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5.2.1

Motivation

Conventional WiFi is operating in the unlicensed 2.4GHz ISM band (802.11b, g). Although its range is short, it has been a very successful technology in delivering cost effective wireless internet access both in homes, offices and public areas [85]. The enormous success of WiFi has inspired many researchers and engineers to try to extend its range, to cover a wider area, reaching more users while increasing revenue to the investor [86] [87] [88]. Different ways have been or are being used to stretch the reach of current WiFi systems, some of which includes MIMO technologies, usage of high gain antenna, etc. Increasing the range of WiFi in the 2.4 GHz ISM band is faced with several challenges. First, in order to successfully use WiFi over long distances line-of-sight conditions are normally required between the endpoints; therefore its performance is subject to the negative impact of surrounding environment on microwave signals. For example, trees and vegetation as well as high rise buildings and hills may block the line of light (LOS). Obstructions and environmental features (walls etc) also reflect and absorb the radio signals, leading to reduced received power and in many case the propagated radio signal may be lost completely. Second, the 2.4 GHZ ISM band is crowded with a lot of devices which cause interference to WiFi signals. These devices include microwave ovens, baby monitors, wireless cameras, remote car starters, Bluetooth, DECT and residential wireless phones etc. The first limitation can be overcome by taking advantage of terrain elevation, or by using towers to overcome obstacles and provide Fresnel zone clearance. The second limitation is less effective in sparsely populated areas, and may be mitigated by shifting to the less crowded 5 GHz band. Table 15 gives the summary of the current methods and solutions used to extend the range of conventional WiFi networks. Nonetheless, these approaches still have to live with the difficult radio frequency (RF) propagation characteristics in the GHz bands. Therefore, there is still a need to address this problem from a different perspective.

Table 15: Summary of conventional methods for extending the range of WiFi [86] [87] [88].

Setback Solution

Requirement for line-of-sight between endpoints

• Take advantage of terrain elevation • Avoid areas with obstacles

• Use high towers to provide Fresnel clearance Vulnerability to interference in

the unlicensed band

• Operate in rural areas

• Migrate to the less crowded 5 GHz band Power budget limitation • Use high-gain directional antennas

Timing limitation • Modify the medium access control (MAC) mechanism

Cost and usability • Use cheap antennas

• Employ technology which is affordable and easier to use by people with limited training

Having seen the success of the traditional WiFi and some of the setbacks, it can be seen that there is still a need for a simpler and cheaper way to stretch the range of wireless internet connectivity. Compared to the higher frequency ISM bands, the lower frequency TV white spaces have inherent RF propagation properties, such as, longer range, better penetration [89] [90], lower interference, and the possibility to build small antennas for hand held devices; that make them extremely desirable for long range high speed wireless internet connectivity in various areas, including homes, offices, public places, roads, rails, etc., at a cheaper cost.

Long range WiFi over TVWS use case is motivated by the inherent RF propagation characteristics presented above. In many cases a ‘less lossy’ radio propagation environment also suggests higher received signals and thus higher sustainable throughputs. Moreover, Wi-Fi is a mature, well-understood technology that is inexpensive and easily available. In fact, there are several wireless card vendors considering pushing some version of Wi-Fi to the IEEE standards body for white space networking [91]. So far, there are standardisation initiatives to amend the IEEE 802.11 standard for operation in TVWS [92]. Therefore, high speed and long range wireless connectivity systems can be built in the TV white spaces by using off-the-shelf components, and coupling them with cognitive capabilities to allow a smarter way to access the spectrum while causing negligible interference to incumbent devices.

