on those links is significantly higher than in terrestrial networks. Simultaneously using terrestrial access technologies, such as, or cooperatively, in parallel to new high speed broadband satellite systems is believed to be a promising option to enable broadband connectivity to rural and remote regions. However, typically used load distributing methods, commonly used multi-homing environments might do more harm than good due to the heterogeneity of the technologies and in particular the higher latency of the satellite systems. This could affect service quality for especially latency sensitive applications. In this work we identify the key building blocks required to realize a converged satellite terrestrial network. Moreover, we present an easy to implement approach based on packet sizes that takes the satellite specifics into account and allows for providing broadband connectivity while maintaining a high QoS for the user.

The prediction of the signal path loss is an important step in the deployment of wireless networks. Despite the plethora of works on this field, just a little is addressing rural environments at 2.4 GHz. In this work, we consider empirical path loss models in wireless networks at 2.4 GHz, using off-the-shelf 802.11n. We define three scenario usually observed in rural environment: free space, raised space and built space. Afterwards, we do a measurement campaign and compare results to selected prediction models. After analysing the results, Liechty model provides a better precision than the others. This model is further improved by considering the distance between the transmitter and the first breakpoint. We obtain predictions with mean errors less than 2.4 dB which is inferior to 4.00 dB predicted using Liechty model.

Despite an increase in the number of Internet eXchange Points (IXP) in Africa, as well as proliferation of submarine and terrestrial fibre optic cable systems, the level of peering among Africa’s Internet service providers remains low. Using active network measurements, this work characterizes the level of interconnectivity and peering among Africa’s National Research and Education Networks (NRENs), and examines the performance of traffic exchange in terms of latencies. This paper shows that over 75 % of Africa’s inter-university traffic follows circuitous inter-continental routes, and is characterised by latencies that are more than double those of traffic exchanged within the continent.

With the growing potential of wireless backhaul technologies for outdoor environments and rising interest in unlicensed bands for broadband delivery, dynamic channel assignment and improved spectrum utilization is re-emerging as a research topic. In this paper we describe a centralized channel assignment optimization for our wireless backhaul architecture WiBACK. In order to efficiently utilize wireless channels in heterogeneous networks, we propose an improvement to the current frequency planning scheme using 802.11 as an example. The contributions in this paper can improve broadband access for emerging areas, often lacking required telecommunication infrastructure.

The actual implementation of an intelligent system that can well manage and utilize the scarce spectrum is a major difficulty towards cognitive radio deployment. By integrating spectrum usage characteristics in Uganda, we develop a hybrid protocol to select optimal channels for use by the cognitive radio. It uses physical layer characteristics of signal to interference and noise ratio and interference power to legacy users to achieve a higher layer goal of maximizing network throughput. The fuzzy logic approach effectively reduces the protocol stack to a hybrid form that considers only the parameters that directly impact on the desired goal. The multiple pertinent variables can be suitably represented in a common linguistic language and solved as a multi-objective optimization problem. The resulting hybrid protocol shows high efficiency in selecting the channel while also maximizing the network throughput.

A consistent issue of concern in the design of future mobile cellular systems is the energy consumption of the radio access network. This paper quantifies the amount of energy savings that can be obtained due to deployment of small cells in an area given a user density for that area. It also compares the cost increase that arises due to the deployment of small cells with the gains that are realized. A high-data rate Long Term Evolution (LTE) network in a developing country context is considered in this paper.

Use of mobile phones has the potential to transform maternal healthcare delivery in Uganda, with associated benefits of educating women on pregnancy, monitoring maternal, child progress and post-delivery support. Despite the benefits, user adoption of mobile phone technology for maternal healthcare remains low. There is a lack of understanding of the factors that affect the use of mobile phones in maternal healthcare practice. This paper reports on a study that aimed to determine factors deemed important for the adoption and use of mobile phone technology by healthcare professionals. The study used a questionnaire based field study to determine these factors. The study was carried out with the healthcare professionals working in the maternal sections in selected Health Centers in Wakiso district in Uganda. The results of the study indicate that perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, social influence, facilitating conditions, perceived value, workflow practices are important factors for the adoption and use of mobile phones in maternal healthcare practice.

Online social networks are transforming e-government service delivery across the World. Whereas they have been utilized to enhance delivery of other e-government services, their usage in health care in the developing country context still faces a lot of challenges. These include lack of policies, limited knowledge of what motivates user acceptance and usage of social networks for e-Health and lack of trust in the information shared in these networks. In the past decade, many acceptance models have been developed to explain user acceptance of e-government technology. However, none has been developed to utilize the mighty power of online social networks in a developing country context. In a bid to close this gap, this paper presents the results of a study that develops a Social Networked Model for improved e-Health service acceptance and usage in Uganda. Requirements for the model elicited in a field study are used to extend the generic E-government Acceptance Model which emphasizes Social Network factors for e-Health Acceptance and usage. The extended model has dimensions of Social support, Social awareness, Social attractiveness and Social influence. The Social Networked Model is generic and can be used by other transitioning countries.

