NAB Cries To The Court About White Spaces Spectrum Plans

from the same-old-story dept

One of the better decisions to come out of the FCC during Kevin Martin's reign was the decision to free up the "white spaces" spectrum that lies in between TV broadcasts for other uses. The white spaces are unused spectrum that sit in between TV broadcasters' signals. They were important in analog broadcasts to keep stations' signals from interfering with each other, but they are less crucial in digital broadcasts (like the ones the US will eventually switch to). White spaces proponents say that they can effectively be reused by unlicensed devices that can seek out empty spectrum and use it to communicate, without interfering with licensed broadcasts, and the FCC concurred -- and, of course, made that a key part of its approval of the technologies. But as ever, the National Association of Broadcasters disagrees, and has sued to block usage of the white spaces, arguing it will interfere with their members' broadcasts.

We might be more sympathetic to the NAB's claim if it didn't have such a long and glorious history of trying to stifle anything that competes with incumbent broadcasters, and have such an annoying way of doing it. The FCC has put significant stipulations in place to ensure that white space devices don't cause interference, and despite the NAB's contention, the prototypes that failed in the testing process didn't do so. The FCC got it right by approving use of the white spaces with the restrictions and rules it put in place to tame interference; the NAB has once again got it wrong by trying to stifle innovation, and perhaps competition.

Carlo Longino is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Carlo Longino and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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Kevin Martin In Favor Of Freeing Up White Space TV Spectrum

from the good-news dept

While there's been a ton of propaganda from TV broadcasters (and, oddly, wireless microphone vendors) concerning requests from tech companies to make use of the so-called "white space" spectrum that surrounds the spectrum the TV broadcasters use, it appears that FCC boss Kevin Martin is now prepared to support freeing the spectrum for other uses. This isn't all that surprising, given that the FCC has been pushing to free up such spectrum for years, but it is very good news. While there were some early test device failures, the problems were with the devices themselves, not in creating any interference, as the critics claim. This totally unused spectrum could open up all sorts of interesting new wireless technologies that could be tremendously useful in many different ways.

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Invasion Of The TV Snatchers? White Space Devices Will Kill Us All!

from the a-little-over-the-top dept

The debate over white space spectrum has gone on for quite some time. Basically, the FCC handed out a ton of spectrum (for free, mind you) to TV broadcasters years ago. In order to prevent against interference, there's always been a requirement for some "buffer" space. However, as technology has improved, the need for this buffer space has decreased, and plenty of tech companies would be interested in making use of some of that basically unused spectrum by having it set aside as open spectrum. Earlier this year, some of those companies, led by Microsoft and Google, delivered a device to the FCC to test. Unfortunately, the device had some problems. However, the concept is sound -- and with some tweaking, it's quite reasonable that such a device could work without interfering with TV signals. But you wouldn't know that from broadcasters, who love to hoard their spectrum. Matthew Lasar writes in to note that in responding to the device, the broadcasters have gone way over the top in describing the horrible things that will happen if the white space is made available:

"Why would the FCC consider allowing millions and millions of these interference causing devices, like 'germs,' to spread throughout America with the ability to attack the TV receivers in people's homes, apartments, hotel rooms, hospital rooms, dormitories, etc., with no way for the owner of the TV set (the 'victim') to determine who was causing the 'illness' to his or her TV set?"

They also suggest that allowing this white space to be used would "risk the outrage of America's citizenry." Of course, it's important to remember that only a small percentage of TV watchers actually run this risk. The vast majority of TV owners in the US have cable or satellite TV -- meaning that they don't use the over-the-air broadcasts that use the spectrum in question. So, the "outrage" would be limited to the small group of people who still use over-the-air systems to watch broadcast TV and are close enough to a device that uses this white space in the unlikely situation when that device might temporarily interfere with their TV signals. But, apparently, with that tiny probability out there, opening up that white space is like a "germ" that will "attack" people's TVs, raising the "outrage of America's citizenry."

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