Philips, Google, Microsoft, Dell Seek European Spectrum for Cognitive Radio
Fresh from success at the FCC, large Internet and consumer electronics companies Monday asked EU regulators to open spectrum white spaces to cognitive radio and similar technologies. In a workshop at the Conference of European Postal and Telecommunications Administrations workshop in on cognitive and software defined radio Monday and Tuesday in Mainz, Germany, Dell, Google, Microsoft and Philips Electronics called for a standard approach to license-exempt use of interleaved broadcast spectrum for broadband applications based on cognitive-access technology, said Andrew Stirling of Larkhill Consulting. But officials said technological and financial roadblocks remain.
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White-space spectrum isn’t commercially available, but with some adaptation the technology used in the U.S. white spaces would work in Europe, Stirling said. The European Commission asked CEPT to gauge the feasibility of using white spaces for cognitive radio, he said. This week’s conference is a “landmark” in the European approach to spectrum management, he said. It’s meant to give regulators greater awareness of cognitive radio and of the opportunities that white space opens for improving Internet access, he said.
The FCC decision allowing unlicensed commercial use of TV white spaces gave European industry a “helpful boost,” Stirling said. The new association, which took its cue from the U.S. White Spaces Coalition, will tell regulators about the benefits of opening unused spectrum, he said. Some authorities will be more interested in using the spectrum than others, and some believe spectrum should be reserved for broadcasting, he said. If authorities can agree on a regulatory framework for using the white spaces, cognitive radio could be commercially available within three years, he said. Companies are already investing in development, he said.
France’s national spectrum agency, ANFR, will report to the government soon on white space use for broadband, said Eric Fournier, its director of spectrum planning and international affairs. The question isn’t whether regulators are enthusiastic about using broadcasting bands for something else, he told us. The issues, he said, are how to protect broadcasting and program-making and special events, and how much white space is available in France, taking into account the needs to add multiplexes and to allocate the 790-862 MHz band for mobile and PMSE use, he said.
The ANFR has closely considered the FCC decision, Fournier said. It “seems very complex and very constraining and we are looking for views from industry on whether equipment would be marketed in the U.S. under such conditions,” he said.
The U.K. Office of Communications last year proposed filling white spaces with TV applications, not cognitive technologies, said Plum Consulting Director Phillipa Marks. Ofcom has mixed views about cognitive radio, because it could lock “you into a place you don’t want to be,” she said. Cognitive radio can work around known fixed-services transmitters, but as technologies become increasingly mobile, cognitive devices won’t be able to find the transmitters, she said. Ofcom must decide whether rules to control the devices will be the same as in the U.S. or stricter because there’s more concern about interference in Europe, Marks said.
Cognitive radio raises economic concerns as well, Marks said. Allocating unused spectrum for such services may appear to be a “no-brainer,” but once they're allowed in they can reduce flexibility and increase interference, Marks said. And costs of using cognitive devices such as databases probably will be imposed on licensed spectrum holders, she said. There’s also a question whether cognitive radio devices can be introduced in a controlled way that allows them to be shuttered if necessary, she said.
Opening white spaces properly will lead to a “huge explosion” in innovation and products, said David Cleevely, chairman of CRFS, a U.K. spectrum monitoring company. But this isn’t “spectrum access as we know it,” he said. Unlike structured Internet protocols, radio spectrum is available everywhere, he said. Once let out of the box, it can’t be shoved back in, so experimentation is needed beforehand to ensure that white space doesn’t fall into the hands of a few people, he added.