A Drug Management Application (DMA) provides health care facilities with a tool to enhance drug inventory and drug orders. The objective of conducting the field tests was to evaluate attitudes, effective use and effects of the DMA during a time-limited trial at carefully selected rural health centers. At the end of the field-tests, rural health workers reported several benefits experienced through using the DMA including: (i) it is a time-saving approach for ordering drugs; (ii) it allows feedback from the drugs distribution center; (iii) it is cost-effective since transport costs are eliminated; (iv) it facilitates effective inventory management; (v) it presents an opportunity to monitor and stay within the drugs budget of the health facility. This contributes to the implementation of rational drug management and use of medicines.

Cloud computing has a potential to solve scalability issue in dynamic spectrum request response (DSR²) wireless networking. Radio frequency (RF) spectrum is a pervasive resource whose optimal utilisation requires efficient management techniques to allow a sustainable growth of innovative wireless communication technologies. Multi-tenancy cloud hosting architectures are considered to be prime enabler to a concept of spectrum resource-as-a-service (SRaaS) for DSR² networks. Such architectures allows a single instance of software application to be delivered as a service to multiple users (tenants) requesting different services from different or same locations as opposed to running multiple instances of same software applications to each tenant. This chapter discusses a proposed conceptual framework for managing RF spectrum resources in dynamic spectrum request response wireless networks.

Cloud computing is growing in popularity due to its ability to offer dynamically scalable resources provisioned as services regardless of user or location device. However, moving data to the cloud means that the control of the data is more on the hands of the cloud provider rather than the data owner. This to a certain extent means that cloud users are skeptical about losing their privacy when moving data to environments they do not control. From this stems the need for the means to allow the data owner to monitor what is happening to her/his data. This paper presents a framework that could assist in efforts to address privacy issues in the cloud. A proof of concept prototype implementation is presented to validate the framework. Evaluations are then carried out to test the utility and applicability of the proposed solution.

Implementation of information and control technologies is essential for application areas such as precision agriculture, where Wireless Sensor Networks are deployed. In wireless sensor networks (WSNs), data is collected from the source nodes and routed to the sink. And from the sink, this data is sent to the internet. Energy conservation is paramount during the communication phase in order to prolong the lifetime of the sensor nodes. The main method deployed to conserve energy consists of switching off the nodes transceiver when not transmitting nor receiving packets.

In this project, we introduce a Data Caching Algorithm (DCAL) that optimises the sleep/wake up periods of wireless sensor nodes to achieve low energy consumption and latency. The algorithm was used to analyse data in order to avoid situations of continuously transmitting the same information from the source node to the sink. This approach exploits the duty cycling scheme and operating on top of Media Access Control (MAC). We implement a Data Caching Algorithm (DCAL) in MIXIM (Mixed simulator for wireless and mobile networks using OMNET++ simulation engine) running on OMNET++ (Objective Modular Network Testbed in C++) simulator where different network sizes and simulation times were varied. We compared the performance of our algorithm with Data gathering MAC (DMAC) and Sensor-MAC (SMAC) and results showed that DCAL scheme significantly performs better in energy conservation and achieved a better latency than the DMAC protocol. Further still the DCAL approach performed extremely well in large, random networks.

Unused spectrum in the television band (so-called TV white space) has the potential to provide new spectrum for access to information and communication services in developing countries. This claim has been subject to a variety of measurement studies. The purpose of this paper is to survey these studies to better characterize the spectrum that is provided by TV white space. We discuss some of the challenges to such studies and characterize the available TV white space spectrum in terms of the total volume that is available.

There is growing interest and increasing investment in the role of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in governance across Africa, however, empirical evidence on the use of ICTs in governance in East Africa remains scanty. The ICT for Governance study in East Africa is a study investigating how ICTs are being used in four specific areas of governance (i) access to information, (ii) public service delivery, (iii) tracking corruption and (iv) civic participation. This study seeks to identify, describe and analyze situations in which ICTs have and can be used to successfully facilitate or how they have hindered, two way interaction between government and citizens in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. This extended abstract discusses the theoretical frameworks and methodology used in this study.

