White Space Trials, Databases, and Applications

Paul W. GarnettDirector Technology Policy

Challenge: Growing Demand

Devices Proliferation*

VideoUploads

Mobile Data Traffic**

Streaming VideoIncreasing Wireless Demand

20X - 40XOVER THE NEXT

FIVE YEARS

50 BILLIONCONNECTED DEVICES

BY 2020

35X2009 LEVELS

BY 2014

24 HOURSUPLOADED EVERY

60 SECONDS

*See Ericsson Press Release, quoting its President and Chief Executive Officer Hans Vestberg, April 13, 2010, available at http://

www.ericsson.com/thecompany/press/releases/2010/04/1403231

**. Federal Communications Commission, Staff Technical Paper, Mobile Broadband: The Benefits of Additional Spectrum, OBI Technical Paper No. 6 (Oct. 2010).

Challenge: Universal BB Access

2 Billion Internet

Connected Consumers

555 Million Wired Broadband

Subscribers

943 Million Wireless

Broadband Subscribers

5 Billion Cell Phones

*2010 Estimates: ITU World Telecommunications/ ICT Indicators database

Most Spectrum Is Not Used Most of the Time

We Are Experiencing Exponential Mobile Data

Growth

We Need to Promote Technologies That Make

More Efficient Use of Spectrum

Spectrum Policy Needs to Become More Nimble

Industry Forecasts of Mobile Data Traffic

0X

5X

10X

15X

20X

25X

30X

35X

40X

45X

50X

2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014

Traf

fic R

elat

ive

to 2

009 Cisco

Coda

Yankee Group

Average

Increasingly sophisticated online databases that automate spectrum allocation and use.

Wideband radios with sensing, channel notching, suppression, bonding, and other capabilities.

Our Ask of Policy Makers

We need policies that allow dynamic access to more spectrum across a range of bands, enabling complementary shorter-range and wide-area networks, and automated and adaptive solutions.

Powerful, yet inexpensive hardware and software technologies now offer new and more attractive solutions to our longstanding spectrum allocation problems (cognitive radios, online databases that automate spectrum allocation and data networks that can dynamically modulate their transmission power)

Adopting these advances will enhance the user experience by enabling literally billions of new devices as they go live over the course of the next decade on the Internet of Things.

We need policy makers to create opportunities for new technologies that are available today AND more nimble policy frameworks

The FCC’s TVWS regulations create a version one opportunity. Greater capabilities and spectrum bands can and should be enabled.

TVWS is a FIRST STEP

TV Band White Spaces Enable New Opportunities

White Spaces Trials & Demos

WANV

TX VANC

Isle of Bute

Helsinki

Completed or Ongoing

JapanSouth Korea

Planned

Cambridge

Singapore

• Xbox Live 1080p HD video streaming over TV white spaces spectrum. 

• Used single 6 MHz channels supplied by MSR prototype database. Simulated licensed wireless

microphone registration, showing seamless channel changing.

• Consistent throughput of approx. 8.8 Mbps downstream and approx. 2.3 Mbps upstream. 

• Long range links established from the Wynn and Hilton Hotels -- .8 miles and .5 miles, respectively.     Achieved throughput of 5 Mbps

downstream and 2 Mbps upstream on .8 mile link.

8

NAB Show, Las Vegas, Nevada

9

Trial Objectives

• Assess the potential of TV white spaces to:

• Deliver cost-efficient broadband access to rural communities

• Offload wireless data demand in urban centres and

• Open the way for innovative business models.

• Test and measurement program to help inform Ofcom’s regulatory proceedings.

Cambridge, England

Trial Partners

Overview• Multiple use cases: Location based services,

machine-to-machine, local content delivery, rural broadband.

• Wide area coverage: When completed, 17 base stations will cover much of the city centre and some surrounding areas.

• Unprecedented industry partnership: Arqiva, BBC, BT, BSkyB, Cambridge Consultants, CRFS, Neul, Nokia, TTP, Samsung. More to come.

• Multiple hardware suppliers: Adaptrum, KTS, Neul, and 6Harmonics.

• Multiple whitespaces databases: Microsoft and Spectrum Bridge.

• Government support: Test licenses approved with cooperation of Ofcom. Local government support.

Trial Overview