Quantifying TV White Space Capacity; A Geolocation-based Approach

The so-called “TV White Spaces” (TVWS) are locally underutilized portions of the terrestrial TV bands and occur as a by-product of the Digital Switchover taking place in most countries across the globe. Thanks to the very good characteristics of the TV bands in terrestrial radio communications, the exploitation of TVWS for localor regional-area wireless license-exempt networking, under a carefully established regulatory framework, is a very attractive perspective. This paper presents a generic methodology for determining the actual capacity of white spaces using a geolocation-based approach i.e. dynamic assignment of radio resources to TVWS networks according to their geographical location. This methodology is applied in a case study investigating a sample area in southeastern Europe and unveils a significant amount of access capacity which can be unleashed via TVWS exploitation.