Broad Group Supports Opening White Spaces to Unlicensed Use
A broad group of 29 executives at high-tech companies and public interest groups sent all members of Congress a letter asking for their support in opening broadcast “white spaces” for use in offering wireless broadband. Signers included companies like Dell, Hewlett-Packard and Intel, and public interest groups from the New America Foundation to the Consumer Federation of America. Supporters said they wanted to make clear to Congress before their upcoming recess the extent of support for opening white spaces.
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“A number of people outside the white spaces coalition are supportive of this issue and wanted to assist in helping to raise awareness and keep the process moving forward,” one official said: “Since congress will be going on recess for the July 4th holiday in a week, we wanted to get this out.” A 2nd source said that with the FCC’s Office of Engineering and Technology testing devices designed to operate in the band, supporters want to keep pressure on the FCC to act as soon as OET’s work is complete.
“Properly regulated unlicensed use will cause no harmful interference to incumbent licensed services,” the letter said. “Your support will promote greater broadband connectivity and foster the development of innovative new wireless devices and technologies for all Americans.” The letter argues that across the U.S. there is substantial broadcast spectrum that is going unused.
“Allocating the TV white spaces for unlicensed use will stimulate the development of innovative devices, enable more economical broadband deployment in rural and other underserved areas, and ensure the efficient utilization of unused ‘beach front’ spectrum below 1 GHz,” the letter said: “Because of its superb propagation characteristics, the TV white spaces can be used more effectively than any other available unlicensed spectrum to: distribute multimedia content wirelessly through homes, schools and businesses; create wireless self-forming broadband mesh networks; and enable the cost effective deployment of broadband in rural areas by WISPs, rural phone companies, community WiFi networks, and other service providers.”
Last fall, OET set an aggressive timetable for opening the white spaces, culminating in the likely sale of the first devices in 2009. But parties opposed to the high tech group also have been active at the FCC. In a meeting last week, Shure officials warned of dangers to wireless microphones and similar devices. The company said 6 channels should be set aside in which unlicensed devices can’t be used.