The main objective of this project was to deploy a community-based network in rural Tanzania using TV White Space technology, which offers advantages in terms of coverage and spectrum availability. The community-based network has proved to be the feasible bottom-up approach to connect the unconnected population in rural Tanzania where commercial Internet Service Providers and Mobile Network Operators do not see value in investing because the return on investment is not realized within short-time of the period. The project has connected four education institutions in Kondoa, Tanzania and offered access to high-speed Internet. The project has generated the following impacts: Offered Internet access to 2207 students and 113 teachers in four education institutions; trained 630 people (200 women and 430 men); achieved a downloading speed of more than 4 Mbps and 4.8 Mbps uploading Internet speed; improved quality of education (SDG4); addressed the women empowerment (SDG5); developed innovative infrastructure that addresses digital divide (SDG9) and also brought together civil society and academia to address societal challenge (SDG17). The project has facilitated the establishment of a local summit on community networks and community radio in Tanzania. The first local summit on community network and community radio brought together 45 participants from Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya, and Argentina in the year 2018. The second local summit on community network and community radio were combined with the 4th summit on community networks in Africa which was co-hosted by the University of Dodoma and Kondoa Community Network in Tanzania. The summit brought together 134 participants from 19 countries (Argentina, Cameroon, Canada, DRC, Ethiopia, Kenya, Liberia, Malawi, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa, Spain, Tanzania, Uganda, UK, USA, Zimbabwe, France, and German). The project has influenced the participation of the local government in addressing the digital divide through the bottom-up approach based on community network model.

http://kcn.or.tz/

• Kondoa District, United Republic of Tanzania

• Remote and rural communities
• Women Widow's Group

This project is replicable to any other rural and underserved areas facing the digital divide. The lesson learned from this project has been adopted to other community networks in Tanzania and beyond to help improve Internet access using TV White Space technology. The project team members have developed a sustainable replication strategy to help any other community networks in Tanzania and beyond to replicate and scale-up a similar project. The framework includes a success strategy, to the documentation of what has worked and how it works as well as replication approaches under a different context. In Tanzania, this approach has been designed be replicated and scaled-up to connect 20 Million of the unconnected population. It should be emphasized that the community-based network could be adopted to bring online the remaining next billion of the unconnected population globally.

For the project to be sustainable the following strategies have been used:
I. Engaged SME and Business Partners operating in Kondoa to pay for the deployed connectivity infrastructure.
II. Education institutions hosting Internet infrastructure for this project have been engaged to sustain the project.
III. The project has also engaged the Universal Communications Service Access Fund on the possibility of funding its activities beyond the project duration.
IV. Community members are charged a small token of fee for Internet access to sustain the project.
V. We are collaborating with organization offering commercial content to pay a small fee for content access especially those related to commercial business.
Vi. More partners are engaged to help sustain the project.
VI. Internet access has been extended to business people such as hotel owners, banks, shops to sustain the project.
VII: Monetize through local content, services and offers using their smartphone by empowering hyperlocal communities to seamlessly create, interact and sell it.

The project promotes the WSIS values by empowering the rural and underserved communities to access affordable Internet access by tapping the unused UHF spectrum band resources. This is because; the UHF spectrum band is currently under-utilized in most areas and time. Generally, the following WSIS values have been promoted: 1. Community empowerment 2. Addressed UN 17 SDGs 3. Ability to be replicated in other areas. 4. Self sustainable project by introducing revenue streams 5. Advocate for partnerships development