A Florida telecommunications company has made plans to test the first commercial use of cognitive radio early next year by providing as many as 8,000 people with 4G wireless broadband in a rural area of northern Florida. Primarily used by the military, cognitive radio automatically detects available channels in the wireless spectrum and alters its transmission or reception parameters accordingly to utilize available spectrum and avoid interference. The company’s experiment is a result of the ongoing issue of increasingly limited available spectrum due to the growth in popularity of smartphones.
The $2.4 million service will send and receive signals over the 902 to 928 megahertz band, primarily utilized by baby monitors, garage-door openers and other short-range devices. Utilizing a technique known as dynamic spectrum access (DSA), the technology divides the band into 18 channels and uses real-time sensing to detect sudden interference by a short-range device. If interference is detected, the technology switches channels within 20 milliseconds to maintain communication.
According to a While House report, coauthored by wireless and telecommunications industry leaders, technologies such as cognitive radio will increasingly be needed and urged the industry to develop intelligent spectrum-sharing technologies. With further research and development, cognitive radio may in the near future be able to make optimal use of any spectrum including AM and FM bands, television, Wi-Fi and cellular frequencies while avoiding interference with other equipment.
