TVWS opportunities and regulation:Empowering rural India

700MHz band attracted many researchers and stakeholders for mobile communications by providing a rare opportunity to have cost effective wireless solutions due to its excellent propagation characteristics compared to GSM 1800 MHz, 2.1 GHz or 2.5 GHz bands for 3G/BWA. In India, 698-806 MHz more specific 700MHz band mainly used by TV broadcast services. We discuss the scope and nature of opportunities for white space created by Digital Dividend (700 MHz band) in India especially to rural India by providing wireless broadband for the applications like e-education, e-agriculture, e-animal husbandry and e-health which would help in decreasing primary school drop-out rate, in decreasing farmer suicides rate and in decreasing mortality rate. Further use cases for the exploitation of TV White Space suitable for rural India are discussed based on user's and BS geo-location and user's mobility; which is followed by an overview of recent regulatory activities