Washington — Despite its criticism of NAB’s amidst growing opposition, Google co-founder Larry Page intensified its campaign to make “white spaces” spectrum available for use by a new generation of mobile phones and other wireless devices to operate on soon-to-be-vacant television airwaves in a visit to Washington lawmakers on Thursday.
Google’s spectrum battle did not end with the recent auction. The company was successful in lobbying the FCC to incorporate openness provisions for the c-block in the recently concluded 700-MHz spectrum auction.
Page visited the Federal Communications Commission and Congress during last week, meeting with FCC officials and members of Congress, including John Dingell, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, hoping to convince them to allow the “white space” between television channels to be accessed by low-power wireless devices.
“Page perceives slivers of unexploited wireless spectrum filling a role similar to Wi-Fi — free and available widely across the United States.”
Addressing the progressive D.C. think tank the New America Foundation, Page laid out the case for making the unused portions of the television spectrum — the so-called “white spaces” — available for wireless broadband networks.
“This has positively been a desire of mine and something I think is really important,” Page said. “With white spaces you really have an opportunity to build something that is distributed, like the Internet.”
“I think it will make a massive difference to everybody,” Page said during a morning appearance at a Washington think tank.
Page emphasized the benefits of making more ‘spectrum’ available, while minimizing opposition from broadcasters, and makers and users of wireless microphones, who fear the wireless devices would cause interference.
“I think the debate’s really been politicized,” Page said.
Richard Whitt, Google’s Washington Telecom and Media Counsel compared using white space as “Wi-fi on steroids,” according to his blog posting on Google’s Public Policy blog. “That is one of the countless possible uses for the wireless spectrum that is now lying unused between TV channels,” wrote Whitt.
White space is anticipated to be freed up next year when television will be broadcasted from digital signals rather than analog.
This vacant spectrum, known as white spaces, is offered to broadcasters to create interference buffer zones. Google, Microsoft and other tech companies want the spectrum to deliver broadband and other advanced wireless services, setting up a war of words and intensive lobbying on Capitol Hill.
The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) is unwavering in its opposition to the operation of unlicensed devices in the buffer zones. The FCC is currently testing white spaces devices and is expected to issue a decision later in 2008.
“This is a gigantic opportunity to get connectivity to the American people, particularly in rural areas,” Page said in a morning appearance at a think tank here.
Page alleged that the broadcasters are not “dealing with reality” by creating a “fiction” about interference. “Simply because they say it, it does not make it so,” he said. Page also acknowledges that Google stands to gain if the FCC approves the use of white spaces.
“If we have 10 percent improved connectivity in the U.S., we get 10 percent more income in the U.S., and those are big numbers for us,” Page said. “I am totally confident that if we have rules that say you can use the spectrum under conditions that you cause no interference, that those devices will get produced.”
The final outcome, Page said, would be that “hundreds of millions of dollars will be invested in making those devices non-interfering.”
The important issues are whether the slivers of unused spectrum will cause interference with other spectrum and whether white spaces could be auctioned.
“Given the various device malfunction that have resulted during FCC testing it seems a little disingenuous for Page to simply dismiss the interference concerns that have been raised,” NAB Vice President Dennis Wharton said in a statement. Wharton added it would be “unwise and unwarranted” to operate “unproven technology” in the white spaces zones.
“The question is why Google care about helping more people gets access to the Web, whether it is through enhanced wi-fi or other means?” wrote Whitt. “As Larry put it, Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information — but if no one has access to the Internet, what good is that effort? That is one of the big reasons Google has become steadily more engaged in spectrum policy debates in Washington.”
“Now a big question is — will the FCC endorse the use of white spaces for free?” asked spectrum expert Joe Nordgaard. “The government just auctioned off the 700-MHz spectrum for $19 billion, so it may not be so easy to ask for free spectrum.”
Besides releasing up the white spaces, Google has been asking regulators to ensure that Verizon adheres to the open-access requirements that came with the spectrum it won at auction, and pushing for government action to block Internet service providers from slowing or degrading certain traffic on their networks — the issue known as Net neutrality.
“In that stratum, Google has invested $500 million in the joint venture between Clearwire and Sprint to form a nationwide WiMax network.”