5.2.2

Scenario characteristics and Technical viability

5.2.2.1 User terminals

The terminals will mainly have the same form factors as the ones used for WiFi today, i.e. stationary PCs, laptops, PDAs, and mobile phones. Communication in white spaces complements networks that use other parts of the spectrum. Thus is likely that existing types of devices will acquire white space interfaces alongside other more established radio interfaces as shown in Figure 33. Moreover, user terminals may include spectrum sensing capabilities, or geo-location database access, or a combination of both depending on the intended way to obtain spectrum resource for data transmission. Furthermore, user terminals would need to be standardized and required to satisfy some compliance requirements, across different EU countries. They also have to be affordable so that they may benefit from economies of scale. However, in order to successfully achieve this scope, there has to be harmonization of the standardization and compliance efforts

Figure 33: Mobile Communication device adding TVWS interface to the already existing radio access technology (RAT)

5.2.2.2 Coverage area

WiFi over TVWS is expected to extend the range from the conventional 30 meter to about 300 meters as shown in Figure 34. This range will be viable for urban, suburban and rural areas.

Figure 34: Indicative comparisons of Wi-Fi range using 2.4GHz and white space spectrum in indoor (left) and outdoor (right) settings

5.2.2.3 Service and capacity

The main benefit from using the white spaces will be the availability of frequency spectrum at significantly lower frequencies, expected to lead to high speed data connectivity and throughput. The addition of the white spaces spectrum will increase the amount of unlicensed spectrum available for

high data rate Wi-Fi communication by around 9 – 22 percent in a typical location in the US, and a similar amount in other parts of the world [85].

5.2.2.4 Operating frequencies

The targeted operating frequencies are the TVWS and, as said before, their characteristics include : • Spatial and temporal variation;

• Spectrum fragmentation.

The next two subsections give the details of the special characteristics of the geographic interleaved spectrum bands in relation to their usage in providing wireless internet access connectivity.

5.2.2.4.1 Spatial and temporal variation

Television stations represent the largest incumbent use of the UHF spectrum. Across a wide area, the set of occupied TV channels depend on the location of TV transmitters as well as the number of stations operating in the area. Spatial variations may exist on smaller scales and depend on physical obstructions and their construction materials. For example, wireless microphones, can operate in locally idle TV channels as secondary users, in environments ranging from small-scale lecture rooms to large- scale music and sporting events with typical ranges of a few hundred meters. For these reasons we expect spatial and temporal variation in spectrum availability for long distance Wi-Fi over TVWS especially in densely populated areas. In [91] measurements of UHF spectrum were performed in two settings: the campus setting and a University dormitory setting, over several days, to determining incumbents. In both cases, they detected the use of wireless microphones at different times of day and for different durations.

The temporal variations in UHF white spaces due to the intermittent operation of wireless microphones pronounce a need for a protocol that can signal the presence of a wireless microphone to the network without interfering with the microphone. Since both the WiFi over TVWS and the PMSE are secondary spectrum users, it will be a win-win strategy if there will be harmonization between the two together with other cognition based technologies operating in TVWS to solve the problem of unpredictable transmission which cause spatial and temporal variations.

A white space WiFi network (a home wireless router for example) must not naively select channel(s) to operate on based solely on its own local observation of spectrum availability. The AP must take into account the availability of spectrum at its clients as well.

5.2.2.4.2 Spectrum fragmentation

While the ISM bands are a contiguous chunk of spectrum, e.g. an IEEE 802.11b/g channel needs 22 MHz bandwidth, UHF white spaces are fragmented due to the presence of incumbents. The size of each fragment can vary from 1 channel (8 MHz for DVB-T) to several channels. The amount of fragmentation in the UHF bands depends to a large extent on the density of TV stations, which varies considerably with population density. Rural (and suburban) areas are likely to have larger chunks of available UHF spectrum than urban areas.

In case of such a possible fragmentation the radios will need to tune the spectrum that they occupy to fit within available fragments. This implies the need for radios to use variable channel widths [93] or channel bonding. Compared to conventional WiFi, the user of variable channel widths introduces two new challenges. First, it makes channel assignment more challenging, since APs now occupy a range of channels, rather than just one. Second, it increases the time taken for nodes to discover APs. This is due to a limitation of techniques that can achieve variable channel widths on Wi-Fi cards [93]. Using this technique a radio can only decode packets that are sent at the same channel width and same center frequency. An expensive switch of the PLL clock frequency is required to decode packets at other channel widths [91]. Otherwise, innovative methods beyond the state of the art have to be used; these could be spectrum shaping methods, multichannel transmission etc.

