Systematic Analysis of Geo-Location and Spectrum Sensing as Access Methods to TV White Space

Access to the television white space by white space devices comes with a major technical challenge: white space devices can interfere with existing television signals. Two methods have been suggested in the literature to help white space devices identify unused channels in the TV frequency band so that they can avoid causing harmful interference to primary users; geo-location spectrum database and spectrum sensing. Discussions in the literature have placed much emphasis on the limitations of the spectrum sensing approach mainly from the perspective of the developed world environment in which its drawbacks are significant. Little attention has been placed to the limitations of the geo-location database approach when applied in a developing regions. This paper considers a broader analysis of the approaches by looking at factors that can affect their performance and how the presence or absence of these factors in a developed region or developing region can affect their applicability. In so doing, the paper highlights the need to conduct more research on the performance of spectrum sensing in developing regions where there are much less TV broadcasting stations and therefore, white spaces are more abundant.