White space (telecommunications)
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White space in telecommunications refers to unused frequencies in the radio waves portion of the electromagnetic spectrum.
National and international bodies assign differing frequencies for specific uses, and in some cases license the rights to these. This frequency allocation process creates a bandplan which in some cases for technical reasons assigns white space between used bands to avoid interference. In this case, while the frequencies are unused they have been specifically assigned for a purpose.
As well as this technical assignment, there is also unused spectrum which has either never been used, or is becoming free as a result of technical changes. In particular, the planned switchover to digital television may free up large areas between 54MHz and 698MHz. Various proposals including from the White Spaces Coalition propose to use this to provide broadband Internet access. However, these efforts may impact wireless microphones and other technologies that have historically relied on these frequencies.
