Library TV White Spaces Broadband Trial to Include Rural, Non-Rural Areas

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Participants have been chosen for a trial of TV white spaces equipment for public libraries announced by the Gigabit Libraries Network. The trial, scheduled to get underway soon, is designed to test the practicality of Wi-Fi hotspots that use vacant TV spectrum known as TV white spaces for connectivity to the Internet.

TV white spaces technology is normally viewed as a good solution for rural areas because it has excellent propagation characteristics, thereby supporting connectivity over several miles — even without line of sight. And several of the communities chosen for the trial are in rural areas – including Humboldt County, CA; Delta County, CO; and a statewide collaboration involving the University of New Hampshire’s Broadband Center of Excellence and NH FastRoads.

Perhaps surprisingly, though, one of the communities chosen was Skokie, IL – a Chicago suburb that’s anything but rural. When asked about the selection of this diverse, entrepreneurial and urban community, GLN Coordinator Don Means noted that “Skokie’s primary means of public broadband access is a fiber line split between the library, the park district, and the high school. Demand for bandwidth means this capacity is frequently strained, and network managers have to work to ensure no one organization overuses the resource.” Gaining access to the Super WiFi spectrum, he said, would give the Skokie library “an even greater resource with which [to] serve the community, from the technologically advanced to the underserved, and everyone in between.”


Library TV White Spaces Broadband Trial to Include Rural, Non-Rural Areas Super Wifi Project for Libraries - Humboldt Joins National Effort (Access Humboldt)