Toward enhancing connectivity through TVWS in
outdoor rural isolated environment
Lahlou Mohammed Amine EL Bouzrazi Adil
UH2C RITM laboratory CED ENSEM UH2C RITM laboratory CED ENSEM UH2C RITM laboratory CED ENSEM
Smart city Team - GreenTIC Smart city Team - GreenTIC
Casablanca, Morocco Casablanca, Morocco
phd.lahlou.mohammedamine@ieee.org adil.elbouzrazi@ieee.org
Abstract—In the near future, the global 5G ubiquitous network
strategy that aims at deploying heterogeneous technologies for an
internet access, involves also the rural RF deployment. While it is
confirmed that 5G would meet stringent requirements in urban
zones, rural areas still suffer from almost inexistent MBB (Mobile
Broadband) coverage, especially in developing world. To cope
with this issue, major insights digged in the use of TV spectrum
gaps, that offers a lot of advantages in enhancing the global
system capabilities, with the protection of the incumbent user.
Thus, TVWS (TV White space) enables the access of internet for
rural localities with interesting QoS and helps to build a strong
and costless backhaul, as well.
This paper explores the TVWS capabilities in rural area
through a new approach. We have drawn a scenario that
depicts the assessment of the capacity carried over TVWS, to
optimize the internet access for non-served poorest area. Most
papers focused on the power allocation scheme to characterize
the secondary user capacity. We address here the problem
differently by the mean of distance distribution to keep a good
quality of service. We derive an algorithm that enables the
coexistence of number of CPE (Customer Premise Equipment)
based on distance distribution to effectively plan their position
to optimally perform the maximum throughput in a unit area.
Index Terms – TVWS, WSD, cooperation, Cognitive Radio,
rural,CPE, Capacity, PPP.
I. I NTRODUCTION
One of the biggest challenges in wireless communication
for the next generation networks is to address the maximum
users possible that are densely distributed over a unit area. We
plan for the arrival of this tremendous number of smart devices
that are running various bandwidth consuming applications.
To address this issue, that is mostly found in dense urban
areas, multiple access techniques and coexistence management
between heterogeneous technologies have been investigated
for unlicensed bands [1]. In our case the problem faced
is the lack of coverage concerning some areas in African
countries. The big deal of isolated rural areas, which are
sparsely inhabited by low-income population, is that the clas-
sical access using traditional backhaul technologies is a bad
solution for operators, since it does not ensure a good ROI
(Return of Investment). One of the solutions that have been
approved is the use of Cognitive radio features in licensed
band [2]. Indeed, it appears that these leased bands, assigned
to incumbent users, even saturated because of the various
978-1-5090-6011-5/17/$31.00 ©2017 IEEE
Pr. Hayar Aawatif
Smart city Team - GreenTIC
Casablanca, Morocco
aahayar@gmail.com
applications and standards operating within it, can open up
new opportunities. Thus, some studies show that they aren't
efficiently managed and well optimized [3] as it is the case
of TVWS that drawn a big attention [4].
In this paper, we investigate the capabilities and features
of the TVWS system applied to the backhauling transmission
in adequacy with the rural and suburban Moroccan area.
We derive a scenario where we fix the minimum distance
between CPE in the area of interest, to reach good results.
Maximizing the Throughput function for each CPE placed
in the same unit area, under certain outage probability and
the aggregate interference constraints, will enhance the global
system capacity.
This paper is organized as follow. The section II gives a
brief presentation on TVWS features where the infrastructure
is shown. We emphasis the situation of Morocco which is not
already done in the literature. Section III presents the system
model, that will lead to the investigation in the capacity anal-
ysis in section IV. Through section V, we fix the algorithm for
the distribution of CPEs, taking into consideration parameters
like the density of CPE users and the outage rate.
II. TV W HITE S PACE
When speaking about TV White Space, we often refer
to the use of unutilized channels, located in UHF spectrum
band,for a certain time and space location [5]. This is done by
a certain type of technology (mostly proprietary technologies)
and most commonly denoted as cognitive radio systems. In this
particular case, the primary user (PU), who have the exclusive
use of his frequency resources (470 MHz - 710 MHz), don’t
use them efficiently. This results in the fact that the whole
