Opportunities and Challenges of Bridging the Digital Divide using 5G enabled High Altitude Platforms and TVWS spectrum

Like with the past generations of mobile cellular networks, deployment of 5G services in rural areas are expected to be financially and technically challenging. Currently, researchers around the globe explore the possibility of employing the underutilized/unused portion of TV spectrum referred to as TV White Spaces (TVWS) as a low-cost alternative to traditional licensed type of wired/wireless broadband networks and possibly as a way to bridge the gap of broadband service availability between rural and urban areas. Delivering TVWS services from High Altitude Platforms (HAPs) is an option that many developed/developing countries can use to provide broadband services over many of their rural and low-income population. This work presents the advantages of employing TVWS spectrum from HAPs as well as the challenges of this type of communication architecture. More specifically, this work proposes a novel communication type of architecture where HAPs are delivering broadband services using the TVWS spectrum. Taking advantage of their position in the sky and the centralized nature of the communication system, they deliver communications over a wide area while monitoring and optimizing radio resource allocation. The paper evaluates the performance of such a system based on the IEEE 802.22 standard and the free space path-loss model ITV-R P.452.