A Calculation Tool for the Protection of Digital Terrestrial Television Services from White Space Devices

Abstract

This paper presents a software tool, created by Arqiva, which calculates white space device (WSD) powers for any location in the UK, based on digital terrestrial television (DTT) planning criteria and existing CEPT and UK Ofcom frameworks. The output data provided by the tool can be used to drive commercial geo-location databases. This paper explores the fundamental coupling models necessary to calculate allowable WSD powers. In particular, we present new measurement results for the protection of set-top DTT reception. The use of the tool to efficiently calculate the information for a geo-location database is described. Spectrum availability results from the tool are presented for different WSD scenarios.