Protocol to query a White Space Database

The data model includes two main objects, the wsQuery and wsResponse objects. Each of these objects contain a list of elements. The elements are further comprised of attributes. The wsQuery object is sent by a WS Master device to a database and the database responds with a wsResponse object. The actual message and header in which this object is carried is not specified here and is expected to be specified elsewhere. Neither does this document specify how the device discovers the database or how the object is transported or secured.

The whitespaceQuery object is a data object carried in a request message that any white space client (e.g. a white space device, software application, coexistence manager, etc.) may use to request information from a white space database, as part of a Rules-compliant data transaction.

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A whitespaceResponse object is a generalized message response structure that any white space administrator (e.g. a white space database implementation) may use to communicate white space information in a Rules-compliant data transaction. The whitespaceResponse object structure is intended to accommodate various responses to information queries from different white space client such as, for example, white space devices (for transmission), management systems (not for transmission) and consumers (not for transmission).

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The whitespaceQuery and whitespaceResponse objects include multiple elements. Some of the elements are common across the query and response objects. The following sections define these elements.

A WSIF station object contains information about the inquiring station including antenna, location, transmitter details, etc.

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Type: Schedule A schedule object is used by white space devices to request temporary spectrum access (i.e. less than 24 hours). The schedule element is intended to enable the recording, persistence and distribution of standardized iCalendar-compatible messages. The format of the Schedule object is defined in .

Type: Channel A list of channels (i.e. frequency ranges) that are occupied by the transmitter(s) at this station.

Type: Contact A list of contacts associated with this station. For example, a facility or on-site technical manager, administrator, and operational contacts may be identified.

This element describes the station's physical and geographic location.

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A description of this station’s (transmit or receive) antenna, including the required antenna parameters like pointing and elevation information plus the radiation pattern.

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Type: Station For wireless services that include multiple stations, and especially for wireless services with multiple TXRX stations, each receiving station may indicate its respective upstream transmitting stations by adding that transmitting station to this receiving stationís rxStationList element. Example uses of this element include Television translator stations, MVPD receive sites, etc.

Type: Transmitter A station may support multiple transmitters operating within the same geographic area and on the same schedule. For example, several wireless microphones may operate simultaneously within the geographic contour defined within this stationís location element. If the stationType attribute indicates this station is receive-only then this element SHOULD be null.

Type: Address This element specifies the civic location of the station. The structure of this element is described in .

Type: Coordinate this element specifies the geolocation of the station. The structure of this element is described in .

Type: RadiationPattern A radiation pattern representing the directional (azimuth) dependence of the strength of the radio signal from the antenna. The radiationPattern represents the directional (azimuth) dependence of the strength of the radio signal from the antenna. A WKT MULTIPOINT SFA Geometry implementation. The azimuthal field values are encoded as a well known text (WKT) MULTIPOINT object with [azimuth, radial value] pairs encoded according to the format POINT(x,y) = POINT(azimuth, field_value).

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The contact represents a generalized container for individual (person) and company (organization) contact information. The structure of this element is defined in .

Type: xs:string A URL-ENCODED string containing key/value pairs that requesting devices may implement and administrators may support at their discretion to provide supplementary information or to otherwise extend this object.

Contains a complete and canonical list of available and valid white space frequencies that is appropriate for the inquiring message's criterion. For white space devices, the whitespaceFrequencyList element represents all channels available for unlicensed operation at the inquiring deviceís location or indicated geographic area and according to the schedule in this element.Contains one or more occurencies of WhiteSpaceFrequency elements.

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A channel describes a fully qualified and canonical frequency range. Channel object definitions support positive definitions of colloquial channel identifiers (e.g. TV channel 24) through identification of the authorizing regulatory definition and the TV channelís frequency range.

