White space revolution

India is poised to embark on a unique combo of cutting-edge technology and jugaad (frugal innovation) that may finally bring the Internet to some five lakh rural reaches.
And a world summit on Digital India that opens in Delhi today (October 26) may clear all doubts that many telecom firms still have about this technology, even as the new state of Andhra Pradesh shrugs them off to bring low-cost broadband to one trial district — Srikakulam.

The name of the game is TV White Spaces — frequencies allocated to a TV broadcaster between radio bands, usually to prevent interference. The changeover from analogue to digital TV in India which is to be completed by December this year, will free up a lot of such spaces in the spectrum. These unused airways can be used for existing technologies like Wi-Fi to ride piggy back and provide much-needed connectivity, to vast areas that are presently without Internet — and here’s the bonus. While the Wi-Fi we know, is good only for tens of metres, White Space Wi-Fi can travel tens of kms.

What’s more, it is not affected by hillocks and other features, while mobile technologies like 3G, need a clear line of sight. We don’t pay anyone for setting up a Wi-Fi hotspot in our home. Likewise, TV White Space is a free-to-use, unlicensed band. The WhiteSpace Alliance a global body which evangelises sharing such unutilised spectrum (and is steering the Delhi summit), joined the CMAI Association and IIT Bombay, earlier this year, to draw a roadmap to bring ‘Digital India’ to rural areas.

Andhra takes lead: AP CM N. Chandrababu Naidu, who in an earlier tenure,  brought Microsoft to Hyderabad, was quick to invite the same company to help him empower rural areas of the new state with White Space-enabled Net. The pilot is already off the ground, linking four educational institutions in Srikalulam district. After the US visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Microsoft offered to harness TV White Spaces among other technologies to connect 500,000 villages in India. This has irked some Indian cellular operators who fear that giving away vast swathes of unlicensed spectrum will affect business. Not so, say global agencies and governments like India who have limited spectrum and unlimited bandwidth requirements.

“Throw competition at the problem,” suggests H. Nwana, Executive Director of the Dynamic Spectrum Alliance, a global organisation that works for more efficient spectrum utilisation. “3G and 4G cannot by themselves satisfy the world’s need.

Outside the metros, they need to compete with Wi-Fi and WRAN — Wireless Regional Area Networks — which use TV White spaces,” said Dr Nwana, a former spectrum regulator of the UK, who spoke shortly before he left to join the Delhi Summit. He left us with a mantra: “Wi-Fi should be the right of every citizen — not 3G!”.

— IndiaTechOnline.com