The debate whether to unleash a potentially huge amount of vacant broadcast spectrum-called white spaces-for Wi-Fi and other low-power wireless applications has reached a critical juncture, with federal regulators set to conduct another round of testing on a new group of devices to see if they can avoid interference with digital TV signals.
Google Inc., which plans to bid in the upcoming 700 MHz auction and a member of the alliance developing an open-phone platform, provided the Federal Communications Commission results of internal testing that the Internet search-engine giant said proves its white-spaces technologies work without disruption to DTV signals and wireless microphones. Also this month, Philips Electronics-whose white spaces “sense-and-avoid” gear passed muster in previous government testing-gave FCC engineers an updated version of the device. Adaptrum Inc., a startup founded by Robert Broderson, an engineering professor at the University of California at Berkeley and co-founder of Atheros Communications Inc., also dropped off a smart white spaces device for testing at FCC labs in Columbia, Md. Adaptrum’s technology uses the entire 6 megahertz of the DTV signal and contains a time domain matched filter, a technique designed to permit greater sensitivity than pilot tone detectors. Microsoft Corp. is ready to deliver a new device for technical analysis by the government.
Microsoft previously had a white-spaces device fail in FCC testing, which Microsoft said was due to defective equipment. Motorola Inc. last month presented the FCC with a white spaces unit that combines geolocation database and sensing technologies.
Write the rules, already
White-spaces proponents say they expect the delivery of additional white-spaces prototypes and resubmission of others for testing to put an end to the interference imbroglio so that FCC rules can be written and a new wave of wireless applications can reach the mass market. FCC Chairman Kevin Martin told Congress earlier this year that allocating white spaces spectrum on an unlicensed basis is probably most practical.
“We have not announced details of [the next round of] testing, but we have said testing will be open to the public,” said Clyde Ensslin, an FCC spokesman.
Indications are that new testing will not begin until early next year.
A new group, the Wireless Innovation Alliance, last week kicked off a campaign to keep pressure on the FCC to complete testing and move forward with technical guidelines.
“We are living through a critical juncture in communications history-a moment when technological innovation has the opportunity to dramatically improve our access to information and quality of life,” said Michael Calabrese, VP of the New America Foundation and director of its Wireless Future Program. “Much as telephones, radios, and TVs revolutionized telecommunications in previous generations, white-space devices will transform every aspect of civil society. White-space devices provide an innovative platform for a new generation of technologies, services, and applications-they are the building blocks of a 21st century communications infrastructure.”
Interference still an issue
Six House members wrote FCC Chairman Kevin Martin last week to urge a prompt resolution of technical issues and a final decision in the next few months. But a considerable number of lawmakers have expressed concerns about white-space device interference to digital TVs. The broadcasting industry’s transition from analog to digital technology-a changeover costing billions of private-sector and taxpayer dollars-is due to be completed in February 2009.
“It is unfortunate that Microsoft and Google continue to try to muscle their way through Washington in support of a technology that simply does not work,” said Dennis Wharton, executive VP of the National Association of Broadcasters. “For decades, local and network television broadcasters have provided reliable and interference-free reception for entertainment, sports, breaking news, and lifesaving weather warnings. By playing Russian Roulette with digital television, Microsoft and Google would completely undermine the historic public-private DTV partnership that broadcasters embraced to ensure America’s ongoing leadership in innovation.”
Opening up TV white spaces would give high-tech firms a fresh opportunity to sell large volumes of Wi-Fi chips to device makers, which could then bring new valued-added wireless gear to consumer and enterprise markets.
In addition to the growing list of white-spaces devices in the queue for FCC testing, advocates of exploiting vacant TV spectrum-approximately 15 to 40 channels in the 210 TV markets after the digital transition ends in early 2009-say their confidence of success is also bolstered by development of signal-sensing Wi-Fi technology capable of dodging military use in a huge block of 5 GHz spectrum.
“Coalition members, and others, have now given the FCC additional prototype white-space devices for testing. We hope-and expect-that the FCC’s Office of Engineering and Technology will soon test those devices and use the results promptly to recommend to the commission technical rules for the operation white space devices,” said Scott Blake Harris, an attorney for the White Spaces Coalition.
The membership of the White Spaces Coalition overlaps somewhat with that of the Wireless Innovation Alliance.
