Tackling Africa’s digital divide

Lavery, Martin P. J.; Abadi, Mojtaba Mansour; Bauer, Ralf; Brambilla, Gilberto; Cheng, Ling; Cox, Mitchell A.; Dudley, Angela; Ellis, A.D.; Fontaine, Nicolas K.; Kelly, Anthony E.; Marquardt, Christoph; Matlhane, Selaelo; Ndagano, Bienvenu; Petruccione, Francesco; Slavı́k, Radan; Romanato, Filippo; Rosales‐Guzmán, Carmelo; Roux, Filippus S.; Roux, Kobus Le; Wang, Jian; Forbes, Andrew

doi:10.1038/s41566-018-0162-z

Cited by 56 publications

(35 citation statements)

References 17 publications

(15 reference statements)

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“…Over the past 200 years, "wire" based solutions have held supreme, from the early days of copper wire communications in 1812, through to optical fibre networks today. Replacing legacy networks is frightfully expensive, as is laying new fiber networks, and in some instances is not a viable solution for last mile connectivity nor to bridge the digital divide in areas with an economic or geographical disconnect [1]. As such, free-space optical (FSO) communication is enjoying renewed interest [2][3][4]: it is high-speed, free from licensing and readily deployable, while the no-cloning theorem in the quantum regime, forbidding amplification stages, makes the quadratic loss with distance in free-space very attractive when compared to the exponential loss in optical fiber.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Structured Light in Turbulence

Cox

Mphuthi

Nape

et al. 2021

IEEE J. Select. Topics Quantum Electron.

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Optical communication is an integral part of the modern economy, having all but replaced electronic communication systems. Future growth in bandwidth appears to be on the horizon using structured light, encoding information into the spatial modes of light, and transmitting them down fibre and free-space, the latter crucial for addressing last mile and digitally disconnected communities. Unfortunately, patterns of light are easily distorted, and in the case of free-space optical communication, turbulence is a significant barrier. Here we review recent progress in structured light in turbulence, first with a tutorial style summary of the core concepts, before highlighting the present state-of-the-art in the field. We support our review with new experimental studies that reveal which types of structured light are best in turbulence, the behaviour of vector versus scalar light in turbulence, the trade-off of diversity and multiplexing, and how turbulence models can be exploited for enhanced optical signal processing protocols. This comprehensive treatise will be invaluable to the large communities interested in free-space optical communication with spatial modes of light.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Structured Light in Turbulence

Cox

Mphuthi

Nape

et al. 2021

IEEE J. Select. Topics Quantum Electron.

Self Cite

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“…Addressing these first mile issues require investments by the public and private sectors into internet connectivity and access to internet and mobile phones especially in rural areas (WBG, 2016;UNCTAD, 2019). Despite mobile service uptake, Africa commands only 4% of internet access globally (Lavery et al, 2018). Additionally, improving digital literacy is essential so that people, especially women and the poor, can benefit from the digital economy and reduce the inequality gap within the digital divide (Townsend et al, 2019;UNCTAD, 2019).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Role of Blockchain in Documenting Land Users' Rights: The Canonical Case of Farmers in the Vernacular Land Market

Daniel

Speranza

2020

Front. Blockchain

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In this article, we discuss the potential of blockchain technology in addressing the documentation of users' land rights in the informal land rental market. Blockchain technology is a peer-to-peer protocol that can be leveraged to keep track of transactions over the internet. Publicized for its use in the bitcoin revolution, the technology provides transparency and traceability that can be used in the management of land rights. When it comes to the formalization of land rights, blockchain technology promises to authenticate owners and other users of land, and provides a fixed ledger of land use rights transactions. At present, blockchain technology is being explored as a proof of concept in several countries to track land titles (state to individual). We extend the idea to capture the granting of land use rights (individual to individual) making use of the decentralization, peer-to-peer nature of blockchain technology. While the technology is not a panacea to all land administration challenges, it can offer an effective means to manage land transactions, provide digital documentation to actors in the informal land rental market and reduce inefficiency in land systems. However, the uptake of the technology in land administration is limited by human related factors. These limitations include, but are not limited to, the accuracy of data being entered into the system, the ability of the system to facilitate data preservation, pre-existing institutional and legal pillars, and the digital divide across communities. Part of overcoming these barriers requires the political will of governments to invest in digital technologies and develop institutional capacities to overcome current limitations to bring land management into the industry 4.0 era.

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“…In [129], a joint fronthaul-backhaul design is proposed where terrestrial FSO links can be used transmit the access traffic (e.g., from LiFi) in rural areas until reaching passive optical network (PON) networks connected to the fiber backhaul.…”

Section: B Free Space Optics (Fso)mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In [396], guidelines were noted to help stakeholders bridge the broadband divide, e.g., (i) establishing an independent national telecommunications regulatory authority, (ii) sharing the investment in the physical infrastructure and human capital, and (iii) competition between telecommunication service providers to reduce costs. Once basic infrastructure is established and the demand over broadband services starts to grow in rural areas, the wired fiber backbone will expand towards these areas since the business case becomes economically viable and gradually profitable [129,397].…”

Section: B Next Steps: Where To Go From Herementioning

confidence: 99%

A Key 6G Challenge and Opportunity—Connecting the Base of the Pyramid: A Survey on Rural Connectivity

2020

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Providing connectivity to around half of the world population living in rural or underprivileged areas is a tremendous challenge, but also a unique opportunity. Access to the internet would provide the population living in these areas a possibility to progress on the educational, health, environment, and business levels. In this paper, a survey of technologies for providing connectivity to rural areas, and that can help address this challenge, is provided. Although access/fronthaul and backhaul techniques are discussed in the paper, it is noted that the major limitation for providing connectivity to rural and underprivileged areas is the cost of backhaul deployment. In addition, energy requirements and cost efficiency of the studied technologies are analyzed. In fact, the challenges faced for deploying an electricity network, as a prerequisite for deploying communication networks, are huge in these areas and they are granted an important share of the discussions in this paper. Furthermore, typical application scenarios in rural areas are discussed, and several country-specific use cases are surveyed. The main

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Tackling Africa’s digital divide

Abstract: Innovations in "sustainable" photonics technologies such as free-space optical links and solar-powered equipment provide developing countries with new cost-effective opportunities for deploying future-proof telecommunication networks.

Cited by 56 publications

References 17 publications

Structured Light in Turbulence

Structured Light in Turbulence

The Role of Blockchain in Documenting Land Users' Rights: The Canonical Case of Farmers in the Vernacular Land Market

A Key 6G Challenge and Opportunity—Connecting the Base of the Pyramid: A Survey on Rural Connectivity

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