Links to links

List of blogs, literature reviews on similar topics:

• Blog from Cognitive Radio Technologies, James Neel and Jeff Reed - Very informative, lots of relevant links, updated regularly.

• Blog from Gonzalo Vazquez Vilar, Researcher from Spain

• Blog from Michael Marcus, popular name in the wireless/spectrum related domains

• Blog from Spectrum Bridge, leading the initial deployments and database handling

• Blog from Amit Jain, VP, Product Management, Femtocells at Airvana

TV White Space Applications ?

While the wireless industry has unanimously welcomed the FCC's decision on freeing up the TV white spaces, there doesn't seem to be a clear consensus on the applications that will come up in that band. Some links on the proposed applications:

• Cambridge Consultants list three major applications: Rural broadband, Municipal Wireless Network and In-home media distribution.

• Microsoft seems to be focusing on the second one above - a corporate/municipal wireless network that can cover a substantially larger area than WiFi. They are currently leading the development and deployment of experimental TV band networks. Full publication list and detailed project description at their site

• There is a municipal wireless network being deployed in Wilmington, NC in partnership with Spectrum Bridge where the applications mentioned are: traffic cameras, Wi-Fi access in city parks, remotely monitor and manage wetland areas. Future applications promised are expanded Internet connectivity for local schools, medical monitoring, and other environmental monitoring

• Section 5 of this paper mentions the following applications: Wireless home networks, Smart metering, Femtocells, Mobile broadband (related paper) and Vehicular communications for intelligent transport

Home networks applications seem to be interesting more from the demand side rather than it being a fit application for white space. The fundamentally better range will actually cause more interference but a good power control scheme can probably solve this problem. A detailed paper from a UK perspective is this

• Opportunistic Relaying for cellular systems. Reliability is the main concern here since traditionally the cellular networks have never relied on an unlicensed band before.

• A detailed feasibility study on using the TV white space for backhaul Internet access is described in this recent paper. (Full paper not yet available). A search on those lines lead to other proposals as well. A consortium of companies including Sprint Nextel have requested licensed backhaul services in the white space

• A lot of interesting slides from the industry is archived here. Provides insights to the problems that these companies are foreseeing in the deployment. In particular this slide deck from Spectrum Bridge points out many application scenarios and also emphasizes that the main market will be tier 3 towns/rural areas because of the non-availability of TV white space in the metro areas. This means different sets of applications in the metro areas and the rural areas.

• Found another paper detailing the potential applications, and the under-development standard for home-networking type applications using the TV band by the Cognitive Network Alliance (CogNeA). The standard is called Ecma-392. More details here

• Supporting the already well developed WiFi standard in the TV White Space might be the 1st and possibly the most economical application because that would entail the least investment from device manufacturers. A protocol called 802.11af is already under way. A somewhat pessimistic (or call it realistic) view of the TV band devices is mentioned here.

• List of top 5 White Space applications from a tech blog:

1. Wide area coverage in rural areas (e.g. IEEE 802.22)

2. Hotspot/low-power broadband (e.g. IEEE 802.11af)

3. Backhaul for WiFi in hotels, campuses, businesses

4. Connectivity for security cameras

5. Remote monitoring (power plants, patients, metering, …)