spectrum will appear to be not fully exploited at any time.
Since 2008, the US Federal Communications Commission
(FCC) adopted rules allowing White Space Devices (WSD)
to operate in the TV band at locations where the spectrum
is not in use, with the protection of the TV Receiver. So
standardized technologies under the constraint of regulatory
authorities (FCC in US or Ofcom in UK) worked their way
to enable the access of PU idle channels opportunistically and
send their payload through DSA (Direct Spectrum Access)
techniques.
 Fig. 1. Rural TVWS deployment - use case
In fact, using TV broadcasting spectrum for broadband
connectivity have three main advantages over classical WiFi-
like technologies [6]. They can provide less power consump-
tion, better obstacle penetration and less cost.
Mainly, the global architecture includes White Space De-
vices which are basically end users smart devices, that report
their location to a cloud based spectrum database. This White
Space database (WSDB) returns available channels over which
it can be transmitting and the permissible power depending on
the user configuration (mode and class). Generally, the WSDB
provides a channel list usable for the secondary systems by
calculating the interference level between the PUs and SUs
(Secondary Users). It is updated continuously with a certain
frequency depending on the type of the network (fixed /
mobile). WSDs are required to access the WSDB everytime
their location changes for up to 50 m.
The frequency landscape in Morocco goes the same way
as most countries when it comes to speak about TV broad-
casting. However, from the best of our knowledge, TVWS
band are still unutilized and not yet officially permitted and
regulated by ANRT, even if the TV UHF channels (21 to 60)
arent congested as it is the case in several countries. According
to HACA, only 2 channels are used to cover big cities such
as Casablanca or Rabat as specified in the National Frequency
Plan (NFP) [7]. So there is a big opening for TVWS usage.
III. S YSTEM M ODEL
A. An architecture for rural deployment
Globally, TVWS are particularly well-suited for deliv-
ering low-cost broadband access to rural and other unserved
communities. Figure 1 shows our study case, where we chose
to deliver remote streaming service to schools. The backhaul-
ing strategy is a point-to-point (PtP) configuration between
base stations WSBS that carry information on TVWS from
a content delivery core node: the CRM. We can find a local
network where streaming servers and management entities are
placed to protect the signal and service layer. We implement
a WSDB as an SDR-based system and the service system is
typically a WiFi 802.11af. The signal carried over different
WS relays reaches the last mile WSBS that arouses Customer
Premise Equipment (CPE) that processes the TVWS signal.
Since CPEs are devices that are made by a TVWS antenna
and a WSD card, they translate the TVWS signal to match
the 802.11 family of protocols incorporated in WiFi APs and
User Equipment.
B. Network modeling
Let us consider our network, where multiple CPEs are
spread randomly in a two dimensional plan, over a constant
area. The position of nodes follows typically a Poisson Point
Process (PPP) with a pairwise communication, increasing with
the density λ. So, more λ → ∞ more the system is congested
and the interference level is high. Once positioned, CPEs are
considered fixed infrastructure.
Figure 2 illustrates the system model. We suppose that
we have a set of N = {0 . . . N } CPEs that are randomly dis-
tributed within the management region L. We assume CP Ej0
in the center of the circle, as the reference of the calculations
and which is surrounded by Φ : {CP Ej /j ∈ N \ j0 }, each
distant with d0,j 6 L from CP Ej0 . In our case, and in the rest
of the paper j0 = 0 is examined. Notice that a cluster is a set
of CPEs linked to a single WSBS. Hence, without loss of gen-
erality, we assume in our work only one cluster, which consist
of a single WSBSqdeploying N+1 CPEs and distant from each
CP Ej by Dj = D02 + d20,j − 2D0 d0,j cos Θ. All UEs (User
Equipments) are uniformly distributed, consequently, the study
in a single unit area can be generalized to all the system.
C. Interference and capacity modeling
Practically, the major issue is the coexistence problem
between PUs and SUs. In a cognitive radio system, SUs are
deployed within an area where PUs are transmitting. In our
 Nakagami-m fading corresponding to a unit-mean channel gain
is expressed by its PDF:
mm xm−1 −mx
f (x) = e , ∀x > 0, m > 1 (2)
Γ(m)
On the other hand, the average of the aggregate interference
should not exceed a certain value in our system:
N
X
E[ICP Ek ] ≤ Iavg (3)
k=1

