The National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT), Hitachi Kokusai Electric Inc. and ISB Corporation have developed the world's first prototypes of base station (BS) and consumer premise equipment (CPE) based on the IEEE 802.22 standard operating in TV White Spaces (TVWS) (470 MHz - 710 MHz). The developed prototypes will provide broadband wireless access to underserved and unserved regional areas around the world as well as bringing reliable backup broadband communications in emergency, which will follow the worldwide trend of promoting the TVWS for wireless communication systems.

Background

From replacing the current analog television (TV) technology with digital television technology, some of the spectrum previously used by analog television become vacant referred to as TV White Space (TVWS). The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in the United States, the Office of Communications (Ofcom) in the UK, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications in Japan have initiated opening up the TVWS to wireless communication systems for efficient reuse of the unused TV spectrum, which is based on non-interfering with broadcast incumbents' operation. The IEEE 802.22 Working Group has published the IEEE 802.22-2011 standard for TVWS broadband wireless access to regional areas where it is most needed and where the TV spectrum is least used. In particular, the IEEE 802.22 systems offer around 10 times the coverage of Wi-Fi as well as enable to provide reliable backup broadband communications in emergency. However, there is no TVWS systems based on the IEEE 802.22-2011 satisfying the FCC spectrum requirements.

Achievements

The NICT and Hitachi Kokusai Electric Inc. have developed the world's first prototype devices of base station (BS) and consumer premise equipment (CPE) verifying the physical layer (PHY) and the medium access control (MAC) layer design based on the IEEE 802.22 standard in the TVWS (470 MHz - 710 MHz). The PHY part developed by Hitachi Kokusai Electric Inc. (Note 1) allows the devices to use vacant TV bands over the frequency range from 470-710MHz, the MAC layer part developed by NICT provides a medium access method based on point-to-multipoint access with supporting the different QoS levels, and supports cognitive capabilities of interference estimation, geo-location and white space data base (WSDB) access over the IP. The WSDB (Note 2) (http://whitespacetech.isbcorp.com/) provided by ISB Corporation avoids interference to incumbents of TV broadcasters from automatically selecting the non-interfering TV band.  

Future prospects

The NICT, Hitachi Kokusai Electric Inc. and ISB Corporation in the future will develop the enhanced technologies based on the IEEE 802.22 standard and also work closely with WhiteSpace Alliance (WSA) (Note 3) (www.whitespacealliance.org) to provide products for worldwide markets. The NICT, Hitachi Kokusai Electric Inc. and ISB Corporation will demonstrate the developed prototype devices at the Super WiFi Summit (Note 4) (www.superwifisummit.com) in Miami, Florida, from January 30 to February 1, 2013.

For more information about the prototype, please see the NICT press release at http://www.nict.go.jp/en/index.html or http://www2.nict.go.jp/wireless/smartlab/index.html .

Remarks

All standard organization, alliance, product, and service names that appear in this press release are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.

Notes:

(1) The PHY part developed by Hitachi Kokusai Electric Inc. was conducted under a contract of R&D for broadband access in white space, organized by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, Japan.

(2) The WSDB provided by ISB Corporation is based on the technologies of WSDB by NICT (Press release: http://www.nict.go.jp/en/press/2012/06/07en-1.html). Based on the technologies, ISB Corporation newly developed a product that meets commercial requirement and is complied with U.S TVWS database requirements. (http://whitespacetech.isbcorp.com/)

(3) White Space Alliance (WSA)  is an international alliance to promote the development, deployment and use of standards based products and services as a means of providing broadband capabilities via White Space spectrum. (http://www.whitespacealliance.org/)

(4) Super Wi-Fi Summit is an international event to create a wealth of new opportunities in the White Space spectrum for consumers, enterprises, service providers and device manufacturers. (http://www.mobilitytechzone.com/super-wifi/)