Last mile mobile broadband subscription for rural Kenya
Abstract
The government of Kenya in its effort to revamp its telecommunication sector, which is hitherto
hampered by inadequate international connectivity, has been facilitating the establishment of
submarine cables. Despite these efforts, there is a widening gap between those with easy access to
Information and Communication Technology (lCT) and those without thus defeating the initial
idea of tapping into the National Fiber Optical Network and optimizing the benefits of the
submarine cables to all citizens. The digital divide between the urban and rural continues to widen
at a time when access to ICT has been found to have a correlation with socio-economic
development and Gross Domestic Product. The rural areas have a limited connectivity to ICT and
broadband access is inadequate and very limited according to the findings of Communication
Commission of Kenya report (2010).
This study sought to investigate how last mile mobile broadband subscription can be applied to
expand the reach of digital divide to the underserved and unserved parts of the country access the
internet. The specific objectives of the study were to design and implement a last mile mobile
subscription prototype via mobile phone.
The research adopted Structured Systems Analysis and Design Methodology (SSADM) using Java
Development Platform. A subscription model for rural Kenya that uses mobile based user
interfaces has been developed. Unique connectivity tokens identification is issued upon receipts of
payment via M-pesa. The token identification code is sent via mobile phone. The user uses the
received token identification number as the password into the broadband WiMAX network for one
month subscription. The Prototype was tested by a link to WIMAX network via Butterfly KDN
server. Files of different sizes were uploaded and downloaded. The time taken was measured using
the KDN Bandwidth Manager software. Similarly, the experiment was repeated with Safaricom
Modem and the time was measured. Various transmission graphs were plotted for speed against
the file sizes. The study showed that WiMAX broadband was faster than Safaricom Global System
of Mobile transmission (GSM) modem and can be therefore be extended to rural Kenya. The main
contribution is the incorporation of the prototype in the provision of broadband internet access
through wireless technologies and WiMAX as an approach towards solving the digital divide gap
that exists in the rural Kenya specially lack of easy access to Information and Communication
Technology (lCT).
Citation
Masters of science in computer scienceSponsorhip
University of NairobiPublisher
University of Nairobi School of Computing and Informatics