This Wednesday is an exciting day for anyone who uses mobile data services in the UK. Why? Because on Wednesday the first trials of the White Spaces Coalition's frequency agile fast broadband technology begin in Cambridge . Now that analogue TV is very nearly extinct in the UK we can finally start making use of the spectrum for some economic good, beyond re-runs and reality TV. To summarise the technology concept, the map of radio spectrum usage isn't a flat continium, but rather a comb with used bands separated by "guard bands" that prevent leakage from one channel into another. Furthermore, usage of the spectrum is inconsistent in different geographical areas, partly for the same technical reason (preventing leakage), partly because not all channels are broadcast nationally. The upshot is that large portions of the spectrum are unused, which is where the white space radio technology comes in. The radios they use (effectively a modified wi-fi router) use the free cha...
Thoughts on strategy in a Digital Economy