Posted Thursday 5th February 2009 01:13 GMT
What happened to the super-duper whitespace-detecting equipment that was supposed to work without even needing a database?
Posted Thursday 5th February 2009 03:06 GMT
In older RF equipment, the white space between channels is used as demarcation for automatic tuning control. These controls track the signal strength and need "off-channel" to be unused.
If you stuff these frequencies with signal then the automatic tuning does not work properly.
Of course the big digital switchover should obsolete any of this old gear.
Posted Thursday 5th February 2009 10:30 GMT
I suppose 'white space' is but a step towards 'cognitive radio' , i.e. thinking & aware radio. This has the small technical problem that a box listens .............& thinks "OK, frequency empty!"............then starts transmitting data, but it might not be hearing a faraway weak signal with which it has just started interfering.
'Super-duper whitespace-detecting equipment' can only detect the local RF energy environment and yet still potentially screw up somebody else's service. Hence real cognitive is considering using a dedicated pilot channel for each and everything to share an online status map and negotiate the white-space frequency/power level/local policy allocations considering the far-end situation as well.
This googoo database can provide a temporary solution until cognitive radio CR is solved/implemented.
DSO happens in the USA in ten days?, hmmm, could be entertaining!
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