FCC ADOPTS RULES FOR UNLICENSED USE OF TELEVISION WHITE SPACES
The FCC continues to follow thru on it’s commitment to facilitating opportunities to provide broadband services to all of America as it sees the critcial importance of such services “to the nation’s present and future prosperity.” [reference FCC bulletin April 16, 2007]
This is great news for those of us who deploy wireless product!
Because the TV white spaces spectrum is a low frequency, typical line of sight challenges are mitigated. Deploying in this frequency will allow for penetration thru trees and even buildings.
The surrounding controversy is with the broadcasters who don’t want to relinquish the spectrum even though they will be coverting from analog to digital transmissions in February 2009. Additionally there are issues regarding interference with products that have already been using these frequencies, e.g., wireless microphone companies. The FCC already has plans to oversee and monitor cooperation amongst deployers by requiring that all deployed devices have geolocation and data base access capabilities. This means a deployed device must contact a satellite with it’s location. The location will be matched in a database that checks for potential frequency conflicts.
While the news of the new open spectrum is great, the details surrounding cooperative deployment are still sketchy indicating to me there will be some time before the first deployments take place.
Posted: November 17th, 2008 under airPowered.
Tags: broadband, FCC, spectrum, television white spaces, unlicensed spectrum, white space, wireless
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