Five weird ways to bridge the digital divide

White spaces

White spaces may not sound like much but in truth they are terribly useful. Radio spectrum makes use of them to break up transmissions so neighbouring bands do not interfere with each other - meaning we can all get on with watching EastEnders in peace. But a US alliance of tech companies, which includes Google and Microsoft, is eyeing them up with a view to something a little more colourful.

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The Wireless Innovation Alliance (WIA) - sometimes also referred to as the White Spaces Coalition - is hoping to make use of the white spaces in analogue TV spectrum to beam broadband into people's homes.

The group's view is that this spectrum is dramatically underutilised and has the potential to get high speed internet services into any home that has access to TV. "Harnessing the unused White Space holds the promise to extend affordable high-speed internet access to all Americans, improve communication for emergency first responders, and empower tomorrow's innovators," it enthuses on its website.

The problem, however, is the tech must meet high standards of interference protection - broadband that plays havoc with TV signals is not going to be popular anytime soon - so the WIA is busy developing prototype 'white-space-friendly' devices for testing by the Federal Communications Commission.

But it's not the only organisation to have an eye on the potential of unused bits of spectrum. UK telecoms regulator Ofcom recently said it is proposing to allow a wireless tech known as cognitive radio to use interleaved spectrum (aka white spaces), part of the upcoming digital dividend spectrum windfall.

Cognitive radios are devices which are able to share spectrum with other services as they can detect when it is not being used and change transmission/reception path to avoid interference.

So this potential broadband delivery method is awaiting a smart enough chunk of hardware to get it off the ground.