Broadcast/broadband convergence network

A base station for operation as part of a wireless broadband network, enabling dynamic aggregation of spectrum resources, the base station comprising:

• circuitry configured to wirelessly transmit a downlink signal to one or more devices using aggregated spectrum resources including a portion of broadband spectrum and a contiguous portion of broadcast spectrum;
• wherein the contiguous portion of broadcast spectrum has been made available by one or more broadcast networks and dynamically assigned to the wireless broadband network by a spectrum server in response to a query of a broadcast exchange server representing the one or more broadcast networks by the spectrum server and based on information that is indicative of available broadcast spectrum received from the broadcast exchange server,
• wherein, for each of a plurality of frequency bands in a regulatory domain, the information indicates available or non-available status of each channel in a set of channels corresponding to the frequency band,
• wherein the contiguous portion has been assigned by the spectrum server from a contiguous band, which has been formed, by the spectrum server, from a contiguous group of channels of available status,
• wherein the contiguous portion of the contiguous band is specified by the spectrum server as an interval of resource block numbers according to a partition of the contiguous band into resource blocks of fixed width;
• wherein the resource block numbers are consecutively numbered, in order of frequency,
• wherein the circuitry is configured to receive a message from the spectrum server, wherein the message identifies the interval by its endpoints, wherein the message also indicates a period of time that said contiguous portion is assigned.

A device enabling dynamic aggregation of spectrum resources, the device comprising:

• circuitry configured to wirelessly communicate with one or more base stations associated with a wireless broadband network, wherein said communication includes receiving a downlink signal transmitted by a first of the one or more base stations, wherein the downlink signal uses aggregated spectrum resources including a contiguous portion of broadcast spectrum,
• wherein the contiguous portion of broadcast spectrum has been made available by one or more broadcast networks and dynamically assigned to the wireless broadband network by a spectrum server in response to a query of a broadcast exchange server representing the one or more broadcast networks by the spectrum server and based on information that is indicative of available broadcast spectrum received from the broadcast exchange server,
• wherein, for each of a plurality of frequency bands in a regulatory domain, the information indicates available or non-available status of each channel in a set of channels corresponding to the frequency band,
• wherein the contiguous portion has been assigned by the spectrum server from a contiguous band, which has been formed, by the spectrum server, from a contiguous group of channels of available status,
• wherein the contiguous portion of the contiguous band is specified by the spectrum server as an interval of resource block numbers according to a partition of the contiguous band into resource blocks of fixed width,
• wherein the resource block numbers are consecutively numbered, in order of frequency,
• wherein the interval is identified by its endpoints.