5.2.2.4.3 Sensing in WiFi over TVWS

Sensing in WiFi over TVWS can take advantage of existing IEEE 802.11 base standards, and IEEE 802.11k in particular. In 802.11k, various types of measurements are defined that enable wireless LAN stations to request measurement from other stations, for example, in order to measure how occupied a frequency channel is. The measurement results are reported back to the requesting station in

standardized frames. It provides means for measurement, reporting, estimation and identification of characteristics of spectrum usage. IEEE 802.11k improves spectrum opportunity identification in unlicensed bands in unpredictable environments and is able to characterize the interference on different frequency channels. Moreover, in COGEU, cognitive capabilities, for example using geo-location with database techniques to identify spectrum availability, will be considered for integration with off-the-shelf protocols and solutions.

5.2.2.4.4 Spectrum masks

To reach the market WiFi devices over TVWS need a certification process, based on clear methodologies to measure the effect of interference on the DVB-T sets and PMSE, for equipment compliance (guard bands, spectrum masks, protection ratio, etc). The current spectrum masks for WiFi operation in ISM bands cannot be simply down converted to TV bands. Specific masks for co-existence with DVB-T and PMSEs in a commons spectrum usage model have to be applied

In the US, some guidelines have been defined for coexistence with the ATSC standard such as the TVWS spectral masks proposed by [94], as shown in Figure 35. At the European level the definition of power restrictions for WiFi operation over TVWS is still an open issue.

Figure 35: Spectral mask for coexistence with ATSC [94]

5.2.2.5 Technical feasibility

Despite the inherent good RF propagation qualities, WiFi over TVWS still faces technological challenges originating from co-existence constraints, which requires it to cause insignificant interference to incumbent devices.

WLAN has already much of the functionality that is associated with cognitive radio (e.g. sense before transmitting). Therefore, WiFi with cognitive features of TV white spaces is like a natural extension of WLANs.

Moreover, in IEEE there is a standardization initiative for “an amendment that defines standardized modifications to both the 802.11 physical layers (PHY) and the 802.11 Medium Access Control Layer (MAC), to enable operation in the TV White Spaces (the unused channels in the TV bands)” [92]. ECMA already has a standard for using cognitive devices over TV white spaces [91].

Leading technology companies like Microsoft [14] [95], Motorola [96], Phillips [97] etc, already have prototypes which showcase some aspects of the technical viability of WiFi over TV white spaces. The presence of the above mentioned standardization activities going on and existing prototypes proves the rationality of believing the technical feasibility of developing long range WiFi over TV white spaces. Nevertheless all these activities have been developed under the FCC regulatory framework and considering coexistence issues with the US DTV standard (ATSC). Therefore, in Europe, there is still a need to investigate the issue of coexistence between WiFi over TVWS under the European DVB-T standard, while taking into consideration a more complex regulatory framework.

5.2.3

Market Potential

The enormous success of WiFi has allowed for economies of scale that will be hard to be surpassed by alternative technologies like WiMAX. Perspective [85] estimates the economic value that might be generated from existing Wi-Fi applications improved through using the white spaces to be in the range of $3.9 –7.3 billion a year over the next 15 years for the US market. Ofcom believes that the net benefits to consumers could be worth £ 2-3 billion over twenty years for UK. Therefore, more success should be expected from delivering longer range WiFi-like internet connectivity services across Member States.Moreover, the ability to provide long range wireless access technology has further market potential in other areas like:

5.2.3.1 Business

• Provide coverage to a large office or business complex or campus;

• Establish point-to-point link between large skyscrapers or other office buildings; • Bring Internet to remote construction sites or research labs;

• Provide cheap internet in road, sea and air transport systems.

