FCC Still Has Work to Do on TV White Spaces Rules, FCBA Told
Google and Dell officials told an FCBA wireless committee lunch Thursday that several issues still need to be worked out before the first devices using white spaces will be ready to hit the market. An international standard still must be developed and no decision has been made on whether it will be built from the ground up based on standards in place for Wi-Fi. The FCC still must finalize its rules. Both agree 2010 will be a key year for getting white spaces technology in stores.
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“I think we had hoped initially we could start seeing devices come out as early as this year,” said Rick Whitt, Washington telecom and media counsel at Google. “I don’t know if that’s very optimistic or not, depending on some of these unknowns on the regulatory side and obviously the economic climate. Certainly we're hoping that by 2010 we'll see a number of manufactured devices and folks constructing networks to accommodate them.”
Whitt said the white spaces order approved by the FCC in October is “not the end of the story” and the commission must make several decisions. “We have a number of things outstanding including a public notice expected in the next weeks on the geo-location database,” he said. The FCC also has left open the question of whether to allow higher power levels for use of spectrum adjacent to TV channels in some cases. The FCC sought further comment on the issue but did not make a final decision.
“As soon as we get everything done on the standards side and so forth… what we're looking at is 2010,” said Kerry Murray, senior counsel at Dell. “I think it is realistic.” Dell can work on the technology and devices even as it waits for a standard and the FCC to wrap up rules, she said: “We can draw up our plans.”
Under Dell’s vision for the white spaces, people would have combination white spaces-Wi-Fi routers in their homes. The router would communicate with a host of other devices containing white spaces chips, including TVs, computers and MP3 players. Murray said the white spaces would allow a user to synch devices quickly or stream music, video and other content wirelessly between various devices. “There’s a lot more to come that we have not thought of yet… that someone will invent in their garage or college dorm room,” she said.
The commission isn’t saying when it will issue a public notice seeking comment on the database, a key part of the white spaces order. The first devices likely to hit the market will have to check a database to make sure a TV channel is free before they turn on. How the database will be protected from tampering and whether there will be only one database or several are among questions the FCC must still resolve. “We're working on it as quickly as we can, but it’s not going to be tomorrow,” Alan Caldwell, deputy chief of the FCC Office of Engineering and Technology said Thursday.
Bruce Franca, vice president of the Association for Maximum Service TV, said he hoped under the new FCC chairman the commission will seek an agreement among various parties on how a database should be set up. “I think there’s a lot of good things in the white spaces item in terms of… protections,” Franca said. “I think there are some things that are sort of question marks and there are things that just need further explanation.”