{mosimage}“Concerns linger over interference; FCC to sketch out rules in September. The battle over “white spaces” has begun.”
Washington — Google has now become a champion in lobbying the FCC. Ever since organizing an alliance to promote open networks to the US Federal Communications Commission; Google Inc. on Monday launched a public-interest campaign called Free the Airwaves to spur lobbying by the public for unlicensed spectrum in so-called “white spaces” to provide faster, cheaper wireless Internet connectivity nationwide.Of course, there is also Google’s own interest. Anything Internet is inevitably linked to Google and will build up the search kings revenues. Google’s Free the Airwaves joins with other consumer efforts, like the White Space Coalition, to lobby the FCC for white-space access.
Google and other technology giants such as Intel, Microsoft and Motorola have been soliciting the FCC for months to open up what is known as “white space” spectrum for unlicensed use after the digital TV transition early next year. These slivers of spectrum that sit between TV channels as buffers to ensure that TV channels do not interfere with each could be used to provide broadband wireless services.
But broadcasters argue that using these channels will cause interference with their broadcast signals and cause major issues for people watching TV.
“Microsoft’s applications fail all the time,” said Dennis Wharton, a spokesman for the National Association of Broadcasters. “But for us our signals need to get to our audience, so it is a different world. And it is not acceptable for there to be any interference.”
The debate is becoming heated up as the FCC finishes field tests of proof-of-concept devices used to detect and avoid spectrum already in use. Google executives and community activists said the online campaign is designed to enlist consumers in what has been a largely technical debate, with billions of dollars at stake, over how to use valuable chunks of “white spaces” on the spectrum when TV broadcasting shifts entirely over to digital in February.
White spaces are the static between channels. According to Google’s new Web site pushing the Free the Airwaves initiative, more than three-quarters of those airwaves are not being used. Google cofounder Larry Page has described the potential as “Wi-Fi on steroids.”
“This vast public resource could offer a revolution in wireless services of all kinds, including universal wireless Internet,” the Free the Airwaves site proclaims. It adds that the FCC will soon make a decision about whether this unused spectrum should be made available for public use, and asks visitors to sign its petition and “spread the word.”
The goal of this new Web site is to assist the U.S. public in better understanding the issues, said Minnie Ingersoll a product manager with Google’s alternative access team. “Now is an important time for people who care about the future of the Internet to make their voices heard,” she said. Most U.S. residents are “unfamiliar” with the white spaces debate before the FCC, she added.
Google and tech groups representing underserved regions such as rural native tribal areas in Southern California and the rural areas of western North Carolina support the effort. But, broadcasters oppose the plans by Google and other tech companies such as Microsoft, Motorola and Hewlett-Packard, arguing that unlicensed use would interfere with their signals, distort TV pictures for millions of viewers, and give tech giants free use of the spectrum.
The battle between the two heavyweight industries is shaping up as a classic Washington struggle over future regulation. The lobbying effort will be directed at the Federal Communications Commission, which is expected to draft rules in September regarding uses for part of the 700-MHz spectrum known as white space, or unused spectrum between existing TV channels. The amount of unused spectrum in the 700-MHz band will increase greatly next February when TV stations fully convert to digital signals from analog.
The amount of available spectrum varies from city to city but is in the “hundreds of megahertz, a huge amount,” Ingersoll said.
The campaign’s Web site, freetheairwaves.com, allows users to submit their own YouTube videos and asks them to sign a petition to go to the FCC and members of Congress. Richard Whitt, Google’s Washington counsel and a telecommunications expert, said congressional leaders “are fully aware of our position” and that “Free the Airwaves” would try to counter the lobbying power of broadcasters.
Whitt noted “there is some disparity” between the influence of broadcasters and newer Washington players such as Google, “but average consumers can help balance that.”
Supporters of utilizing the white spaces argue that services not offered today, such as universal wireless online access, could be provided. The Free the Airwaves consumer effort is now allied in the same cause as the White Space Coalition, an industry group whose members include Google, Microsoft, Dell, HP, Intel, Philips, EarthLink, Samsung and others.
But even if the FCC is to allow the use of white spaces, Google and others are concerned that the FCC might succumb to pressure from the broadcasting industry to put onerous rules on the spectrum that will make it virtually useless. Some critics say that the FCC’s rules on low-power FM devices and ultra wide band devices have restricted them so much they can barely be used.
“When you look at low power FM or ultra-wide band rules, the technology has great promise but the Commission adopted rules that constrained it to the detriment of consumers,” Whitt said. “So of course there are concerns that the rules could be too limiting.”
The NAB says it only trying to protect the TV viewing public.
“NAB supports new technology and ending the digital divide,” Wharton said. “What we cannot support is a multibillion-dollar spectrum giveaway to Google and Microsoft that threatens interference-free television.”
The coalition has developed a device that, with “smart” reception that intelligently separates received signals, can utilize white spaces for such goals as 80Mbps download speeds to homes.
Such access could also dramatically affect broadband access in rural and smaller markets. Opponents, such as the TV industry’s Association for Maximum Service Television, say that utilizing white spaces will interfere with transmissions by licensees of the channels.
Whitt was also sensitive to any notion that Google was creating a “grass-roots” campaign that was really an “Astroturf” effort — a Washington term for a corporate creation disguised as a consumer-generated effort.
“This is an open platform for people to make their voices heard, and the FCC has shown they will take note of that,” Whitt said.
That said; Google and the rest of the technology companies pushing for the freeing of white spaces have their own motivations and interests to consider. The more wireless spectrum and broadband services available, the more Google can make from advertising. The company has not denied this. Intel, Microsoft, and Motorola would also benefit as they can each sell more products and services to consumers who use this unlicensed spectrum.
The FCC is conducting a series of tests on unlicensed device applications and whether they will interfere with television and wireless microphones. Broadcasters claim the tests so far show the devices are failing, while Motorola executives said this month that their devices performed well. The FCC plans to issue a report on the testing later this year.
During a Google press conference Monday, two men representing rural areas called on the FCC to approve the white spaces devices, saying large broadband providers have ignored their residents. Native Americans in Southern California do not have the same access to broadband as neighboring communities, said Matthew Rantanen, director of technology for Tribal Digital Village, based in San Diego.
“There is a serious broadband problem in rural America,” added Wally Bowen, executive director of the nonprofit Mountain Area Information Network, based in Asheville, North Carolina.
Bowen said rural areas are often ignored by traditional broadband providers. “Unlicensed spectrum access is the only way for us to stay in the game,” Bowen said, referring to the needs of western counties in North Carolina, where some residents must access the Internet via long-distance phone lines.