Broadcasting to Broadband

A proposed order implementing open access to the vacant TV channels in every media market nationwide will be voted on at the Federal Communication Commission’s Sept. 23 Open Meeting. On Sept. 15, the Open Technology Initiative addressed this debate by hosting a panel of seven experts in “Broadcasting to Broadband: Will Unlicensed Access to TV White Space Spur ‘WiFi on Steroids’?” Moderated by OTI Director Sasha Meinrath, the panel featured representatives from various areas of the public policy and commercial sectors: Christian Duffus, Spectrum Bridge; Paula Boyd, Regulatory Affairs Counsel for Microsoft; Wendy Wigen, EDUCAUSE; Nicol Turner-Lee, Director of the Media Technology Institute at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies; Liam Quinn, Dell; Stephen Coran, WISPA (Wireless Internet Service Provider Association); and Michael Calabrese of New America’s Wireless Future Project. Calabrese, for one, noted that it took eight years to get to a place where this order is now a real possibility.

After a short introduction by Meinrath, who noted that not too long ago everyone had been told that these technologies were impossible, Duffus gave a presentation on the work of his organization; Spectrum Bridge has had trial network deployments in locations such as Claudville, VA (“classic sort of stranded rural community” with no DSL, only dial-up and satellite based services). Duffus characterized white spaces as “a low cost, wide area solution.”

The panelists noted that white spaces can be extremely helpful to both educational and residential communities. Coming from higher education perspective, Wigen explained how bad the coverage is on college campuses right now, despite the necessity of access for students to be able to research. Turner-Lee also harked back to her work in Chicago communities, which showed her that whites spaces would be “rocket fuel” for communities; for example, this would allow kids could do their homework inside at home. And on a more macro scale, Spectrum Bridge’s trial in Wilmington, N.C., was focused on Smart City Services, particularly public safety services such as monitoring the hurricane evacuation route. Combining white spaces with computing tools can open up many areas for data collection and analysis. As Calabrese said, “We’re moving into an era of big data.”

Nevertheless, some pragmatic elements of the order have caused concern, such as whether the FCC may be allocating too much spectrum and overprotecting microphones by reserving too many channels for them—to the detriment of the market as a whole. Yet the current bottom line, according to Coran, is that the regulatory certainty or uncertainty created by the order is the key factor in how quickly the devices will be made available and adopted by the WISPs throughout the country. We’ll have to wait and see what happens in the aftermath of the Sept. 23 meeting.

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