FCC May Miss Key Milestones in White Spaces Proceeding
The FCC is falling behind an aggressive schedule its Office of Engineering and Technology (OET) set last year to complete its white spaces proceeding and open the broadcast spectrum to use by unlicensed devices, sources said. High tech companies including Microsoft, Dell, Hewlett Packard and Intel and trade groups sent the FCC a letter asking it to complete the white spaces proceeding by October, in line with the OET timetable.
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“I haven’t heard anything other than rumors that the commission may or may not delay this,” said Ed Thomas, a former Office of Engineering and Technology chief who represents the high-tech companies. “Our petition is very simple. We want the commission to take as much time as it needs to do a technically valid job. We hope they don’t delay.”
The key date is that products be available in February 2009, Thomas said. “My clients need enough time to bring to market devices in that timeframe,” he said. “A couple of months’ delay right now, though not something we would advocate, we certainly wouldn’t oppose it if it’s something the commission says it needs to do a proper job.”
OET is testing interference to analog and digital TV receivers and wireless microphones from devices operating in former broadcast frequencies. Some aspects of the testing, at its Columbia, Md., lab, are not clear. OET said it would do field tests for interference, but for such hugely complex tests to be statistically accurate requires many thousands of measurements. OET had projected tests would be done this month, but sources say testing is likely to run all summer.
“In the original schedule it was announced that they would release a report [on test results] in July, but now it looks like the end of the summer,” said an attorney for a company opposing use of unlicensed devices in the white spaces spectrum. “I would be surprised if they could get something out in July. The last device that went in didn’t go in that long ago.”
The high-tech letter, sent to FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, asks the FCC to live up to the timeline. “In cities and communities across the country, there is a substantial amount of unused spectrum in the television bands,” the letter said. “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.”
Allowing unlicensed use of the spectrum will spur broadband deployment, the group said. “Access to the TV white spaces can facilitate more affordable and ubiquitous broadband deployment, particularly in rural areas,” the letter said. “There remains a persistent 15 percent gap between broadband penetration rates in rural America and more densely populated cities and suburbs.”