Subject: [paws] PAWS mentioned in a TMCnet.com article this morning

From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 02 Jun 2011 10:58:40 +0200 (CEST)

http://www.tmcnet.com/topics/articles/180824-white-space-efforts-continue-move-forward.htm

White Space Efforts Continue to Move Forward
by Paula Bernier, Executive Editor, IP Communications Magazines

Radio access network gear that can leverage the newly available
white space spectrum should be available as early as next year, says
Richard Shockey, who runs Shockey Consulting and is chairman of The
SIP Forum. Once that happens, he says, it will have a significant
impact on networking as we know it.

As discussed in the March issue of INTERNET TELEPHONY, one of the
recent moves by the FCC to advance wireless was its effort to free
up unused spectrum in the broadcast TV band. This white space move,
as it’s known, represents the largest single expansion of spectrum
since the changes to Part 15, which expanded the use of 2.4gHz
unlicensed spectrum and led to the popularization of Wi-Fi.  [Ms.
Bernier is apparently unaware of WRC-03's decision to open 5 GHz to
unlicensed RANs -- rh]

Billions of consumer electronics devices now occupy the 83.5mHz of
spectrum in the 2.4gHz space. That’s the entire wireless ecosystem,
including Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and just about anything else you can
think of. The white space is even bigger than that, however, as it
represents 276mHz of spectrum – almost three times the spectrum
available in the 2.4gHz band.

As noted in the March INTERNET TELEPHONY article I authored, as part
of the white space effort, the FCC mandated the creation of a
database that wireless devices and networks can query to access, and
prevent interference with, radios operating at these frequencies.
Basically, this database will give interested parties a channel
list, and the rights to transmit on available channels.  

The FCC several months ago conditionally approved nine database
applicants, as I mentioned in the article. That included Comsearch,
Frequency Finder, Google (News  - Alert), KB Enterprises and LS
Telcom, Key Bridge Global, Neustar, Spectrum Bridge, Telcordia and
WSdb. All of the above submitted proposals in response to an FCC
order seeking interest around this. Shockey says now a tenth company
– Microsoft , which recently petitioned to join the crowd – may
also be added to that list.

And while all of these companies had many questions earlier this
year about how exactly the databases would work, Shockey says
there’s now an emerging consensus that the query interface will be
HTTP over TLS with XML files back and forth between the various
database elements you need to query for. Two key questions that
remain to be addressed, however, are how to structure the XML file,
and what value-added services database operators can offer to
monetize their work on this front, Shockey adds.

Meanwhile, the Internet Engineering Task Force could charter a
working group called PAWS (Protocol to Access White Space) as soon
as this Thursday, says Shockey. He says the PAWS group would work to
internationalize various forms of the white space database, which is
garnering interest in such parts of the world as Korea, Scandinavia
and the U.K.

----

-- 
Robert Horvitz
Stichting Open Spectrum
Slavikova 11, 120 00 Prague 2, Czech Republic
Gelderlandplein 75 L, 1082 LV Amsterdam, Nederland
mailto:[email-masked]
http://www.openspectrum.info/
mob: +420 775024705
tel/fax: +420 222967456