IEEE Press
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IEEE Press Editorial Board
Tariq Samad, Editor-in-Chief

Kenneth Moore, Director of IEEE Book and Information Services (BIS)

TV white space (TVWS) is gaining a lot of attention recently, not only due to its ability to bridge the gap in certain applications but also due to its innovative ways of using spectrum that could radically change the way how spectrum is being allocated and used in the future. Many people asked me to recommend a good reading on this topic and I have to always send a list of articles that are not connected. Although there are some books available, those books are only providing collection of first-order information that requires the readers to link the dots on their own. Coincidentally, IEEE–Wiley approached me to write a book and I decided that it is the right time to have a book that could help the readers to understand this topic better.

I started working on TVWS since more than a decade ago, at a time when nobody knew whether TVWS works or not. Things started to make a turn when the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) concluded a successful trial in 2008 where I had the honor to be part of the parties participated in that trial. I still remember I had to fly 24 hours from Singapore to Maryland to submit and test our prototype. At that time, we were the only non-USA based organization participating in that cornerstone trial together with Microsoft, Motorola, Philips, and a Silicon Valley start-up Adaptrum.

With regulation in the United States ready, Microsoft approached me to expand the reach to other regions. Singapore was a natural choice as it was leading the TVWS regulatory efforts in the Asian region. We decided to start a group that brought the ecosystem together called the Singapore White Spaces Pilot Group (SWSPG) where I assumed the role as Co-Chairman of the group together with Microsoft and StarHub (Singapore's second largest telecom operator). In the inaugural international workshop organized by SWSPG where I chaired, I shared the TVWS ecosystem using the famous business framework invented by a management guru called Michael Porter's Six Forces.¹ Porter looks at an industry from suppliers, buyers, competitors, new entrants, substitutes, and complementors perspectives that formed the six forces. Each force has different levels of influence to the industry that needs to be studied thoroughly in order to position oneself correctly in the value chain. I attempt to use this same framework to guide the organization of this book for ease of understanding the linkages among the different “forces.”

Chapter 1 lays down the background information and related activities with respect to TVWS. From TVWS perspectives, regulators are the “supplier” of spectrum. The power of supplier, that is, regulation that has strong influence on the success of TVWS is introduced in Chapter 2. Chapter 3 looks at the complementors to TVWS ecosystem. Very much like doctor who is a complementor to medicine, standards tend to influence one's choice of technology solutions. Different players compete for market shares in this industry by introducing and advancing technologies and solutions, which are discussed in Chapter 4. Chapter 5 addresses the demands from the buyers' perspectives. Various use cases and deployments based on the needs of the buyers will be discussed in this chapter. Chapter 6 studies the market and commercial potential of TVWS and other spectrum sharing technologies. How attractive this market is will determine whether new entrants are keen to enter this market. Finally, Chapter 7 attempts to predict some future trends related to this technology. The future will determine whether the technology continues to flourish or substitutes will enter and compete.

We hope by painting this book into a pictorial framework will ease the readers in understanding the various aspects of TVWS. Finally, the readers should bear in mind that TVWS is just one of the earliest systems that utilizes dynamic spectrum access mechanism where secondary users coexist with primary users. This mechanism will change the way how spectrum is being used in the future. Watch this space!

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