Copenhagen hosted last 5-7 July the 10th meeting of project team (PT) 43 of the Spectrum Engineering working group (WG SE), in charge of determining technical requisites for the operation of cognitive radio (CR) equipment/systems in spectrum not used by digital terrestrial (DTT) networks – know as white-space devices (WSD) – as well as PMSE in the 470-790 MHz frequency band and the services operating in adjacent bands.
One of the meeting’s agenda point’s concerned the start of work on the studies indicated at the last WG SE meeting, specifically:
- To examine the possibility of harmonising the WSD EIRP limits at member state level in order to limit uncertainties for industry. To do so a more limited set of values for WSD characteristics must be adopted;
- Impact studies must be conducted for networks operating in bands adjacent to 470-790 MHz;
- A combination of geo-location-finding and sensing techniques should be analysed.
A number of contributions were received. Most proposed changing the methodology implemented in ECC Report 159 for the calculation of WSD power levels when operating autonomously, as well as some of the pretexts. This aspect was debated during approval of the agenda, bearing in mind the mandate received by WG SE.
Regarding the protection of headends used by cable operators, and taking the WG SE and ECC guidelines into account, a document was produced with various considerations about the impact of WSDs, using the typical scenario presented by Cable Europe.
