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- FCC document explains the broadcast regulations. It also give contacts for further questions on licensing spectrum to provide broadcast radio/TV services.
- As digital TV transmission are more efficient than analog transmission, more traditional TV bands have been released after the 2009 all-digital transition. This frees up quite a few channels and may allow new broadcast services to be implemented using some traditional TV bands. More importantly, FCC has recently granted the unlicensed usage of free TV channels, see white space for some information. Their web page allows users to search for white spaces using US street addresses. Some quick tests show that most locations have several vacant channels for unlicensed use, e.g., in a well developed suburban DC area (zip code: 20878), there are three vacant TV channels for unlicensed use. Notice that each analog TV channel has bandwidth of 5 MHz (in some countries, it can be 6 or 7 MHz). This is sufficient for the whole mobile TV service with 30-50 TV channels, because broadcast standards such as DVB-H can operate on 5, 6, or 7 MHz channels. Thus, TV white space allows smaller and local broadcast companies to transmit video or data streams at no licensing fee. The economic value generated by unlicensed bands was studied in a Microsoft report.
