First Deployment of ‘Super Wi-Fi’ in TV White Spaces Starts in Wilmington, N.C.
The nation’s first test of using the TV white spaces to surf the Internet got underway Thursday in New Hanover County, N.C., and its county seat of Wilmington. The launch came after a 10-year push from the FCC. But it also comes as Congress debates legislation allowing the FCC to hold incentive auctions for broadcast spectrum, raising new questions about the future of the white spaces.
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"There are those who would like to take back the unlicensed white space channels and auction them off,” New Hanover County Commission Chairman Ted Davis said during a ceremony marking the launch of the service. “The cellular companies are clamoring for more channels as their users demand more and more data service so they too would like to get their hands on some of these channels. We have been advocating with the FCC to leave the channels unlicensed for use by anyone and we will continue that endeavor."
The same area was a test case for the FCC in 2008, when Wilmington was the first city to make the transition from analog to digital TV, Davis noted. “After that early conversion, discussions began about innovative use of the spectrum that remain unused in the TV bands,” Davis said. The county has already tested a “wide range” of applications that could use the white spaces, including video surveillance, public wireless access and water quality management, he said: “Each time the technology proved itself.”
The county plans to use the white spaces immediately to expand the reach of its free wireless service, Davis said. “The white spaces radios allow us to reach areas without trenching cables or putting up a large number of unsightly poles,” he said. The technology will be used at two parks for surveillance cameras that should help reduce the amount of vandalism there. The county will also use a white spaces radio “to replace a costly data connection” at the county landfill, Davis said.
"The city of Wilmington currently uses licensed and unlicensed wireless for traditional applications such as Wi-Fi hot spots and point-to-point data connections,” said Wilmington Mayor Bill Saffo. “We have seen first hand how white spaces’ long-range cover capabilities can benefit our community.” Saffo said the city will use the white spaces to stream video from a surveillance camera police place in high crime areas. Many other uses are possible, including providing data to first responders, Saffo said. “We will see further applications for almost all city services, including transportation and traffic control, we always want to know how many cars are on the road, environmental monitoring and conservation … smart grid and energy efficiencies … healthcare and asset tracking."
Approving rules allowing safe use of the white spaces “was no simple matter,” said Alan Stillwell, deputy chief of the FCC Office of Engineering and Technology, who also spoke at the event. “We had to do background technical research and learning, policy development, and, finally, the development of systems and devices for actual operational deployment.” Allowing the use of the white spaces without interference to TV broadcasts and other uses “is really not a trivial matter,” Stillwell said. “Getting there has involved the cooperation of many parties, including a lot of broadcast TV licensees.”
The test makes use of Spectrum Bridge’s TV white spaces database, the first database to be approved by OET. OET has also approved a device by Koos Technical Services for accessing the white spaces.