Last September's unanimous FCC approval of using TV-Band white space spectrum is stimulating progress in other countries.
June 7th presentations at the White Space Communications Summit of the Wireless Innovation Forum included BT (formerly British Telecom), Nokia, and Industry Canada - a public agency devoted to economic development and R & D.
In Great Britain, the government is setting aside two blocks of TV channels as "interleaved spectrum" to be used by both TV broadcasters and unlicensed wireless operators, meaning "white space." As in the United States, unlicensed operators must utilize cognitive methods on the fly to avoid interfering with licensed broadcasters. In total, the two blocks encompass 256 MHz of spectrum. The first group includes channels 21-30, while the second covers channels 39-60. The applicable frequencies imply that conveniently sized antennas may be used.
BT will soon fully activate an experimental white space wireless network in a rural area of Western Scotland. It expects full government approval to proceed with commercial (non-experimental) networks in about twelve months.
Nokia's presentation leads us to speculate that Microsoft and the Finnish phone company may integrate white space technology into future smartphones. It will be a convenient way to avoid congested cellular networks when accessing the wireless Internet. Consider the following points:
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First, Microsoft has been a prominent white space advocate for years. Prior to formal FCC adoption, it was permitted to operate an experimental network at its headquarters campus.
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Second, less than forty-five days ago, Microsoft requested the FCC authorize the company to become a white space database administrator.
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Third, in February Nokia announced Windows Phone would become the primary operating system for is future smartphones.
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Fourth, Nokia's presentation predicted white space standards-based chipsets by 2014-2015, thereby implying volume production in three-to-four years. (Our forecast predicts modest chipset availability in 2014 with volume production beginning in 2015.)
The presentation by the Canadian agency explained that the government is not limiting its investigation of spectrum sharing to TV. Other commercial and government bands are also being considered. The speaker emphasized that while interleaved spectrum is not a new concept, what is new is the advancing technological ability to produce - at reasonable cost - cognitive radios capable of detecting when bandwidth is momentarily unused. Such capabilities will almost certainly continue to improve in the future thereby permitting the model to become economically feasible in multiple spectrum bands.
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