Parts of White Spaces Order Still Being Hashed Out at FCC on Eve of Vote
Members of the newly reconstituted Wireless Innovation Alliance said in a call with reporters Wednesday the FCC shouldn’t weaken its white spaces rules through changes sought by broadcasters and others. Representatives of Public Knowledge, Google and Dell spoke on the call. A vote on the white spaces order is scheduled for Thursday, though aspects of it were still being worked out at our deadline, agency officials said. The FCC released its sunshine notice last Thursday, cutting off lobbying, though industry officials can still answer questions sent their way by the FCC.
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"With the approval of this technology we think that there’s an enormous opportunity now for a lot of innovation in the wireless space, not just as a result of the white spaces but building on the kinds of technologies the white space enables in terms of spectrum reuse … and in with moving cognitive radios generally,” said Public Knowledge Legal Director Harold Feld. “There’s still concern about some of the outstanding issues and that the FCC not, through undue caution for the incumbents, burden the technology so much that it does not get off the ground."
"The technical details really do matter,” said Google’s Rick Whitt. He highlighted concerns that the FCC will not give wireless microphones additional protections beyond what was proposed by the commission. Dell is “very excited” about the order, said Liam Quinn, chief technology officer for client business.
The FCC is still considering whether to permit some use of the band for backhaul in very remote parts of the nation, like Alaska native areas, through waiver on a trial basis. In some areas of the country as much as 270 MHz of white spaces are available and backhaul would use only a small percentage, an industry source noted. At our deadline, it was unclear how the order will address the issue.
FiberTower, the Wireless Communications Association, Sprint Nextel and the Rural Telecommunications Group made a final filing late last week, arguing that there are no roadblocks to the proposal, even if some of the TV spectrum is ultimately sold for wireless broadband. “The instant proposal can largely accommodate any subsequent ‘repacking’ in the TV White Spaces because dozens of vacant channels exist in the rural and tribal areas at issue in our proposal, and we propose utilizing at most a limited amount of the vacant channels in those areas,” the filing said. It said there’s already Broadcast Auxiliary Service equipment available that can be readily used for backhaul. One industry source noted that adopting the proposal would make Universal Service Fund monies go further.
Feld questioned how far the FCC would go to accommodate the FiberTower-led coalition. “I don’t know what they can do in this order other than commit to look at something, or say they are going to do something or have a proceeding about doing something,” he told us. If those using white spaces devices are protected, Feld said it’s possible the proposal could work. “But do I think that it’s a good idea to raise yet one more uncertainty is this?” he asked. “How much do you want to push people who are trying to develop this technology."
Broadcasters appear poised to win some concessions on their request that the FCC tighten its rules to require white spaces devices to contact a national database with some frequency to ensure that channels are clear in a given market, industry sources said. Also in play is a provision that would give some large venues that use wireless mics access to the database.
Paul Margie, an attorney representing Dell, Microsoft and Spectrum Bridge on white spaces issues, said he fielded questions in separate calls Tuesday from FCC legal advisors about the inclusion of non-Part-74 wireless mic users into a white spaces database, proposed exclusion zones for wireless mics, the time-intervals that should be required for white space’s base station communication with other devices used as part of a network, and on how often base stations should have to check the database. Margie also fielded questions from Office of Engineering and Technology Chief Julie Knapp.