Whitespace Technology and Microsoft Target Faster Rural Broadband

Sheffield-based company Whitespace Technology (WT) has joined forces with Microsoft as part of a new “strategic collaboration” that will aim to use a TV White Space (TVWS) based wireless network to extend faster broadband connectivity into remote rural parts of the UK, Europe and Africa.

The TVWS technology has been around for a few short years now and it works by harnessing the gaps that exist between radio spectrum in the Digital Terrestrial TV (DTTV) bands, which operate between about 470MHz to 694MHz and this makes them good for delivering wide coverage (up to around 10km).

Normally those spectrum gaps would be intended to help minimise the risk of interference between TV channels but TVWS gets around this by using a dynamic spectrum management system (database), which means that the gaps can instead be used for delivering data (without disrupting the terrestrial television signal).

Broadway Partners have already built a number of 50Mbps capable wireless broadband networks using this technology in the UK via their ISP Broadway Broadband, but they’re not the only game in town. Another UK company, WT, hopes to do something similar by joining with Microsoft and their Airband Initiative (completely unrelated to the separate UK ISP called Airband).

Shelley McKinley, Microsoft’s head of Technology, said:

“Without reliable internet access, many people living in rural communities around the world are unable to take advantage of the same opportunities as their urban neighbours. We are excited to partner with Whitespace Technology to bring broadband to students, farmers, educators and business owners so that they have an equal opportunity to learn, grow, contribute and prosper in the 21st century economy.”

Mark Wheeler, Whitespace Technology CEO, added:

“The Whitespace Technology team we have assembled, has extensive experience in ISP creation from start-up to scale, and delivering great technical services whilst maintaining passion for the product and the customer experience. We’re applying innovative TVWS technology to our legacy knowledge and using this to deliver life-changing services to communities all over the world.

We’re so excited to be working with the great team at Microsoft to take our knowledge and passion to drive the Microsoft Air band Initiative’s global connectivity ambitions forward, and to demonstrate that TVWS solutions can be implemented quickly, at a fraction of the cost of other technologies, to create a robust and reliable service.”

The new partnership is said to conclude a 24-month collaboration between the two companies and “focusses on taking the technology to some of the 3 billion unconnected users worldwide through regional development, research & development and joint marketing.”

Furthermore WT said they will aim to “deliver the first scale commercial TVWS rollout in the UK” and become the “main provider capable of delivering affordable TV whitespace solutions in UK, Europe and beyond.” Sadly no details on their service speeds, prices or roll-out plan were revealed.