IEEE Working Group Approves New TV White Spaces Standard

The IEEE 802.22 Working Group on Wireless Regional Area Networks said it approved IEEE 802.22b-2015, designed to support point-to-multipoint wireless broadband operation in the VHF and UHF TV bands. “The standard is intended to support wireless broadband services and monitoring applications for the world’s traditionally underserved rural areas, where most empty TV channels can be found and where Internet access services are often scarce,” the group said. “IEEE 802.22b-2015 is designed to double the throughput of devices based on the original IEEE 802.22 standard,” said Chang-woo Pyo, chair of the task force that created IEEE 802.22b. It will enable more capacity for machine-to-machine communications and the IoT, he said.