Nokia Research: Using TV Spectrum White Spaces For Indoor Internet Services

This Nokia research project that's been running for three years now, deals with using the unused TV spectrum 'white spaces' for indoor positioning. A white space in a TV bandwidth is formed because a part of the signal reserved for a channel may not work elsewhere. Thus, white spaces have potential of being used for cheaper internet access in the places where there is no other connectivity and because the existing ways are inefficient.

Scott Probasco, a researcher used this concept to set up a network at the Imperial War Museum near Cambride, UK. He used the frequency reserved for London TV station. So now, depending on where he is, he can roam around the museum and get the information delivered on his phone about the different exhibits. He carries a Nokia N9 along with a briefcase that he connects to his phone via USB. The briefcase contains nothing but a simple radio system operating in UHF TV bands that connects to a TV white space. But the need of this briefcase can be removed by mass production of radio chips that can fit-in our phones.



In addition to the location tracking, we can also get rich multimedia content like videos  (which by the way will be a substantial improvement to the conventional signs and maps) delivered to our phones too. The applications are innumerable; right from grocery stores to shopping malls, the technology can be employed in the indoors everywhere. Just like we use GPS when in trouble on our maiden visit to new places, services for the indoors like the #-Link-Snipped-# will be more useful with this technology.

For all this stuff to be available in the market we have to wait till 2015. But before that, Nokia is investigating other trials in Brazil, Singapore and Finland.

In the following video, Scott Probasco and Ian Crawford, Head at the Museum, while walking past the aircraft that transformed the 20^th Century, discuss the kind of  forward-thinking innovation in mobile technology that will transform the next. Check this out:

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Via: #-Link-Snipped-#