White Spaces: from Television to Internet

Turin, October 24, 2011 - The workshop on White Spaces took place at the Innovative Enterprise Incubator of the Politecnico di Torino (I3P). The major telecommunications operators, local and national broadcasters, representatives from the Italian Ministry of Economic Development and from the AGCOM (Italian Authority for Telecommunication) have gathered in order to collect the scientific and academic expertise on the subject, discuss the results obtained up to now, present the legal context and draw a roadmap for future developments.

The White Spaces are TV frequencies, still unused, which, after the switch from analogical to digital terrestrial TV have been allocated to broadcasters; they represent a potential way to bring Internet access to areas difficult to reach, such as mountainous and rural ones.
The Politecnico di Torino and CSP, with the authorization of the Italian Ministry of Economic Development and the availability of “Rete Capri” (which is making available the frequency), have been conducting a trial  in an alpine valley - the Viù Valley. The trial aims at testing the use of TV frequencies for data transport through wireless broadband networks. The chosen approach is based on cognitive radio and on SDR technology - Software Defined Radio. These low-cost devices, by identifying and using the free frequencies for data transmission, can make White Spaces a possible solution to the digital divide.

Through the reuse of the existing infrastructure and electrical pylons, combined with appropriate high efficiency transmission technologies, White Spaces offer a high potential for broadband coverage, even in marginal areas, thanks to the favorable propagation features of the low frequency.
White Spaces can represent a very important resource to reduce digital divide as far as cultural, economic, social and geographical distances between isolated areas and large urban centers.