Besides, we consider also the system capabilities which are

Fig. 2. System Model
expressed by:

 XN
case, the TV transmitter is sending with a certain Tx-power, max(ICP Ek ) ≤ Imax




over a range DT V which includes the prohibited area for op-

k=1
(4)
portunistic users, added to a protection zone for TV receivers, 
 P
X
as referring to previous studies [8]. As already mentioned,



 Pk ≤ Ptotal
the TVWS system implements coexistence techniques that are k=1
involving either database for geolocation or sensing techniques Finally, under these aforementioned assumptions, we ad-
for detecting the signal by CPEs. The coexistence management dress the Shannon capacity between CP E0 and the WSBS as
entity sends to WSBS the system bandwidth available in that follow:
region and the permissible power for each CPE. This restricts
the loss and overlapping of the useful signal, even if advanced 

P
X
error correction and detection are used. 

C0 = Bn log(1 + γ0 )
Additionally, we consider avoiding the TV occupied n=1 (5)
channels which leave enough resources for CPEs because of P0 |g0 |2 D0−β


γ0 =


the wide spectrum availability in our region. Based on this fact, I0 + N0
the system is considered to handle Ψ = {1 . . . P } available
Where γ0 is the Signal to noise interference ratio (SINR)
channels. Therefore, the total interference to CP E0 is only
containing the power spectral density N0 (N0  I0 ) and
caused by the neighboring CPEs inside the cluster and the
P0 , g0 , D0 which are respectively the power level, the system
self-interference effect due to antenna noises.
channel gain and distance between CP E0 and the WSBS.
As a result, the interference level occurred in the center
CP E0 with a consideration of Adjacent Channel Interference IV. M ANAGING Q O S PROBLEMATIC
(ACI) and mainly Co-Channel Interference (CCI) over all the
channel domain Ψ is expressed as follow : The aim of the study is to maximize the capacity (5)
between a single CP E0 and the WSBS under the inter-
N N
ference and power constraint. The idea is to calculate the
P0,j |g0,j |2 d−β
X X
Ψ
ICP E0 = ICP Ej + ε0 = 0,j + ε0 (1) optimum distance between CPEs, to keep a permissible level
j=1 j=1
of interference under the limitation of the power, allocated
Where ε0 is the self-interference effect in CP E0 . P0,j g0,j are to each CPE. Hence, this framework will allow coexistence
respectively the interference power level from the j th CPE and between Secondary users with a high density deployment
the channel gain between CP E0 and the j th CPE. d0,j is the fashion within a unit area while providing, at the end, an
distance between CP E0 and the j th CPE, PNpowered by the
interesting QoE (Quality of Experience) for streaming usage.
pathloss exponent β ≥ 2. We assume that j=1 ICP Ej  ε0 Consequently, instead of seeing the problem in the power
Ψ optimization perspective, as we used to cover in the literature
and ICP E0 = I0 . In term of simplicity, all the CPEs have the
same configuration, so the interference power level is constant [8], our new approach is based on the distance distribution
P0,j = PCP E . Moreover, channel gain between CPEs are optimization. Martin Haenggi [9] presented the distribution
symmetric which implies that g0,j = gj,0 = g0 . of nodes in uniformly PPP random networks adapted to our
Every channel used is characterized by a certain amount case, as follow, by designating the gamma function by Γ(.) :
of physical degradation due to interference or fading effect. In 2 2(λπr2 )n
one hand, the fading and shadowing, in a large scale network, fn (r) = e−λπr ; ∀n ∈ N (6)
rΓ(n)
is made over a channel modeled by Nakagami-m distribution.
The fading parameter m represents the ratio of the power in the First, we started by investigating in the maximum distance
line-of-sight (LOS) component over the power in the multipath R that is allowed between CPEs to keep the requirements. As
components. Following [8], the power distribution under a matter of fact, the signal have to meet the outage probability
in the CP E0 defined as the probability P r(.) that the signal Algorithm 1 Algorithm proposed for solving the optimized
quality will drop below a defined target γT : distribution of CPEs under rural configuration to reach max Cj
1: Input
Pout = P r(γ0 6 γT ) (7) 2: Ajx,y : the position (x,y) of CP Ej in the grid
Starting from the equation (5), (1) and γ0 6 γT , while 3: χi,j = kAix,y − Ajx,y k : the distance between CP Ei and
supposing d0 ≥ R because the distance between CPEs should CP Ej in the grid
be higher than the protecting zone R, we proved that R is 4: αj : the outage distance of CP Ej satisfying max Cj
limited by the following instance: 5: Pj : Tx Power of CP Ej
6: C : the total capacity needed
7: Output
p
β
R 6 D0 N γT Λp Λg = D (8)
8: Ajx,y : the allowed position (x,y) of CP Ej in the grid
where λ = N/S and S is the surface of our area 9: begin Proc
of interest. Assuming that a certain SINR is necessary for 10: Pj ← max Pperm , ∀j ∈ [0...N ]
successful packet reception, the outage of a link to the n- 11: j ← 0 <initialization>
nearest neighbor within the cluster is extracted from the CDF 12: CP E0 ← α0 , A0x,y
of (6): 13: <we put CP E0 with initial configuration>
PN
2 14: while j=0 max Cj ≤ C and Ajx,y exist TRUE do
Γinc (n, λπr )
F (r) = 1 − (9) 15: for j ∈ [0...N ] do
Γ(n)
16: for i ∈ [0...j − 1] do
Γinc (.) denotes the gamma incomplete function and 17: Ajx,y verify χj,i ≥ αj + αi
Psec |gsec |2 18: CP Ej ← αj , Ajx,y
Λp , Λg designates respectively and .
P0 |g0 |2 19: end for
Thus, based on the above equations, the corresponding 20: end for
outage probability is expressed as follow: 21: end while
n−1 22: end Proc
2 X (λπD2 )k
Pout ' 1 − e−λπD (10)
k!
k=1
results drawn in the conducted work. Even if the case used here
Alternatively, the capacity of the reference CP E0 is
is quite idealistic in the way that all the CPEs have exactly the
drawn as follow:
same transmission power and have a coverage corresponding
P
X exactly to the outage distance, we are planning to investigate in
C0 ' (1 − Pout )Bk log2 (1 + γT ) (11)
a much more realistic approach, that involves more complex
k=1
study on the parameters. All these characteristics are taken
Which finally ends up with the following expression: according to Moroccan rural localities context.
P N −1
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