Andrew Seybold helps validate Intelligent Spectrum Management using TV White Spaces

In a recently released whitepaper, Andrew Seybold, a leading authority on technology and trends shaping the world of wireless mobility, discusses his views on the availability of additional spectrum for wireless broadband communications. The whitepaper provides insights on the total addressable market for Intelligent Spectrum Management, which utilizes databases to manage spectrum sharing technologies for both licensed and unlicensed spectrum.

Using a database approach to assign devices to particular frequencies “makes a lot of sense” says Seybold. Rather than additional technology having to be built into each new radio, “the system relies on database technology that can track spectrum in a given area and assign spectrum for systems that require communications on an as-needed basis.” This is the very same approach that Spectrum Bridge is currently demonstrating in three separate experimental trials in the U.S. utilizing unlicensed TV White Spaces spectrum.

As stated in the Rysavy Research Industry Report, the demand for spectrum will soon exceed network capacity for wireless carriers. Seybold reiterates this view stating “the wide-area networks will not be able to meet the demand of the coming years.” However, he believes that TV White Spaces can be used to help alleviate and off-set some of the network traffic, “This new spectrum provides the ideal platform for longer-range, but still local, wireless broadband services and will be used for bridging gaps between wired, cable, and fiber connections and locations that cannot be economically served by either wide-area or Wi-Fi systems.” In addition to alleviating network traffic, TV White Spaces can help to provide additional services to unserved and underserved communities, supporting the FCC National Broadband Plan to provide rural America with broadband access.

What appears to be most intriguing is that the central database approach to spectrum management goes above and beyond the TV White Spaces by using database architecture that can essentially evolve to support both unlicensed and licensed spectrum. For more information about Spectrum Bridge and multiple spectrum sharing technologies, click here.

-Christian Duffus