Bengaluru to Bogota: Regulators Are Learning About the Socio-Economic Benefits of Spectrum Sharing

Building
digital economies doesn’t have to be expensive, as India is demonstrating to
good effect.  As the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, drives forward his
vision for a Digital India, his government took the important
step last month of issuing eight experimental licenses in the 470-582 MHz
band.  Their singular purpose is to explore the uses of TV White Space
(TVWS), the unassigned or otherwise unused frequencies in the UHF and VHF
bands, in an effort to find more spectrum for India’s bandwidth-hungry
consumers and increase digital access in the rural areas. 

Unlocking
the TVWS presents a tremendous opportunity for India and other countries to
help address some of their most important policy goals around education,
healthcare, and social and economic development.  At Microsoft, we and our
ISP and government partners are seeing this impact in affordable access
projects we have launched in over twenty countries on five continents. 

The
eight Indian trials will show India’s tech sector how TVWS technologies and
regulations from other countries can be adapted for their own market.  India needs affordable broadband for hundreds
of millions of rural citizens.  Saankhya Labs, a Bengaluru-based developer
of a software-defined solution that tunes to the UHF bands, understands that
TVWS can deliver this.  What they are about to find out is that a TVWS
market – if allowed to take root – will also serve as a powerful engine for
innovation, allowing India’s technology sector to grow by stimulating new
demand for broadband services and the many devices that connect to them. 
This includes the so-called Internet of Things, used in support of myriad
applications ranging from environmental monitoring to farm management.

India deserves praise for the breadth of this
step.  Its licenses are adapted from established and experimental TVWS
regulations from countries such as Canada, Ghana, Malawi, the Philippines, Singapore, South Africa, UK, and
USA.  So while Prime Minister Modi is clearly pushing his policymakers to
drive his digital agenda, the country’s policy apparatus deserves their own
salute for being willing to learn from the experiences of other countries.

In an effort to take similar advantage of TVWS, many national regulators
are travelling to the Dynamic Spectrum Alliance Summit this month, from April 26-28 in Bogota, to learn how
regulations have been successfully implemented around the world.  There,
governments, their commercial partners, and other stakeholders will meet to
review the benefits of TVWS and other dynamic spectrum sharing solutions, and
how to get successful deployments and regulation in their own markets.

By Paul
Garnett

About Paul

Paul Garnett is a Director of Technology Policy in
Microsoft’s Regulatory Affairs Group, where he focuses on promoting
affordable broadband access. Paul and his team work with governments, research
institutions, companies, and NGOs around the world to foster new wireless
technologies and business models that will reduce the cost of wireless
bandwidth and enable billions of people to get online more easily.