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The transmitter object provides an extensible software template to contain and exchange required and optional but otherwise useful transmitter information. A transmitter provides an object template for common device-related attributes and may be optionally used directly or, more likely, may be extended by other, more specific transmitter descriptions that fully describe a certain type wireless device. For this reason all transmitter attributes and elements are defined as optional by default. Attribute and element validity is expected to be defined in transmitter-derived objects. The transmitter is designed to support, through extension, the communication of required and optional but otherwise useful information about licensed and unlicensed wireless devices including transmitters, receivers and transceivers.

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This section defines the attributes which are included in the various elements of the whitespacequery or whitespaceresponse objects. Channel attribute Type: xs: boolean Description: An indicator for whether the radiationPattern element of this object contains interpolated values. Source attribute Type: xs:string Description: The originating source of the data represented in the radiationPattern element. An example value for this attribute is ìus.fcc.cdbsi. Directional attribute Type: xs:boolean Descrition: Indicates whether the antenna is directional (true) or non-directional (false). Rotation attribute Type: xs:float Description: Indicates the offset in degrees azimuth [0, 360] from true North that the antenna radiation pattern should be rotated. HeightAboveGround attribute Type: xs:float Description: The antenna radiation center height above ground level. Manufacturer attribute Type: xs:string Description: The antenna manufacturer x-elevantModel attribute Type: xs:string Description: The digital elevation model used to calculate this antenna objectís HAAT (x-haat) and rcAMSL (x-rcAmsl) values. x-govtAntennaId attribute Type: xs:int Description: A reference to the antenna ID record within FCC CDBS x-haat attribute Type: xs:float Description: The antenna height above average terrain x-rcAmsl attribute Type: xs:float Description: The antenna radiation center above mean sea level Frequency attribute Type: xs:double Description: If a specific frequency has been assigned to this transmitter that information may be recorded here in MHz. If only the channel is provided then the assignedFrequency value is set to the center frequency of this transmitterís channel. deviceID attribute Type: xs:string Description: The transmitter device's Government provided identifier. deviceSn attribute Type: xs:string Description: the transmitting device's manufacturer-provided serial number. ea attribute Type: xs:string Description: The Government equipment authorization agency from which this device is authorized to operate and which issued the device ID. erp attribute Type: xs: float Description: The transmitting deviceís current effective radiated power (ERP), measured in dBw. isDigital attribute Type: xs:boolean Description: Indicates whether this transmitter is sending a digital (TRUE) or analog (FALSE) carrier. manufacturer attribute Type: xs:string Description: the device manufacturer company name Model attribute Type: xs:string Description: the antenna product model allocation attribute Type: xs:string Description:A dot-delimited reverse domain encoded description of the frequency allocation defined according the following strategy: [country].[regulator].[allocation].[band range] For example, the UHF-high block allocation of TV channels 38 to 51 within the United States is identified as “us.fcc.broadcast.614-698”. channel attribute Type: xs:float Description: The colloquial channel number Note: A FLOAT number type is used to accommodate future sub-channelization. For the avoidance of doubt channel numbers ending in zero shall be interpreted to represent a whole channel. i.e. float value channel 38.0 is equivalent to integer-value channel 38. effectiveDate attribute Type: xs:dateTime Description: The date and time when this white space information should be considered effective. The value may be set in the future to accommodate frequencies that may become available at a later date or time. expirationDate attribute Type: xs:dateTime Description: The date and time when this white space information expires. locationType attribute Type: xs:string Description: A descriptor string used to classify and organize locations. If the location is derived from another database source, this attribute is a dot-delimited string used to identify this location type and its source. An example value for this attribute is “us.fcc.cdbs.stationClass.CDT”. maxEIRP attribute Type: xs:float Description: The maximum allowable equivalent isotripically radiated power (EIRP) that a white space device may transmit on the indicated channel. Provided in dBW. maxFreq attribute Type: xs:double