Unlicensed Use of White Spaces Already Settled, MAP Says
The FCC should change its stance and declare that when TV “white spaces” are available, they will be offered for purely unlicensed use and not sold in a Commission spectrum auction, the Media Access Project, New America Foundation and allies said. The Champaign Urbana Wireless Network also joined a petition for reconsideration filed at the FCC.
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“The Commission provides no justification for reopening the question on whether to authorize these devices on a licensed or unlicensed basis,” the groups said. “The Commission had considered this very issue twice previously to its issuing of the first NPRM… and concluded that authorizing such devices on an unlicensed basis would best serve the public interest.” They decried as “arbitrary” the FCC’s unexplained “about face.”
Comrs. Adelstein and Copps asked why the notice didn’t conclude tentatively that the spectrum should be set aside for unlicensed use (CD Oct 13 p2), as urged by Intel, Microsoft, HP, Dell and other major high-tech companies.
Contrary to FCC claims, there’s a long record to support an order that the spectrum be set aside for unlicensed use, beginning with a 2002 notice of inquiry, the petition said. “As if struck by some form of institutional amnesia, the Commission proceeds to discuss the relative benefits of licensed vs. unlicensed operation as it did in the 2002 NOI,” the groups said: “The discussion of the comments favoring unlicensed operation and favoring licensed operation will read, to quote Yogi Berra, ‘like deja vu all over again.'”
“There is a great deal of interest in this from the technology industry and from the consumer electronics industry,” Harold Feld, senior vp at the Media Access Project, told us: “Really, the only ones [who favor licensed use] are the broadcasters and the wireless microphone folks, and also CTIA, which feels this is just the nose under the tent.”
David Donovan, pres. of MSTV, disputed the arguments made in the petition. “The issue was always open,” Donovan said. “They had tentative conclusions but they never decided that unlicensed would be the exclusive use on this band. Secondly, it sort of makes sense to at least have a debate and discussion about this before you give billions of dollars of spectrum away to Microsoft, Intel and Dell.”