Video Streaming over HSDPA for Delivery of Essential Services in Under Serviced Areas in Africa

In the last decade, the growth in GDP across the African continent has been to a greater degree spurred by increased deployment and subscription to GSM and 3 G cellular networks. Poor or non-existent copper/fibre and mesh networks, largely inefficient telecommunications management and/or ineffective telecommunications policies in addition to poor infrastructure have made it nearly impossible to deliver essential services in health, education, trade and industry etc. In this paper, existing 3 G high-speed packet networks is evaluated as an alternative intervention to poor telecommunication infrastructure for the delivery of essential services such as telemedicine, emergency health services, tele-education and e-commerce in under-serviced areas. Simulation results show that HSDPA in target areas with rural, hilly and remote urban environments meet QoS parameters in terms of bit rates that are well above the minimum of 32 kbps for a H.263 codec target bit-rate of 16 kbps video quality. The envisioned capacity satisfies the QoS parameters for provision of essential services, if a distributed centralized approach is adopted. 3 G streaming can thus be used to deliver essential services in under-serviced areas.