Japan’s National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT), Hitachi Kokusai Electric Inc. and ISB Corp. are testing a TV White Space Network based on the IEEE 802.22 standard operating at 470 MHz – 710 MHz.
The prototypes TV White Space base station (BS) and consumer premise equipment (CPE) were developed by NICT and Hitachi Kokusai Electric.
The PHY part, which was provided by Hitachi Kokusai Electric, allows the devices to use vacant TV bands over the frequency range from 470-710MHz. The MAC layer part, which was provided by NICT, ensures point-to-multipoint access with various QoS levels. It also offers interference estimation, geo-location and white space data base (WSDB) access over the IP. ISB Corporation provided the white spaces database to avoid interference with incumbent TV broadcasters.
The organizations are optimistic that these prototypes could provide broadband wireless access to underserved and unserved regional areas around the world as well as bringing reliable backup broadband communications in an emergency.