Electronic governance has been hailed as a way to improve service delivery and responsiveness to citizens through two-way interaction, which results in the long run and generating greater public confidence in government. Apart from citizens, government interacts with business community and government nationally and internationally. The Government of Malawi has put several initiatives in area of ICT such as developing e-bill and national ICT policy, introducing Computer Studies in secondary schools, introducing computer courses in tertiary education institutions, establishing e-Government department, and currently, it is building e-government infrastructure. Some government departments and ministries are using computerised systems to support the public services. Therefore this paper discusses contribution of computer education and/or training being conducted in various training institutions in Malawi to human capacity which is one of factors that influence the successful implementation of e-government. An e-government toolkit for Malawi emphasizes continuously the development of human capital through education, lifelong education, and tax incentives to companies investing in worker training as a mission critical component of any successful, long-term e-government project.

Stand alone GIS applications at Mzuzu ADD make it difficult if not impossible for the top management to access data and make decisions accordingly. The applications make it difficult for members of staff to share spatial information and further more there is duplication of work and inconsistency in the spatial data collected by the ministry. The current setup influences what is termed as the institutional challenge. This situation arises due to GIS experts not being able to communicate effectively to the decision makers. This is as a result of the absence of the link or availability of the GIS applications and its data to the decision makers. Institutional challenge is one of the many challenges facing in the adoption of GIS usage. As a way of eliminating or reducing the stated problems above, this study proposes client-server GIS application. One such application can be a Spatial Data Infrastructure at an institutional level. The aim of this research was to identify implications that can arise in introducing an institutional GIS client-server application over stand-alone GIS applications.

Electricity theft is the main source of non-technical losses in electricity distribution utilities. This paper presents data from an ongoing research to study the causes of electricity theft in Kampala, Uganda and people’s response to the efforts being made to reduce it. Our study reveals that electricity theft in Kampala is largely due to economic reasons and corruption within the utility company. It confirms that people perceive electricity theft as the utility’s problem and are not willing to report electric theft suspects. We propose ICT technologies to encourage consumer participation in reducing electricity theft.

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) have been streamlined into policy and strategy frameworks of most Countries, Tanzania included. At national level, most countries has made good progress on several MDGs targets. Tanzania is considered to be off-track with regard to the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger which is MDG one. Thus, it has embarked on the MDGs Acceleration Framework (MAF) initiatives to develop a nationally owned MDGs acceleration action plan to speed up progress towards a specific MDG target that is otherwise unlikely to be met by 2015.

This study was carried out with two broad aims: mapping availability and use of ICT in rural areas; and ICTs impact on, and contribution to peoples life. The primary focus of the study was to develop a better understanding related to availability, access and the usage extent, challenges, and the impact of ICTs and associated infrastructure and services in rural areas. To achieve its objective, the study used literature review and field survey through questionnaires, interviews and focus group discussions. The results of the study indicates that primary school is the highest level of education, agriculture was the main economic activity, more than half of respondents have an income per month below 30 USD, majority use mobile phones as a communication tool, and public gatherings are the most effective communication means. ICT services on the livelihood was reported to bring positive changes at various levels in the society.

The purpose of this paper is to present research findings that investigate the extent of Internet usage as well as options for extending the current reach of the wireless network in Dwesa, a rural area in South Africa’s Eastern Cape Province. A mix of methodologies, encompassing ethnographic and quantitative approaches, is used to study the need to expand connectivity in Dwesa and the social impact of providing Internet connection to this rural area. Our findings confirm the need to connect more areas of the Dwesa community - particularly active ICT champions and households of some stakeholders who are willing to use their homes as a central hub for other community members. We also suggest the option of running parallel network links to connect two broadband islands that exist in SLL in order to provide improved redundancy in the network, should one of the satellite links fail. The network will be expanded using wireless mesh technology. In addition, we also propose to make use of TV white space technology – wireless communication making use of unused portions of the TV spectrum – for one of the parallel links connecting the broadband islands.

In poor areas, where ICT infrastructure is being deployed with developmental aims, there is a need to provide appropriate, sustainable technologies that meet the needs of the local community. Current trends for ICT interventions favour the use of mobile user equipment, such as tablets and cellphones, but we think that they are inappropriate to allow production as opposed to mainly consumption of digital content, at least for the foreseeable future. Thus our objective is to reduce the cost of deployment of traditional communal Internet Access Points using PCs. In this paper we compare four candidate computers to be used as thin clients in such settings, according to seven different categories. Our study identifies the strengths, weaknesses and problems of each device, and concludes with recommendations for anybody wishing to deploy such devices as Linux Terminal Server Project (LTSP) thin clients in a public Internet Access Point.

