Google says government should follow U.S. lead on unlicensed, ‘white space’ spectrum

Canada’s transition from analogue to digital television broadcasting next year will open up so-called “white space” spectrum that the U.S. has defined as unlicensed and, if Canada follows suit, could lead to innovations in wireless broadband, Jacob Glick, Google's Canadian policy counsel, told The Wire Report. “We think that there will be a lot of innovation in wireless broadband in the white spaces,” Glick said. In the United States, Google has been a proponent of opening up white spaces—unused “buffer zone” frequencies between channels that were allocated for analog broadcasting—for unregulated wireless broadband use. On Nov. 4, 2008, leading up to the digital television transition on June 12, 2009, in the U.S., the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) unanimously agreed to open up white spaces for unlicensed use—so that no one owns it. Glick said there are potential, innovative uses that can arise from unlicensed spectrum. He pointed to the unlicensed radio spectrum that was eventually used for WiFi. “The part of the radio spectrum used by WiFi was freed up for unlicensed use in the 1980s,” Glick said. “Because there was this space where developers, consumer electronics manufacturers and innovators could play around and use the technology and the spectrum, they were able to develop WiFi.” Glick added: “It was able to facilitate what we call innovation without permission.” Following the FCC’s decision to allocate white space for unlicensed use, American researchers started to explore different uses for the spectrum. Edward Knightly, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Rice University in Houston, Tex., is one such researcher. His research focuses on the urban deployment of wireless networks using unlicensed bands. “White space is certainly not a panacea, but the propagation characteristics and the availability of more spectrum and having spectrum flexibility opens a lot of new doors for urban deployment,” Knightly said in an interview. Knightly and his students have explored using white spaces to reduce the burden on WiFi networks and save energy. Knightly said that the limited white space spectrum available in urban areas does not allow for a full-blown network, but it can help improve existing networks. When there is less wireless activity at night, for example, a university campus can switch from WiFi to white space spectrum for wireless broadband Internet. “It would allow you to power off large regions of your network at low usage times,” Knightly said. White space spectrum, which can be found in 50 MHz to 700 MHz range, has greater propagation and penetration characteristics than the spectrum used for WiFi. One transmitter can cover a greater geographic area. Knightly said this allows municipalities to patch up WiFi dead zones where the services are available. He added that research about white space spectrum is still in the early stages. “We’re building everything from scratch—new hardware and new devices,” he said. Researchers are working to resolve the issue of network interference from white space spectrum. The U.S. has a database that maps out which bands are now in use. “In white space, there are careful sensing rules to protect TV and wireless microphones. That makes it a much bigger challenge,” Knightly said. Researchers are also developing sensor technologies to detect energy levels associated with spectrum usage. If a high energy level is detected, the device switches to the next available band. “There will always be certain levels of interference, but what you’re trying to avoid is harmful interference, which is actually stopping another service from operating,” Adrian Foster, a spectrum expert and partner with McLean Foster and Co. in Ottawa, said in an interview. Experts agree that Canada will likely follow the U.S. in how it uses the white space spectrum. “As a practical matter, we have to stay aligned with what they’re doing,” Glick said. Duncan Stewart, Deloitte Canada director of research for technology, media and telecommunications, said Canada has geographic and economic reasons to follow the American lead. It is in Canada’s best interest that wireless devices be compatible in the same bands on both sides of the border, he said. It would not be worthwhile for device manufacturers to focus on the small Canadian market separately from the U.S., he said. But white space does not yet seem to be on Canada’s radar. “We still haven’t done the digital transition,” Stewart said. “You can’t talk about white spaces until you’ve moved people.” Broadcasting industry observers say they fear that Canadian broadcasters will not be able to meet the Aug. 31, 2011, digital transition deadline. But CRTC chairman Konrad von Finckenstein was adamant last June that the deadline will not be altered. “Here in Canada, the transition is 14 months away. I’m worried that broadcasters have not taken the issue as seriously as we expected them to,” von Finckenstein said during a speech at the Banff World Television Festival. Gregory Taylor, a broadcasting expert at McGill University, made a submission to the federal government this week as part of Industry Canada’s digital economy consultation, in which he said private broadcasters should consider “multiplexing technology” to meet the transition deadline. Multiplexing allows one transmitter to broadcast up to six standard definition channels. Taylor told The Wire Report that broadcasters have not used the technology because they would rather move straight to high definition signals. “The U.S. is certainly exploring possibilities for white space,” Taylor said. “We can’t do that until we get the TV broadcasters off the analog signal.” Following the digital transition, the prime 700 MHz spectrum band will be auctioned to support mobile technologies. jmigneault@thewirereport.ca

Google says government should follow U.S. lead on unlicensed, ‘white space’ spectrum

News | July 14, 2010

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