Broadband4Malawi

The entire country of Malawi has only 13,000 fixed broadband connections. That is less than on a single street in Mahhattan, Johannesburg, Nairobi or Lagos. By rolling out a data only, fixed 4G/LTE network across Malawi we expect to connect 125,000 households in Malawi to the Internet for the first time. Access to the internet offers improved employment and income opportunities, better access to education and learning and is a critical tool that is improving the lives of people all over the world. This solution will bring this life changing technology into the lives of close to half a million Malawians.

Malawi is one of the poorest countries in the world World Population Review Report. Less than 1% of her population have access to a fixed broadband internet connection. This is mainly due to the high costs of internet access occasioned by a lack of competition along with no fixed broadband infrastructure. 

The United Nations Broadband Commission for Sustainable
Development’s Working Group on Broadband for the Most Vulnerable
Countries issued a report at the UN headquarters indicating that access
to broadband internet helps Least Developed Countries (LDCs) overcome
vulnerabilities, grow economies, and enhance people’s livelihoods.

Rwanda's President Paul Kagame states that “Africa’s economic transformation requires broadband infrastructure with
an emphasis on both access and affordability. The reality is that all
other digital services, whether in commerce, education or healthcare,
run on top of broadband. Africa’s size, geography and settlement
patterns mean that we must rely on a variety of different technologies
to deliver broadband including satellite, fiber optic and mobile. It is
up to us to lead the way in driving innovation both in policy and
business models in order to speed up the provision of broadband where it
has been slowest to reach,”

We will build a fixed broadband internet network that uses 4G/LTE technology. While these technologies have been traditionally associated with mobile operator's data networks we have, in conjunction with equipment vendors designed an approach whereby the technology is applied for deployment of fixed broadband internet access.

By removing the requirement for mobility and inter-cell handover, we are able to deploy infrastructure with a vastly increased reach (up to 30 kilometers) from each base station. This gives us the opportunity to cover very large populations within a very short time and with optimal use of funds.

Our solution uses low cost, low power consumtion indoor and outdoor, customer devices which whihch can even be powered by solar - thereby enabling a vast majority of Malawi's population to gain access to previously unattainable opportunities for employment, self improvement, entertainment and enhanced livelihoods via the internet.

Our solution will target urban, peri-urban and rural populations alike. We will have over 500,000 households under our coverage and we aim to connect 125,000 of these within the next 2-5 years.

We have already piloted fixed wireless broadband connectivity into each of these populations in two districts in Malawi over the past 18 months and have developed a deeper understanding and appreciation of their needs.

One outstanding example is the connectivity currently offered within the Dzaleka refugee camp where we have connected a refugee owned tech hub, a church and a small business owner. The lessons learnt from our ongoing engagement with this underserved community has led us to formulate an approach where we will partner with the local community to deploy a community owned network using our technology that will allow them to self-actuate.

By providing these previously unserved communities with access to the internet for the first time, we will unlock their potential to access new markets, access financial services, access government services as well as access educational and entrepreneurial opportunities alike.

We also envisage an increase in technological and digital literacy as well as new skills to compete in the global market as evidenced from the Internet Now! project in Northern Uganda which equipped rural youth with digital skills to provide outsourced labor to mainly Sillicon Valley based enterprises.

We are taking technology which is normally used for building high cost, mobile telecommunication networks and repurposing it for use as a highly adaptable and robust, low cost fixed broadband data access network. 

Because we do not need the Mobility, cellular and handoff attributes of 4G/LTE technology, we have worked with equipment vendors to configure a “poor mans internet” infrastructure which can cover huge areas and populations at a fraction of what it would cost a pure-play mobile operator.

With a reach of between 20-30 kilometers, each base station can cover an area of between 400 to 900 square kilometers. This means that a countrywide network delivering broadband internet access to all populations, rural and urban alike, can be deployed very quickly. In addition services can be delivered at a much lower cost due to the much, much lower capital requirements. 

With such pervasive broadband infrastructure as a platform or foundation, all kinds of services, applications and solutions can be activated to create employment, provide access to the vast knowledge and skills accessible via the Internet, allow for creation of local and context relevant solutions.

In a nut shell, we can do within a couple of years what the mobile operators have been unable to do for the past 20 years.Connect, empower and enrich poor and underserved communities.

