About 20 public and private organisations, including BT and Microsoft will use new wireless technologies in Europe’s first major pilot of white space services.
Planned projects range from sensors that monitor the behaviour of cities, to dynamic information for road users and rural broadband in hard to reach places.
BT and technology specialist Neul will work with the Department for Transport to test the potential enhancement of traffic information as part of a wider project along the A14 between Felixstowe and Cambridge.
White spaces will be used to transmit data on traffic congestion and varying traffic conditions to vehicles.
Microsoft will test how white spaces can provide people with access to free Wi-Fi in Glasgow, which has the lowest level of broadband take-up of all UK cities. It will work with the University of Strathclyde’s Centre for White Space Communications to examine using white spaces to link a network of sensors around Glasgow to create a ‘smart city’.
Steve Unger, Ofcom Chief Technology Officer, said: “Spectrum is the raw material that will underpin the next revolution in wireless communications. In the future it won’t be just mobiles and tablets that are connected to the internet; billions of other things including cars, crops, coffee machines and cardiac monitors will also be connected, using tiny slivers of spectrum to get online.
A full list of participants can be found on the Ofcom website.