5.2.3.2 Residential

• Bring Internet to a home if regular cable/DSL cannot be hooked up at the location; • Bring Internet to a vacation home or cottage on a remote mountain or on a lake; • Bring Internet to a yacht or large seafaring vessel;

• Share a neighbourhood Wi-Fi network.

5.2.3.3 Disaster areas

• Bring quick, agile and cheap internet connections in areas devastated by disaster and; • Provide additional support in co-ordination of relief efforts.

5.2.3.4 Hospital applications

• Access to patient records;

• A rapid voice over Wi-Fi communication system.

Therefore, the market potential for WiFi in TVWS is very large, and can revolutionalise the wireless industry through convergence with other technologies and services. Figure 36 shows the development trend for WiFi chipset sales.

Furthermore, in the US for example, there has been some initiatives by leading technology companies such as Google, Microsoft, and Motorola which are motivated by the fact that these frequencies are particularly well suited for providing rural areas with high-speed Internet service, as well as for short- or medium-range networking applications that might provide data transfer rates of gigabits per second, as opposed to the roughly 54 megabits per second of today's 802.11g-based Wi-Fi networks [98]. This has led to the emergence of the term WiFi 2.0. Wi-Fi 2.0 is a concept for implementing wireless broadband networks by utilizing bandwidth within the range of traditional broadcast television stations and some other consumer devices.

The substantial number of initiatives for using cognitive technology in TVWS in the industry, academia and regulatory bodies, is further evidence for the viability of the market potential of long range WiFi over TVWS.

5.2.4

Regulatory feasibility

5.2.4.1 The unlicensed spectrum sharing regime

Basically, WiFi is a broadband wireless connectivity application which is deployed in unlicensed spectrum. The absence of the spectrum license requirement to provide wireless access service is the key factor which has promoted the success of WiFi. The spectrum commons or unlicensed regime represents a point of view where coexistence with incumbent systems (DVB-T, PMSE) is assured via control of interference levels rather than by fixed spectrum assignment and coordination. In a commons spectrum usage model there is no spectrum manager to preside over the spectrum resource allocation. The experience of the recent past in the wireless ISM bands has shown that innovation and openness to new entrants is facilitated when these have to fulfil the technical rules ensuring good coexistence but do not need to negotiate with existing players. However, despite the fact that unlicensed spectrum promotes efficiency through sharing, QoS cannot be guaranteed. This is a serious problem for some applications. Defining spectrum policies and etiquette rules to promote fairness and avoid the “tragedy of the commons” as well as guarantee QoS in the long range WiFi over TVWS use case will be given high priority.

5.2.4.2 Regulators position on WiFi over TVWS

Regulators in the European context, as seen in the RSPG report [25], do understand the benefits of introducing cognitive technology in spectrum usage. These include the improved efficiency in the overall spectrum use and facilitating access to "new spectrum”. Detection of unused spectrum (spectrum sensing), utilization of free spectrum slots (spectrum management within the scope of spectrum usage rights), dynamic selection of frequencies when the presence of other users is detected (spectrum mobility), coordination & sharing of spectral resources among users (spectrum sharing) may provide new opportunities for industry and operators. Specific for this use case, the RSPG asserts that: “a large amount of spectrum (83.5MHz plus more than 400MHz) is already available for WiFi applications in 2,4 GHz and 5GHz bands respectively. However the UHF TV broadcasting band offers different and better characteristics.” [25]

In its statement on license-excepting cognitive devices using interleaves spectrum the Ofcom asserts that: “the white space appears to be a substantial amount of spectrum which is unused and could be valuably employed by cognitive devices. It is effectively set aside from high power broadcast use to avoid interference with other nearby transmitters using the same frequencies. It is therefore only available for low power usage otherwise harmful interference will result” Furthermore, in Ofcom’s statement on awarding the digital dividend, it said: “we would allow license-exempt cognitive access to interleaved spectrum (then excluding channels 61 and 62) provided this would not result in harmful interference to licensed users.” [12]