SPECTRUM: Waving the white flag - Industry Canada kick-starts consultation on TV white spaces use

By Perry Hoffman

OTTAWA - A year after the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) issued final rules for the use of spectrum white spaces, Industry Canada has begun its own process to deal with the unassigned spectrum.The department’s goal, in SMSE-012-11, is to develop a technical and policy framework to make additional spectrum in the TV white spaces spectrum below 698 MHz available for licence-exempt applications. White spaces are portion of the TV broadcast spectrum that are unassigned to prevent interference between stations or are in limited demand. Consumer and other products designed to operate in the white space spectrum are expected to...