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White Space Communication pp 49–73Cite as

A Study on White and Gray Spaces in India

Part of the Signals and Communication Technology book series (SCT)

Abstract

TV ‘White Space’ spectrum is characterized by large amounts of geographically available spectrum with excellent propagation characteristics, offering long range and exceptional building penetration compared to the spectrum used by WiFi and Bluetooth equipment. As a result TV white space spectrum is ideal for providing fixed broadband internet services to locations where the routing of cables or optical fibre is neither practical nor economical; and hence important from a developing world perspective. The prospects can be further broadend by considering ‘gray space’ spectrum which is characterized by spectrum that is not fully available in time or space. The amount of TV white space in the VHF and UHF TV band in South India from an analytical point of view is studied. The results are corroborated by extensive experimental data collected from various places in South India. We then present quantitative assessment and estimates for the gray spaces in GSM900 and GSM1800 bands for Hyderabad City. These results are indicative and allow for a whole lot of possibilities. We then describe a unique ‘gray space’ GSM voice call test bed setup at IIT Hyderabad. However, white space and gray space sharing have different policy and governance requirements. We conclude the chapter by discussing possible policy and governance structures from an Indian point of view.

Keywords

  • White space
  • Gray space
  • Cognitive radio

These results were submitted to Deity, MCIT, GOI on 7th March 2011 and oral presentations were given at workshops, CORD 2012, 25th February 2012, at IIT Hyderabad and White Space Opportunities in India, 21st June 2013, Delhi.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    This data is not publicly available in India and we could only obtain data for South India.

  2. 2.

    This number has been obtained from the tenders floated by Prasar Bharati [10].

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Deity and DST for supporting this work under two grants to some of the authors.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Hyderabad, Hyderabad, 502205, Andhra Pradesh, India

    Kalpana Naidu, Yuva Kumar, B. M. Baveja, Rakesh Naik, Boli Sridhar, Shyam Ponnappa, Mohammed Zafar Ali Khan, S. N. Merchant & U. B. Desai

  2. Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Bombay, Bombay, India

    S. N. Merchant

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  1. Kalpana Naidu
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  2. Yuva Kumar
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Correspondence to Mohammed Zafar Ali Khan .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Cape Town, Rondebosch, South Africa

    Amit Kumar Mishra

  2. Meraka, CSIR, 15 Lower Hope Road, Rosebank, South Africa

    David Lloyd Johnson

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Naidu, K. et al. (2015). A Study on White and Gray Spaces in India. In: Mishra, A., Johnson, D. (eds) White Space Communication. Signals and Communication Technology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-08747-4_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-08747-4_3

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