SWOT analysis for TV white spaces

The digital dividend will occur when the transition from analogue to digital television (TV) becomes effective. The freed and interleaved spectrum, known as TV white spaces (TVWS), may be a good opportunity for business related with new wireless services based on software‐defined radio (SDR) and cognitive radio (CR) technologies. In this scope, the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) analysis—which is a tool to help in the identification of inner (internal origin) and outer (external origin) factors of a company, service or product, which characterise its position in the market—is considered a useful tool to evaluate the chances of success for this new spectrum usage paradigm. In this work, we present a suitable SWOT analysis for the use of TV white spaces considering three different reference scenarios in the European context: spectrum of commons, secondary spectrum market and prioritised services (public safety).Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. The global move towards digital television (TV) and the consequent TV white spaces (TVWS) appearance, when properly used, may bring many benefits to society and national economies. In this paper, we provide a suitable strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) analysis for a new model in the use of TVWS that fulfils various spectrum demands/needs. The SWOT analysis has proved to be a valuable tool, allowing us to extract the main directions to achieve a more friendly spectrum market place.