TV White Space standardization and regulation in Europe

Abstract

Regulators around the world are currently setting rules and requirements that will allow for mass-market access to TV White Spaces. It is expected that the opening of those frequency bands to the consumer market will lead to a dramatic increase of spectrum exploitation efficiency in highly appealing frequency bands: In Europe, the frequency bands between 470 MHz and 790 MHz are considered and the inherent signal propagation properties are largely superior to those in standard cellular bands, for example, in 900 MHz and 2 GHz. This paper will present related use cases for the exploitation of TV White Space as they are currently discussed in the ETSI Reconfigurable Radio Systems Technical Committee. Then, the availability of TV White Spaces in Europe is investigated, followed by an overview of recent regulatory activities on the European Commission level. In particular, expectations related to a new revision of the European R&TTE Directive are presented which represents the basic regulatory framework in Europe.