Monday, June 6, 2011

A little story on IEEE 802.22 WRAN

IEEE 802.22 is a standard for Wireless Regional Area Network (WRAN) using white spaces in the TV frequency spectrum. The development of the IEEE 802.22 WRAN standard is aimed at using cognitive radio (CR) techniques to allow sharing of geographically unused spectrum allocated to the Television Broadcast Service, on a non-interfering basis, to bring broadband access to hard-to-reach, low population density areas, typical of rural environments, and is therefore timely and has the potential for a wide applicability worldwide. It is the first world wide effort to define a standardized air interface based on CR techniques for the opportunistic use of TV television bands on a non-interfering basis.

IEEE 802.22 WRANs are designed to operate in the TV broadcast bands while assuring that no harmful interference is caused to the incumbent operation, i.e., digital TV and analog TV broadcasting, and low power licensed devices such as wireless microphones. The standard was expected to be finalized in the first quarter of 2010. IEEE 802.22 Draft D1 is available and comment resolution is underway. IEEE P802.22.1 is a standard being developed to enhance harmful interference protection for low power licensed devices operating in TV Broadcast Bands. IEEE P802.22.2 is a recommended practice for the installation and deployment of IEEE 802.22 Systems. IEEE 802.22 WG is a working group of IEEE 802 LAN/MAN standards committee which is chartered to write the 802.22 standard. The two 802.22 task groups (TG1 and TG2) are writing 802.22.1 and 802.22.2 respectively.

In response to a Notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) issued by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in May 2004, the IEEE 802.22 working group on Wireless Regional Area Networks was formed in October 2004. Its project, formally called as Standard for Wireless Regional Area Networks (WRAN) - Specific requirements - Part 22: Cognitive Wireless RAN Medium Access Control (MAC) and Physical Layer (PHY) Specifications: Policies and procedures for operation in the TV Bands focuses on constructing a consistent, national fixed point-to-multipoint WRAN that will use UHF/VHF TV bands between 54 and 862 MHz. Specific TV channels as well as the guard bands of these channels are planned to be used for communication in IEEE 802.22.

The IEEE 802.22 Work Group kicked off in November 2004 and approved the functional requirement document for WRAN systems in September 2005. Ten initial proposals were merged into a single one in March 2006, and the draft standard (D0.1) was developed in May 2006.  The complete 802.22 standard is expected to be approved by May 2007.  For 802.22 WRAN systems, the primary users (PU), those with priority rights, mainly include incumbent analog and digital TV stations, TV translators, TV boosters, TV receivers, and wireless microphones.  The secondary user (SU) are the CPEs and have a requirement to avoid generating harmful interference to the PUs.


The Wi-Fi Alliance has started working on a new standard called IEEE 802.11 (White-Fi) which will be deployed for use in the TV white spaces. The IEEE 802.11af is similar to the current IEEE 802.11 Wi-Fi with an added cognitive radio technology in order to be used in the white space spectrum.

1 comment:

  1. Thank you for this. Reading your posts is much easier to understand. I am currently trying to understand 802.16 and 802.22. I saw your other post. But Would you please write on this a little more in depth? Thanks!

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