Digital Broadcasting: Increasing the Available White Space Spectrum Using TV Receiver Information

Today, TV white spaces are the most promising spectrum in which cognitive radios (CRs) can be deployed. The goal of this article is to investigate the potential increase in available spectrum used by the CR device. We define two knowledge levels and show that information about the TV receivers can increase the amount of available spectrum for CR devices in the TV bands by as much as 120 MHz. In the last few decades, demand for wireless services has exploded. According to Cisco, mobile data traffic is expected to have a 26-fold increase from 2010 to 2015 [1]. We know from Shannons capacity formula that increasing the available bandwidth increases the capacity of communication systems. In terms of bandwidth occupancy, the emergence of digital technology over analog technology has freed up some bandwidth. When TV broadcasting systems switched from analog to digital broadcasting, around 100 MHz was freed up, depending on the country. This part of the spectrum has become known as the digital dividend, and specific reallocation of this spectrum to other services is a current process in many countries. Because of the high value of spectrum, it is likely that only the capable operators will be able to buy the rights to these frequencies.