FCC to decide battle over "white space" By Tim Barker ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
11/02/2008 http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/sciencemedicine/story/6806161E16F9E1DC862574F50000E145?OpenDocument Brian Bird, the man in charge of the sound system at First Baptist Church of Arnold, has what you might call a recurring nightmare. It goes something like this: It's Sunday morning and one of the pastors is deep into a sermon. Without warning, a voice breaks in over the church speakers. It belongs to a truck driver passing through town. He's chatting with other truck drivers about things best left unsaid. It is a nightmare, he says, that could come closer to reality on Tuesday. No, it has nothing to do with Election Day. It just happens to be the same day the Federal Communications Commission is set to consider a sweeping change to the way it regulates our airwaves. Specifically, the airwaves now shared by television stations and countless wireless microphones spread across the nation. The commission is mediating a turf war between major broadcasters and some of the nation's top technology firms — think of it as Walt Disney's ABC and General Electric's NBC against Google and Microsoft. And neither side is all that worried about the Brian Birds of the world. What they care about is the fate of a portion of the airwaves referred to as "white spaces," those chunks of the spectrum not being used in a given market. Not counting those set aside for specific uses and those recently auctioned off by the FCC, roughly 50 channels are available for television stations. Generally speaking, if a channel isn't being used, it's a white space. Google and others want to see those spaces opened to everyone, arguing that they could be used to provide wireless broadband access virtually everywhere while paving the way for a new generation of high-tech mobile devices. Broadcasters, however, argue that such a change would render their own stations vulnerable to interruption by thousands of cell phones and laptops scrambling over one another to find space in a finite spectrum. By default, Bird and his church — along with virtually everyone else who uses a wireless microphone — find themselves on the side of the broadcasters. And if they fail, as expected, to convince the FCC to reject the proposed change, Bird says his church's pastors could find themselves using wired microphones, something they'd rather not do. "It was done years ago without wireless mikes. It could be done again," said Bird, who worries about the integrity of an audio system with 40 wireless microphones. "I just can't take the risk of not being in complete control of the content." This is an issue that's been floating around for some time, though it picked up velocity earlier this year after Google lost out to Verizon in its bid to claim a portion of the 700MHz wireless spectrum. Channels in that range — 52 to 69 — were auctioned off by the FCC as part of the digital TV transition taking place in February. Because digital TV transmissions are more efficient than analog transmissions, those channels were considered surplus. The problem is that Google's plan to use the white spaces for cell phones and other devices is feasible only if those devices can figure out which channels are occupied and which ones are vacant. Otherwise, there's nothing to stop them from interfering with television broadcasts and wireless microphones, which are particularly vulnerable because of their relatively weak transmission power. To get around that obstacle, Google and others are promoting a "spectrum-sensing" technology that would give wireless devices the ability to locate vacant channels. Earlier this month, the FCC gave its nod of approval after testing by its engineers. Opponents are unsatisfied with those test results. And they say the technology hasn't been proven to work in a real-world setting. "The question is: Whose engineers do you believe?" said T. Barton Carter, professor of communications and law at Boston University. "It shouldn't surprise you that every group's engineers tend to interpret it the way their employers see it." So it is that the FCC is getting pressure from everywhere. Sens. John Kerry, D-Mass., Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., recently sent a letter urging the commission to go forward with its planned vote. At the same time, another group of lawmakers, including Rep. William Lacy Clay, D-Mo., and Rep. Mark Steven Kirk, R-Ill., urged a delay on the vote. Other opponents include sports leagues, churches and performers such as Dolly Parton and Guns N' Roses. TURF WAR? And there's Chip Self, owner of Logic Systems, an audio visual firm in Valley Park. Self has been in the business for more than two decades. He says big change is in store for anyone who relies on a wireless microphone. These relatively low-powered tools cannot compete with the more powerful devices envisioned by white-space proponents, said Self, who has his own doubts about the spectrum-sensing technology. "I can go out and spend $10,000 on a wireless mike. It won't stand a chance against a $50 Internet phone from Google," Self said. He is among a group of users who essentially are caught between the major players. It's not so much that he's against a more open use of white space. What he wants is to see at least a few channels in each market reserved for wireless mikes. "If they can't fix it or kill it, this will effectively make it impossible to use a wireless system for entertainment," said Self, predicting an end to things like traveling Broadway shows. "You can't do a dance show with everyone dragging a cord." Such concerns may be a bit premature, say white space advocates. Tuesday's vote would be just one step in the process of bringing white-space friendly devices to consumers. Those devices would still have to be tested and given final approval by the FCC before they could be put on the market. That's expected to take another year or two. That broadcasters are fighting so hard now suggests they are more worried about protecting turf than they are about the issue of interference, said Ben Scott, policy director for Free Press, an advocacy group. "All this rhetoric is incredibly overblown. We haven't certified a single device," Scott said. "I see them hyperventilating over this. That just says to me there's another motive out there." EXPANDING WIRELESS Scott and others see that fiercely guarded turf as the nation's best shot at getting fast Internet access to everyone, particularly people living in rural areas where broadband is often non existent. A wireless network — with its much lower infrastructure costs — removes one of the biggest obstacles to providing that service. "We need to find a way to inexpensively get wireless broadband access to them," Scott said. "If you've got all this available spectrum, why not make use of it?" Victoria Proffer, president of St. Louis Broadband, a fixed wireless Internet provider in Maryland Heights agrees — up to a point. She supports the position of the Wireless Internet Service Providers Association, which has suggested a "licensed-lite" solution that would allow more users into white spaces. But it would require them to register with the FCC, which would play the role of traffic cop, keeping everyone segregated. For now, companies such as hers are limited to reaching rural areas by using receivers and transmitters connected by line of sight — far from ideal in locales with lots of hills, trees or other impediments. Gaining access to those television airwaves would change that. "It'll go through trees. It'll go through walls. It's the superman of the wireless spectrum," Proffer said. -- ================================ George Antunes, Political Science Dept University of Houston; Houston, TX 77204 Voice: 713-743-3923 Fax: 713-743-3927 Mail: antunes at uh dot edu *********************************** * POST TO [email protected] * *********************************** Medianews mailing list [email protected] http://lists.etskywarn.net/mailman/listinfo/medianews
