The three large decisions before the FCC this year are reclassification, the white spaces, and the Comcast/NBCU merger. They’re all important, and they all relate.
Amy Schatz of the WSJ had a nice piece yesterday on the white spaces issue – a matter that has been hanging fire now for two years or more – reporting that “Technology and telecommunications companies could soon get access to unused TV airwaves, allowing them to introduce new wireless gadgets and services, under rules that Federal Communications Commission officials are close to putting into final form.”
Smart end-user devices, certified by the FCC to operate on these vacant frequencies while sensing and avoiding interference with TV broadcasts, could be using this spectrum on an unlicensed basis. This would maximize the use of the airwaves and make possible dramatically-increased mobile high-speed Internet access. Just as we’ve seen an explosion of tens of millions of wifi devices share (much less desirable) spectrum, we could see a huge advance in wireless use using the TV white spaces – which are beachfront, sought-after spectrum because of their propagation characteristics. Spectrum sensing is proven technology at this point – we’re ready, but we need the certification rules in place.
We’re in the midst of titanic battles about the entire structure of the communications industry. An important element for the country’s communications future is to loosen up use of the white spaces on an unlicensed basis. The issue has been teed up for years, and it’s good to hear that there may be motion soon.