Description: The maximum (or end) frequency of the indicated channel in MHz. messageType attribute Type: xs:string Description: An enumerated message type. Allowed message types are: Message code: ws.messageType.TVBD.QUERY Description: The message is a certified client-initiated query for white space frequency information for the purposes of transmission. Examples of certified clients include FCC-certified white space devices and other devices authorized to operate within the band (e.g. wireless microphones, medical telemetry, PLMRS systems, etc.) Message code: ws.messageType.TVBD.RESPONSE Description: The message is a response to a TVBD.QUERY request for information. Message code: ws.messageType.INFORMATION.QUERY Description: The message is a non-certified client-initiated query for general (possibly white-space) frequency information NOT for the purposes of transmission. Examples of non-certified clients include network management and planning systems, client software applications, etc. Message code: ws.messageType.INFORMATION.RESPONSE Description: The message is a response to an INFORMATION.QUERY request for information. minFreq attribute Type: xs:double Description: The minimum (or start) frequency of the indicated channel in MHz. name attribute Type: xs:string Description: A human readable name or label that may be used to identify a location or station. A useful hint is to use a memorable place name as might be represented on a map (e.g. “Empire State Building”). For licensed wireless services it is recommended to use the facility call sign. For unlicensed wireless services it is recommended to use the venue name. protocolVersion attribute Type: xs:float Description: The message protocol version. stationClass attribute Type: xs:string Description: Indicates the station classification. Classification may be used to determine whether and how many elements of this station are required for validation. Allowed values are: TX. This is a transmitting station and a transmitter is required in the transmitterList element RX. This is a receive-only station and a transmitter element is NOT required TXRX. This station is able to both transmit and receive and a transmitter is required in the transmitterList element. stationType attribute Type: xs:string Description: A description of this station's operation. statusIndicator attribute Type: xs:int Description: The number of available white space channels included in the message. A negative value indicates that an error condition has occured. timeStamp attribute Type: xs:dateTime Description: When the message was created. uuid attribute Type: xs:string Description (for use in Location):A universally unique identifier (UUID) associated with and permanently assigned to this location. Description (for use in Station):A universally unique identifier (UUID) associated with and permanently assigned to this station. Description (for use in whitespaceFrequency): A universally unique idenfifier (UUID) assigned by an Administrator that is associated with this freuquency Description (for use in whitespaceQuery): A universally unique identifier (UUID) created by the inquiring agent (i.e. a TV band device, user software, etc.) and associated with this whitespace query message. This uuid may be used to correlate a whitespaceResponse message with this whitespaceQuery and to simplify logging and archival. Description (for use in whitespaceResponse): A universally unique identifier (UUID), set to match the client's whitespaceQuery.uuid attribute and to simplify logging and arhival. x-geocode attribute Type: xs:string Description: An enumerated value indicating whether any one of this location object's components have been calculated according to another of this location object's set parameters. Allowed values are: NO (xs:string) (DEFAULT). The coordinate, address and geometry elements of this location are not correlated. GC (xs:string). The coordinate.[longitude, latitude] and geometry.point values have been calculated and set according to a Geo-coding algorithm from the address. RG (xs:string). The address has been calculated and set according to a Reverse Geo-coding algorithm from the coordinate.[longitude, latitude] value. x-haat attribute Type: xs:float Description: The ground height above average terrain value at this location’s coordinates, calculated according to the methodology described in 47 CFR 73.684(d). The elevation model used in the calculation of this location attribute is recorded in the coordinate.x-elevationModel attribute. This value is used to support TVBD transmit antenna compliance with 15.709(b)(2), which states that the ground level HAAT must be below 76 meters. x-timeZone attribute Type: xs:string Description: The local time zone at this location. Two interchangeable formats are supported, with the zoneinfo format preferred: The zoneinfo database format (e.g. “America/New_York”) An offset to Coordinated Universal Time (e.g. “UTC-05:00” or “UTC-5” Note: Three-character notation (e.g. “EDT”) is not supported.