Ofcom reaffirms committment to spectrum sharing and white spaces

Ofcom's Draft Annual Plan for 2014 reaffirms the opening of TV white spaces as a priority issue and sees it as a foundation for future spectrum sharing policy. Over the last 12 months, Ofcom has put considerable effort and resources into fashioning a legal framework that will enable the gaps left between TV transmissions in the UHF bands (the TV white spaces) to be used safely for new applications - on a licence exempt basis. Ofcom is now holding a pilot of its regulations, which centre on the use of a geolocation database - by which white space devices (WSDs) can discover which channels are available in their location. The database will also advise what power levels are permitted in the available channels.