This week in the white spaces
The FCC says today that it’s continuing “the process of investigating the potential performance capabilities of TV white space devices in an open and transparent manner. To that end, the Laboratory will be conducting additional laboratory and field testing of prototype devices.” This probably means that the FCC will be re-testing the (apparently broken) Microsoft prototype device. (Background here: Even If It’s Broken..)
1. The Maximum Service Television group (against portable unlicensed devices) asks questions about this future testing. A sample: “In the event that devices in the new tests are found to meet manufacturers’ suggested performance levels, will further testing be done to determine the proper sensing threshold necessary for protection of TV viewers?”
2. The Open Mobile Video Coalition (who want Americans to carry around new versions of television sets), is anxious too. Their filing urges the Commission “not to permit unlicensed devices to operate in the DTV spectrum unless there is fully effective protection against interference to the mobile broadcast service from mobile devices.”
3. Cox Communications weighs in, claiming that no one is bothering to test the effects on cable headends that might be caused by unlicensed portable devices in the white spaces. They’re also pointing out that there are no generally-accepted standards for sensing detection thresholds, so how can the Commission claim to be meeting them? Most importantly, they argue, the DTV transition is complicated enough - and “[p]ermitting personal and portable devices could effectively undermine these [transition] efforts - introducing considerable confusion, as well as degrading existing services, to the detriment of American consumers.”
4. Both Cox and the Rural Telecommunications Group argue that limiting use of the white spaces to fixed, licensed devices will bring highspeed internet access to rural areas. Not to mention, says the Rural Telecommunications Group, that “[b]y limiting new services in the TV bands to those that are both fixed and icensed, the Commission would avoid having to rely upon ineffective and unproven technologies to avoid degrading incumbent operations.”
5. The New America Foundation visited the FCC, with actual engineers in tow, to say that they’re ready to help the FCC with measurements. They’re pointing out that the sensitivity standards used by the White Spaces Coalition may themselves be too sensitive, particularly in light of “the huge opportunity costs for wireless service and innovation associated with allowing spectrum to lie fallow because in a few places a high-gain antenna could view a signal that most of the shrinking share of over-the-air viewers would find to be below the threshold of visibility.” Translation: The FCC’s (and Congress’s) political obsession with protecting the small (and getting smaller) percentage of Americans who use rabbit ear antennas to receive over-the-air broadcast limits innovation - to protect those viewers, we’re giving up wireless uses that could be very valuable. Yes, there could be a well-focused antenna that would pick up some portable devices’s transmission by accident, but just about everyone else using rabbit ears will never be bothered.
6. The Hispanic Technology and Telecommunications Partnership writes in, pointing out that “Hispanic households use over-the-air broadcast television at significantly higher rates than the non-minority national average. For example, in Houston nearly 459,852 homes (23.2%) receive signals over the air. Of these over-the-air homes, 290,000 (58.9%) are Hispanic homes. This is typical in many cities with large Hispanic audiences. Their argument is that the DTV transition is meaningful and shouldn’t be interfered with by portable, unlicensed devices. This is powerful: “With the DTV transition less than 18 months away, now is not the time to experiment with a new policy that could disrupt the transition and cause permanent damage to consumers. Unchecked interference from new unfixed and unlicensed devices in the TV spectrum could effectively disenfranchise over-the-air digital viewers across America. The “free” information safety net for many
Hispanic homes will be lost and they will be left behind in the new digital era.”
Bottom line: some devices will be re-tested, we don’t know which, we don’t know what standards will apply, and the advent of the DTV transition is putting a lot of pressure on this process.
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