White Space Broadband will change how we access our Internet based services, especially if you live or work in a rural area. But don’t hold your breath, there will be a bit of a wait…..

If you haven’t heard of White Space Broadband you’re not on your own. Many people across the country and indeed the world have not heard of it or know very little about it. The thing is, communications regulators in the UK, US, EU and other countries are only now nearing, or, at testing stage (depending which regulator your talking about) of this exciting technology and commercial entities have not been awarded licences to roll it out yet and won’t be for a few years. In the US the most valuable frequency bands have been auctioned off to the highest bidder, great for governments pockets in the short term but maybe not for competition and better pricing for the consumer long term. Auctions lead to winners being those with the deepest pockets and Comreg are going the same route here in Ireland with auctions for 800MHz, 900MHz and 1800MHz bands. Read their draft decision on the proposed auction here

What is White Space Broadband?

As you may know, analogue TV services are being turned off across Europe, and in 2012 they’re being turned off in Ireland. This leaves a wide spectrum of frequencies available for other services such as Voice, Broadband, and other communications. White Space Broadband is broadband Internet using these long range, reliable frequencies of 5 to 6 miles. Your standard WiFi router utilises 2.4Ghz- a very short range, White Space will use the analogue TV frequencies of 470MHz and upwards (This depends on the country you are living in). These are frequencies either unused at present or those that become available once analogue is turned off. The UK are making good progress and according to OFCOM commercial launch in the UK could be as soon as 2013.

The EU are making progress also but there are many elements to consider before they reach an agreement with all the states of the EU and concerned parties as to harmonisation of licencing. Every state in the EU has different systems and time frames on the awarding of licences for their own country and there are understandably many issues to deal with prior to roll out of any service utilising white spaces. The body responsible for advising the EU for what they call “Cognitive Technologies in the Context of White Spaces” is RSPG. you can read their recent Report to Brussels on Cognitive Technologies here.

What are the implications?

Speed is off the essence- With developers speaking of speeds of 10MBps (80Mbps) you can see the speed will be far superior to what is available now considering a typical broadband connection at present is somewhere between 7 Mbps and 25Mbps and if you are rural it’s a paltry 3 to 5Mbps via a satellite service if you’re lucky. Believe it or not some people are still on dial up! (I can’t believe that myself) One big difference you’ll see is data transfer wirelessly on your home network. Speeds of 50-100MBps for a single user have been mentioned. Once you hit Gigabit speeds on a wireless network it will mean wireless HD video streaming, and other bandwidth hungry applications will be a snap.

Fast data stream

Installation- If you live and/or work rurally then this is great news for you and broadband providers because once this technology is given the go ahead cable laying will not be necessary and you will finally have access to excellent Internet speeds. Users in a particular town or area will be able to access the Internet via a common gateway and so no need for individual installations in your home or business. You will still need a device to pick up the signal but this you should be able to install yourself I imagine.

Interference- This seems to be the primary concern for the regulators and one I’m sure the developers will get around. Before the technology is approved it must be very clearly demonstrated that White Space devices do not interfere with other services in neighbouring frequencies and that’s what will take time.  Devices will need to be intelligent enough to scan the available frequencies in a particular area and report to an online database its findings before selecting a frequency that is available.

Other applications

White Space frequencies by their nature are very stable, reaching into buildings, reliably delivering the signal to the receiving device and as such the applications are broad. Take for example Machine to Machine (M2M) applications. Using White Space frequencies, information from appliances in the home or services such as electricity or gas can report wirelessly to you or a third party easily and dependably. At present we use SMS from our phone providers to control equipment such as gate access systems, with White Space it will be much easier and cheaper to control your home wirelessly and for me this is the most exciting part. Home control systems will no doubt utilise White Space connections for this purpose and home control will become more accessible and clever in its application.

Conclusion

My overall impression is that “White Space” services will be a big jump for communications across the world once a uniform platform is reached and installation is rolled out, however we may have to wait – 3 or 4 years or even more before we see a supplier offer the service here, and then it may be too pricey initially for most to adopt. In the US they are testing at present and FCC expect to take well over 12 months to get through the testing and evaluation process. The UK will be similar. In Ireland and the rest of the EU we will have to wait a little longer I expect.

Relevant links

http://arstechnica.com/hardware/news/2007/04/white-space.ars

http://www.comreg.ie/publications/publications.583.0.0.2011.p.html

http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/policy/ecomm/radio_spectrum/topics/collective/index_en.htm

http://rspg.groups.eu.int/contact_rspg/index_en.htm

http://www.ofcom.org.uk/