The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) announced today that work has begun on two new heterogeneous wireless network standards that fall under the 1900.4 category that was approved just two months ago.

IEEE 1900.4 is also known as "The Standard for Architectural Building Blocks Enabling Network-Device Distributed Decision-Making for Optimized Radio Resource Usage in Heterogeneous Wireless Access Networks."

Doesn't exactly roll off the tongue, does it?

In other words, this standard is designed for use with devices with several different wireless radios, like most 3G smartphones have. These devices frequently employ 2G, 3G, and Wi-Fi radios, which all utilize different chunks of the radio spectrum. This new standard addresses each of the radios' needs for bandwidth, and lays down the overall architecture that will allow them to simultaneously connect, and be dynamically allotted spectrum, resulting in a composite network.

The first project, 1900.4a, looks to utilizes white space, also known as unused wireless spectrum. Since the available white space differs from country to country, and is essentially an ever-changing context, IEEE is looking create a common system for white space devices to manage whatever available white space they have.

The second project, 1900.4.1, deals with interfaces and access points, to make sure that both the network side and terminal side of the 1900.4 system are interoperable.