Overview of TV White Spaces: Current regulations, standards and coexistence between secondary users

Abstract

TV White Spaces (TVWS) refer to segments of the TV spectrum not used by licensed users in a given location. In recent years, regulation agencies throughout the world consider the possibility to open TVWS to unlicensed use, which is followed by standardization activities to realize it. One of the important aspects of unlicensed operation in TVWS is coexistence between heterogenous networks. This paper provides an overview of current regulations, standardization activities related to TVWS, while the main focus is IEEE P802.19.1 standardization project to enable coexistence in TVWS.