Google Pitching FCC to Open White Spaces to Wireless Broadband
In a campaign launched Monday, complete with YouTube testimonials, Google argued to open the TV white spaces to unlicensed mobile units accessing the Internet. Google officials and others hope FreeTheAirwaves.com, a campaign aimed at generating mass support for the position, will remind the FCC that the issue is important to middle America, they told reporters.
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The FCC Office of Engineering and Technology recently ended what is expected to be the last of a series of field tests of white spaces prototypes. OET next is to analyze the test data in a report to the agency. The timing of any decision remains murky, though it’s expected to come under FCC Chairman Kevin Martin.
“Until now, the debate has been largely confined to the Beltway crowd,” said Minnie Ingersoll of Google’s Alternative Access Team. “Most people simply don’t think about wireless spectrum very often. But you do don’t need to be a telecommunications expert to understand that these unused airwaves could be used to blanket the country with high-speed Internet access.”
Google has business reasons to want to open the white spaces, Ingersoll said. “More people on the Internet means more people using Google,” she said. “We also believe that increasing access to the Internet will be good for society in general.” She said the campaign is specifically aimed at countering “misinformation being spread in D.C.” by the NAB.
The white spaces debate must move beyond a “chess game” at the FCC, said Wally Bowen, executive director of Mountain Area Information Network, Asheville, N.C. “We're hearing from more and more people who cannot access essential services like online medical platforms because they have no access to broadband Internet,” he said. “There’s a serious rural broadband problem in America. If we're going to solve this problem we need access to the unused TV channels.”
NAB could launch its own grassroots effort against opening the white spaces, Rick Whitt, Google Washington counsel for wireless, said. “Obviously, any interested party can adopt a similar outreach effort, based on their own view of the issues,” he said. “However we believe strongly in the promise of this technology, and remain confident that the pro-white spaces perspective ultimately will win out in the marketplace of ideas.”
Google’s campaign “cannot mask the fact that prototype white space devices tested by the FCC have consistently failed” OET tests, the NAB said. Google and other high tech companies dispute that analysis. “NAB supports new technology and ending the digital divide,” they said. “What we can’t support is a multi-billion-dollar spectrum giveaway to Google and Microsoft that threatens interference-free television.”