Intellectual Property Law

Free the Airwaves? Yes, But Why Am I Suspicious?

By Cynthia Brumfield

In an eerie coincidence, three things today bring the issue of "white spaces" to the forefront. First, the WSJ's Amy Schatz has this high-profile piece about the FCC's examination of whether these soon-to-be-unneeded gaps of spectrum can be used as a third broadband pipeline, a powerful wireless pathway that Google co-founder Larry Page likens to "Wi-Fi on steroids."

The big fears about using white spaces for broadband services, concerns mostly trumped up mostly by TV broadcasters and professional sports, is whether white space wireless devices would interfere with broadcast Tv transmissions and wireless microphones -- Schatz offers some interesting color on a recent field test of prototype devices at the Redskins' FedEx Stadium.

The second thing that raises the profile of white spaces is Google's launch of a supposed public interest initiative called Free the Airwaves, which the search giant dubs a "call for action for everyday users."

I think U.S. spectrum management policies are outmoded and that frequency allocations start looking arbitrary in the era of smarter and smarter radios (the wireless devices under development for white spaces are being designed to "sense" interference and flexibly deal with it). I also think that it's way past time that phone companies and cable operators faced serious broadband competitors and that more flexible use of spectrum is one key way to jumpstart that competition.

But, like Om Malik, I'm suspicious of Google's motives in launching the Free the Airwaves campaign. My antenna go up even higher given the fact that FCC Chairman Kevin Martin is moving in lock-step with Google as is evident in the fortuitously timed WSJ article. Are we being messed with somehow? That's the vague sense that I have.

Like Om, I long ago stopped believing in the ?Google for good? mantra. Still, it makes a lot of sense to open up the airwaves for more robust wireless broadband services.

Maybe we'll find out more today after Kevin Martin hosts a press briefing on the digital TV transition at 1 pm ET today at the Newseum (you can watch it live on C-SPAN), which is the third thing that made me think that the WSJ article and Google's announcement are part of a slick campaign of some kind.

Full post as published by IP Democracy on August 18, 2008 (boomark / email).