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Solar powered TVWS chip could reduce broadband cost for the poor

Developer of TV White Space (TVWS) technology, Carlson Wireless has showed off a chipset that utilitises the low-band UHF TV spectrum to deliver internet speeds of up to 96Mbps in rural and remote areas.

The Picasso Gen3 is Carlson Wireless’ third generation TVWS chipset and the stand out feature of this particular chipset is that it uses the new IEEE 802.11af Wifi standard.

This particular standard limits the interference that broadcasting Wifi over ultra high frequencies (UHF) may have, such as interfering with television and wireless microphone signals.

The benefit of using UHD frequencies are numerous but of particular interest, especially in an African context, is that the range is as much as five times greater than that of traditional Wifi transmitted using microwave towers.

This means that less base stations are needed to get a signal from point A to point B and that means that the cost of connecting everybody to the internet comes down.

Perhaps Carlson thought that wasn’t cost saving enough, so they created the TVWS chipset to consume the least power it could so that the few base stations it does need, can be solar powered.

Carlson also claims that its Gen3 low-band chipset is non-line-of-sight meaning it can go through trees, walls and even hills.

Chief Executive Officer of Carlson Wireless, James Carlson explained the far reaching benefits this technology will have. “This chip, combined with a suite of our other design advancements in Gen3, will pave the way for connecting billions of people without broadband due to current market or technological constraints,” Carlson explained in a statement.

The CEO went on to express how pleased he and his firm are to be a part of this next step in the TVWS industry and that 2016 will be the breakout year for the globabl TVWS market.

Executive Director of the Dynamic Spectrum Alliance, Professor H Sama Nwana expressed his excitement at the news of the Carlson’s Gen3 chipset. The professor went on to explain why this development was such an important one.

“With TVWS regulations now clear and increasingly being adopted across the world and standards agreed, the next step is chipsets and chipset modules at volume and at low cost,” he said.

Carlson’s Picasso Gen3 chipsets are ready to be integrated into Wifi routers, set top boxes and anything else that needs an internet connection.

The only question we have is: who will be the first to implement it?

[Source – Carlson Wireless] [Image – CC BY/2.0 anna carol]

 

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