The Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) announced yesterday that 180 MHz of spectrum will be made available in November when new regulations for TV white space spectrum come into effect.
Dr Yaacob Ibrahim, Singapore’s Minister for Communications and Information, speaking at the welcome dinner for the Ministerial Forum on ICT 2014, said the IDA has finalized the regulatory framework for white space technology deployment.
He noted that Singapore is one of the first countries to implement such a framework for TV white space spectrum. TV white space refers to unused radio spectrum in the TV broadcast bands that can be used for alternative wireless broadband communications similar to Wi-Fi.
The new regulations will set out the spectrum channels to be made available and how TV white space equipment should communicate with geo-location databases to identify the available spectrum channel to use, said Leong Keng Thai, IDA’s deputy chief executive and director general (telecoms and post).
The regulations, Leong said, will also help provide business certainty to companies that intend to offer services over TV white space.
The regulations come after a public consultation last year.
“The TV white space regulatory framework is a step toward Singapore’s vision on being the world’s first Smart Nation,” Leong said.
“Regulators all over the world are exploring different ways to efficiently use spectrum, so that they can plan for their countries’ future needs. The additional spectrum made available through the new regulatory framework will ensure that Singapore efficiently allocate and use this available bandwidth to support the growing demand for data communication.”