Bridging Africa's broadband divide

At Mulanje Secondary School, in Malawi's verdant tea-growing district, something remarkable is happening: Students and teachers now have broadband access to the Internet for the first time, thanks to an over-the-air network that connects the school with a telecom provider in a nearby town. Installed last year, the network transmits signals over unused portions of the television spectrum-known as TV white spaces-from a high-gain antenna mounted atop the sturdy brickand-stucco building to a radio tower owned by Malawi Telecommunications, 2.6 kilometers away. Inside the school, in a new computer lab, students check email, do homework, and hang out on social media, just like teenagers the world over.