Malaria is one of the most severe public health problems worldwide. It is estimated that 3.3 billion people live in areas at risk of malaria transmission, and in 2010 caused around 655,000 deaths, 91 % of them in the African Region. In this study we assess if the mHealth application “MalariaScope” developed by Fraunhofer Portugal AICOS (FhP AICOS) found to be usable and satisfactory by users from a European country, Portugal, can achieve similar positive results in an African country, Mozambique, which is one of its intended contexts of use. To this end, an academic partner from that African country conducted locally a usability evaluation of the application following the same procedure with participants with similar scientific backgrounds to the Portuguese counterparts. A comparison of the usability metrics of the two evaluations found no significant differences between the Portuguese and Mozambican set of users.

The use of structured evaluation approaches, especially those that rely on qualitative criteria for the appraisal of the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) contribution to development, is a fairly new occurrence, whose relevance to research and practice is to a large extent unclear. For this purpose, this paper proposes and applies a multidimensional validation framework that is based on the validation square framework initially developed for the evaluation of design methods. It is applied to validate an evaluations approach developed for appraisal of the ICT contribution to social and economic development. Based on the proposed validation framework it is established that despite some skepticism, the structured approach is generally useful for the evaluation of the ICT contribution to development because (i) its underlying theoretical basis demonstrates its likelihood to facilitate evaluations of the ICT contribution to development; (ii) in comparison to the existing approaches, using the structured evaluation approach will most probably produce results in less time and less cost; and finally (iii) it is useful in a variety of contexts.

ICT4D research has the potential of drastically enhancing the daily life of millions of people in developing countries. However, this potential can only be realized if there is enough skilled professionals to transform research ideas into business opportunities. Thus, education in computer sciences is becoming a priority in many countries in Africa, although harsh conditions involving for example limitations in Internet bandwidth and strong academia staff, have negative impact on student motivation and teacher’s as well.

We discuss in this paper an experience at the University of Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, for a software engineering course. We report on the subject and realization of an engaging project for collectively building a toolset for counting source lines of code in projects. This project fulfilled different goals including (1) efficiently providing expertise to students, (2) effectively participating in the open source community, and (3) engaging students in a collaborative work that forces them to acknowledge their potential.

The performance of a fingerprint authentication system in electronic business depends on the accurate analysis of the quality of input fingerprints. This paper investigates distorted and misaligned fingerprints caused by environmental noise such as oil, wrinkles, dry skin, dirt and displacement of the query fingerprint with the database fingerprint template during matching. The noisy, distorted and/or misaligned fingerprint produced as a 2-D on x-y image, is enhanced and optimized using a new hybrid modified Gabor filter-hierarchal structure check (MGF-HSC) system model based on an MGF integrated with a HSC. Our findings indicate that structural matching is experimentally confirmed as a reliable matching technique in a fingerprint authentication system, as distorted fingerprints can easily be matched, even when the pixel value detected is low, while the rotational and geometrical transformation that affects fingerprint authentication is addressed. The MGF-HSC approach minimizes false fingerprint matching and the dominant effect of distortion and misalignment of fingerprints to an acceptable level. Our approach, which is benchmarked with publicly available methods, deals with 60 % heavy distortions and misaligned fingerprint and exhibits reliable matching performance for promising e-business security work in terms of visual quality, false rejection rate and false acceptance rate.

Enterprise Architecture (EA) has gained popularity as an enabler for rapid organizational change with regard to controlling, optimizing and complexity management. It is thus regarded as organizations’ blueprint for adaptability, change, evolution and therefore growth. However, its mere deployment would not necessarily yield favorable results; instead, results may vary from one organization to another. This necessitates investigations on organizations’ readiness prior to the deployment of EA as well as appropriate mechanisms for monitoring its value during deployment and its impact post-deployment. We hereby, propose a framework for measuring the value of EA in organizations with focus on the telecommunication industry within South Africa. It is shown from case studies that the framework could help organizations not only to make an informed decision on whether to deploy EA or not, but also to constantly monitor its benefits (if any) during its deployment and beyond.

This research investigated evaluation models for understanding the value of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Operational Risk Management (ORM) in Medium and Small Enterprises (MSEs). Multiple regression, Repeated-Measures Analysis of Variance (RM-ANOVA) and Repeated-Measures Multivariate Analysis of Variance (RM-MANOVA) were performed. The findings of the distribution revealed that only one variable made a significant percentage contribution to the level of ICT operation in MSEs, the Payback method (β = 0.410, p < .000). It may thus be inferred that the Payback method is the prominent variable, explaining the variation in level of evaluation models affecting ICT adoption within MSEs. Consequently, looking at (1) degree of variability explained and (2) predictors, the results revealed that the variable contributed approximately 88.4 % of the variations in evaluation models affecting ICT adoption within MSEs. The analysis of variance also revealed that the regression coefficients were real and did not occur by chance.