Super Wi-Fi on TV White Spaces Likely Years Away, Knapp Says
Use of the TV white spaces for mobile broadband likely won’t start anytime soon, FCC Office of Engineering and Technology Chief Julius Knapp said Thursday of the technology that’s been likened to “super Wi-Fi.” Commissioner Robert McDowell, the agency’s senior Republican member, warned that delays could be even longer, given continuing questions about changes to the TV band. “We expect that we're probably still a couple of years away from seeing white space technology in portable devices because the technical challenges there are greater,” Knapp said. The first uses are likely to be fixed, such as broadband to schools, machine-to-machine communications and by local governments, he said. Knapp cited the recently unveiled AIR.U consortium. It plans to use the TV white spaces to provide broadband at colleges in small towns and rural areas (CD June 27 p4).
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The technology developed for the TV white spaces likely will likely have much broader use, Knapp said, for example in the 1755-1850 MHz band, where the government and industry are exploring the use of “dynamic” sharing between government and commercial users. He disclosed that wireless carriers, equipment makers and NTIA and FCC staff were meeting at Idaho National Labs Thursday “to examine whether that might be a suitable place” for spectrum sharing tests.
Knapp highlighted the progress the FCC has made working with industry in the last few years, toward use of the white spaces. “The U.S. leads the world in white spaces technology,” he said. “We've adopted final rules. We've approved the first devices. We've approved the first database managers. We've approved initial tests under experimental licenses. We've approved the first commercial deployments.” The last step is a process for registering wireless microphones, Knapp said. “We're close to completing the final step.” Trials and demonstrations have taken place of white spaces technology across the world, he said: Many of the companies active in the white spaces so far say “they certainly are interested in the white spaces model for the TV bands, but they see a great deal of promise in expanding this model, whether it be licensed or unlicensed, to other spectrum.”
McDowell said he’s pushed for the use of the TV white spaces since he became a commissioner six years ago, and FCC work had gotten underway four years before that. Rollout of mobile devices in the white spaces is “at least” several years away given the reshuffling of the TV band tied to the upcoming incentive auction of broadcast spectrum, he said. “It’s hard for chip designers to design those chips right now.”
"It looks like we're at a point where we have little or no federal spectrum going to auction in the near term,” McDowell said. “The incentive auctions, as we implement that law, that'll take some time. In the meantime it’s very appropriate for us to talk about imaginative ways to squeeze more efficient out of the airwaves.” McDowell said the U.S. had hit a cul-de-sac rather than a dead end in getting more spectrum online for broadband since “we'll be able to find our way out at some point."
"All of this is great news for those Americans who live in sparsely populated rural communities and low-income urban areas,” Commissioner Mignon Clyburn said of the report. “To date, licensed communications companies, have not developed profitable business plans to serve these areas, so the successful development of TV white space databases and devices, gives us hope that these underserved communities, will be moving closer to enjoying the affordable advanced communications services, that the vast majority of Americans, already enjoy.”