White space device emission limits in alternative DTT planning strategies

This paper deals with the co-existence of terrestrial digital television (DTT) networks and White Space Devices (WSD) on the same frequency band, assisted by a geolocation database. The database evaluates and provides to the WSD the local emission power. The common approach adopted in Europe to estimate such limits is expanded to the case of Single-Frequency-Network (SFN) planning of DTT networks. Also, the criterion for setting the allowable DTT quality degradation is discussed and a novel approach is proposed, based on local DTT quality. The complete procedure to evaluate WSD emission limits is applied to a real Italian DTT scenario. We compare different DTT planning strategies over the same set of transmitters and the same area, from the point of view of potential WSD presence. This comparison highlights the advantage of SFN planning both in terms of DTT coverage and allowed WSD emissions.