Super WiFi ‘exciting new area’ for wireless: spectrum expert

Industry Canada’s announcement last week that it is opening up TV white space for the use of "super WiFi" technology could improve broadband availability in rural areas and has the potential be used for Internet of Things connectivity, experts say. Industry Canada said it would put in place measures for the use of television white space, or spectrum designated for over-the-air television signals that is not fully used. A press release said this would bring "super WiFi" service to Canada. Uses of super WiFi include mobile services or home Internet, either for backhaul or delivering services right to consumers. While the concept is the same as WiFi, it operates on different spectrum and cannot use the same devices as WiFi, Gregory Taylor, principal investigator at Canadian Spectrum Policy Research, said in a phone interview. Taylor said the Industry Canada announcement “has the potential to be a significant” one, though “there are still a lot of details that are still to come.” “This opens the door for Canada to get started on what I think is kind of an exciting new area of wireless expansion, wireless technology,” he added. Industry Canada spokeswoman Lauren Hebert said in an email: “The characteristics of this band will facilitate the provision of Internet services, as well as the potential introduction of a range of new and innovative consumer applications and services in Canada in rural as well as urban areas.... TV white space device availability in Canada will be driven by market demand.” She added: “New applications such as super WiFi are expected to be of interest to service providers and device manufacturers looking to take advantage of unused broadcasting spectrum. The most likely use in the early stages will be to deliver Internet access where the extended range of devices can be fully leveraged (e.g., large campuses, farms, rural or remote communities, etc.),” she said, adding that “other consumer-oriented applications and services are expected to emerge over time.” Hebert said that Industry Canada is expanding the use white space, which has so far been used for “select uses such as commercial quality wireless microphones and remote and rural broadband services.” Industry Canada spokeswoman Stéfanie Power added in a followup email that “the main emerging use for this spectrum is for enhanced home Internet connectivity.” Taylor said Canada lags behind countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom when it comes to using TV white space, which has “almost infinite possibilities,” though super WiFi is a popular use of the spectrum. Industry Canada did not respond to followup questions about whether it will allow TV white space to be used for technologies other than super WiFi. Taylor said it’s a “natural fit” for Canada because the country has a significant amount of unused spectrum of this type, which is shared spectrum and not owned by anybody. As part of its announcement on Thursday, Industry Canada introduced procedures for companies to become administrators of white space databases. Because of the various potential uses for this technology, “there aren’t really limits on what you can do with it. This will be up to government decisions,” Taylor said. It could improve broadband availability in rural Canada, where there is a lot of spectrum not being used by over-the-air TV stations, he added. “This has real applications for development outside the big cities in Canada. It will be interesting to see if this can be used at all in the larger cities, but not to the same extent that it can outside of city centres of Canada,” he said. The government’s approach for high-speed Internet in Canada, including rural rollout conditions in spectrum auctions, has “not brought about the results for rural Canada that the government seems, through its rhetoric anyway, to be pushing for,” Taylor said. Opening up use of white space in Canada will also provide new opportunities for organizations other than large telecom providers, such as Rogers Communications Inc., Shaw Communications Inc., BCE Inc. and Telus Corp., he said. “What this does is open the door to new players and new technologies to come in and provide service in rural areas,” he said. Because the technology is wireless, it doesn’t require as much infrastructure investment as wireline networks, which makes it more accessible for smaller and new companies, he said, as well as municipalities who want to build their own broadband networks. Taylor said there aren’t a lot of companies in Canada working in this type of technology at the moment. “We’ll have to see how quickly they adapt to this announcement,” and how quickly they begin rolling out service, he said. Industry Canada will have to set up a detailed database outlining what spectrum is available in what areas, and once that is done, “the technology does exist to start providing services on vacant spectrum.” There are international companies that sell the technology necessary to take advantage of this spectrum, he added. Adrian Foster, a spectrum expert with McLean Foster & Co., said in an email that with this move, Canada is following U.S. and U.K. regulators, and “even regulators in developing countries.” He added that the use of white space has the potential for significantly extending the reach of wireless broadband into rural areas. Independent telecom analyst Bill St. Arnaud was more skeptical about the possibilities for rural broadband, and said that the government’s focus on rural areas was meant to appeal to voters. “Its biggest application area is in the Internet of Things (IoT),” he said in a phone interview. “This is where the white space has much greater potential.” International Data Corp. has said IoT will increase in prominence in 2015, even though a study by Acquity Group found the general public is not yet fully aware of it or convinced of its value. St. Arnaud said barriers to the use of TV white space are that it requires new equipment and devices, it will take time to deploy and “its bandwidth is not great.” As such, he doesn’t expect it to be more than a “token solution” to rural connectivity issues. “It’s an OK option, but I don’t think it will be a major factor,” he said, adding that areas like university campuses provide a bigger opportunity for white space. Because it’s a relatively low bandwidth and a relatively large coverage area, he said, “it’s ideal” for “small little devices just to communicate a bit.” That means it could be used by, for example, electrical utilities for smart meters. St. Arnaud said large wireless companies such as Bell, Telus and Rogers could also “dabble in this space as protection for their LTE networks, as a defensive move, but I don’t see them being very aggressive.” He said small ISPs and companies involved in the Internet of Things “will be the big players here.” Taylor said the government’s announcement could herald “a big upheaval in the Canadian industry, but right now we’re still in a bit of a wait-and-see. And the rolling out of technology such as this is not fast. So I think the government has opened the door. We’ll have to see in the year to come exactly how open it is.” — With reporting by Anja Karadeglija at akarad@thewirereport.ca and editing by Derek Abma at dabma@thewirereport.ca

Super WiFi ‘exciting new area’ for wireless: spectrum expert

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