Microsoft launches first European Spectrum Observatory

ARTICLE | JANUARY 30, 2013 - 12:25PM | BY NEREA RIAL

The tech company Microsoft has opened the doors of the first European Spectrum Observatory, located at its Cloud and Interoperability Centre in Brussels, to explain howspectrum is used and how to utilise it in order to accelerate the availability of wireless broadband access.

Today, even in the most developed countries, are gaps in broadband coverage, access points and base stations become overloaded in busy areas, and pricing is sometimes a barrier. For these reasons, several European regulators have confirmed the necessity of new wireless networks and business models.

However, the main problem is the use of the spectrum, which follows a model developed around limitations of legacy radio technologies and is not fully used. Therefore, Microsoft’s new Observatory aims to well-manage the spectrum and to increase its utilisation.

In addition, the Observatory will give regulators the latest information on the usage of wireless spectrum and “help inform their decisions on which spectrum bands are the most appropriate near term targets for expanded spectrum sharing”, explained David Tennenhouse, corporate vice president of Microsoft’s Technology Policy Group.

Microsoft will record data through monitoring stations and it will be stored and processed for visualization through the Windows Azure cloud, which can give a view of the data aggregated over different time periods, among other characteristics.

According to William Webb, Chief Technology Officer of Microsoft’s partner Neul, the first opportunity to utilize dynamic spectrum technologies will be in the TV white spaces band, “a creative, tested and low-cost way of extending fast broadband access to people in under served communities.”

In order to obtain better results, Microsoft is collaborating with the European Commission, which is currently supporting projects such as COGEU, an initiative based on the switch-off of analogue TV.