Our solution is based on LTE, an abbreviation for Long-Term Evolution, commonly marketed as 4G LTE, which is a standard for wireless communication of high-speed data for mobile phones and data terminals. It is based on the GSM/EDGE and UMTS/HSPA network technologies, increasing the capacity and speed using a different radio interface together with core network improvements. The standard is developed by the 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project) and is specified in its Release 8 document series, with minor enhancements described in Release 9.

LTE provides much higher data speeds and greatly improved performance as well as lower operating costs. Not only is the radio access network improved for 4G LTE, but the network architecture has been overhauled, enabling lower latency as well as much better interconnectivity between elements of the radio access network,

The Base Stations we will deploy have Software Defined Radios with advanced features and the latest generation technology and upgradable features for future-proof networking and performance. An upgrade path to 5G and beyond is already defined, with support for IoT (Internet of Things) already included.

“In the fourth quarter of 2018, LTE technology reached nearly 4 billion connections worldwide representing 47 percent of all cellular technologies and providing 4G wireless access to services and applications to a large portion of the world’s population.“ Link

Unfortunately populations in Africa have been largely unaffected by this unprecedented wave of access and connectivity. Malawi is not an exception with most LTE deployments by mobile operators centered on urban populations where they can get a quick(er) return on investment. 

“In 2025, 90 percent of subscriptions are projected to be for mobile broadband
We estimate that there will be 8.9 billion mobile subscriptions by the end of 2025, out of which around 90 percent will be for mobile broadband.” Link

We intend to ensure that a significant proportion of Malawi’s population is counted amongst these statistics.

Malawi has only about 13,000 fixed broadband connections https://tradingeconomics.com/malawi/fixed-broadband-internet-subscribers-wb-data.html 

We intend to increase this by an additional 125,000 (mostly households) over the next 5 years.

This will be achieved by rolling out our long range LTE base stations in Malawi’s 3 regions (North, Central, South) and connecting an average of 25,000 subscribers per year.

Revenues realized from operations will be reinvested to continue expansion and ensure even greater reach over time.

500 at present

125000 in 1 year

625,000 in 5 years

1st year: coverage in Lilongwe, Blantyre and Mzuzu with 25,000 broadband connections serving at least 125,000 people.

5years: coverage over 95% of population with 125,000 broadband connections serving at least 625,000 people.

Funding

Unreliable electricity

Poor International connectivity

Low levels of digital literacy

Fund raising (grants and investment capital)

Energy storage technology at base stations and core infrastructure

New, redundant, connectivity routes via regional carriers

Aggressive support and funding for digital literacy initiatives through the Internet Society and other local actors

6 Full time

4 Part time

6 Contractors

I have been building networks across Africa for the past 24 years. Our team has a combined 80 years of technology experience. We are intimately familiar with the terrain, the problem and the means to a solution. We are passionate about transforming our country and communities through technology.

ISOC - training, advocacy, critical internet infrastructure

Technology vendors to design and deploy the network

ours is a subscription business model. For a flat, monthly fee users get unlimited broadband internet access. This is delivered over devices (customer premise equipment) which connects them to our network base stations. 

We would greatly benefit from a seed grant for rollout of our first 3 base stations ($520,000) and we are always on the lookout for these opportunities. Raising investment capital ($120,000) is how we have been able to fund the business to date and we are actively engaging with investors for pre-seed ($150,000) or seed ($520,000). Selling of services will generate revenues which will continuously be reinvested into the business.

Funding is the biggest barrier. Broadband businesses are not well understood because they usually involve substantial infrastructure investments (similar to brick and mortar) but the infrastructure deployed is not what generates the revenues. The revenues come from the services delivered over the infrastructure. Funding opportunities are therefore extremely limited.

we need partners who can help us to scale

MIT would be great in helping us solve some of the big challenges that affect African internet users. Especially when it comes to access to content delivery networks. 

we are currently connecting a few organizations in the Dzaleka Refugee Camp (over 40,000 in population) but need about $85,000 to deploy a refugee owned and operated community network.

we have an MoU with a local girls and women’s rights organization “Every Girl in School Alliance” https://egisamw.org/ and would look to work with them to increase access to the Internet for girls and women in Malawi 

We would use $145,000 to develop a prototype of an African content delivery network node that use artificial intelligence and machine learning to analyze data streams, intelligently cache and prefetch popular content thereby saving costly international bandwidth and improving loading times, streaming quality and overall performance of networks. Upon completion, funding would be sought for continent wide deployment of the solution at internet exchange points in as many African countries as possible.

This funding could cover our pre-seed requirement for $150,000 which would enable us put up our first base station in Lilongwe and connect an initial 2,500 households (7,500 people minimum).