Congress Wants FCC To Auction TV White Spaces

GovTechGuy writes "Things don't look good for Google, Microsoft and other companies hoping to experiment with super WiFi and other technologies in unused TV channels or 'White spaces'. Both House Republicans and Senate Commerce Chairman Jay Rockefeller are prodding the FCC to sell as much spectrum as possible at next year's incentive auction, which may not leave much for those hoping to advance the next generation of WiFi technology."

Re:keep it and manage it like roads and airspace

[ArhcAngel]

I would like to see a system similar to the electric utility. A regulated company handles the actual towers and the mobile providers provide service and support.

Re:keep it and manage it like roads and airspace

[mc6809e]

last thing we need is a weaponized FCC "enforcing fairness."

You do realize that we already have exactly that for the ISM band, and it's sort of been a gigantic fucking success?

Are you kidding? The ISM bands are practically the Wild West!

Sure there are transmit power limits, but very few other rules.

And it's the LACK of rules that has made the ISM bands, especially 2.4GHz, so successful. When 2.4GHz was opened up, a ton of new devices emerged. And despite the chaos, most of these protocols cooperate without government authority because it's in the interest of the people sharing the spectrum to cooperate.

Now none of that is an argument for auctioning off spectrum, of course. In a way, auctioning spectrum is just transferring control from one giant central authority, the federal government, to another slightly smaller central authority, like ATT.

A better idea would be to divide up the country into overlapping hexagonal cells about 100 miles wide and let the locals in the covered area decide how their spectrum should be used.