In television broadcasting the very high frequency/ultrahigh frequency bands are either not assigned or not used by existing broadcast. The unused television bands can be utilized for rural broadband Internet for larger distances without carrying interference to existing licensed television bands. The IEEE802.22 Wireless Regional Area Network standard involving devices and databases has been developed to utilize unassigned and unused very high frequency/ultrahigh frequency television bands using cognitive radio technology. Cognitive radio utilizes radio spectrum more efficiently. It senses the environment and configures itself accordingly. The cognitive radio technology is heavily dependent upon software defined radio technology as radio needs to be configurable according to the prevailing radio environment. © 2013 IEEE.