Network performance analysis of the Limpopo TV white space (TVWS) trial network

Television white spaces (TVWS) refers to vacant channels in the ultra-high frequency (UHF) band between 470 and 690 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 Limpopo TVWS trial network, which provides a point-to-point Internet connectivity to five rural secondary schools. A set of 24 hours RF monitoring results of the TVWS trial network 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, average latency, and jitter are also presented. The performance results show that good throughput for each link which is in the magnitude of 4 to 8 Mbps and latency of less than 10 ms for typical packet sizes ranging from 32 to 1500 bytes are achievable.