On the protection criteria for the operation of white space systems on TV bands

The use of the white spaces of the UHF broadcasting band (470-790 MHz) by unlicensed users is a huge opportunity for new telecommunication systems and services. A fundamental issue on this new scenario of spectrum usage is the power emission limit of secondary users, since it is mandatory that they do not cause harmful interference to licensed ones. This paper identifies and discusses a common set of parameters and criteria to protect the primary digital terrestrial television (DTT) service taking into account the DTT planning and limitations of DTT receivers. The white space system operation is assisted by a geolocation database, and the protection criteria are used to calculate the maximum permitted transmit power of white space devices. Some numerical results are provided for reference scenarios.