FCC stages US broadband revolution in election day marathon

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FCC stages US broadband revolution in election day marathon

By CAROLINE GABRIEL

Published: 5 November, 2008

READ MORE: US | Regulation | Broadband

As Barack Obama and the Democrats swept to victory in yesterday's US election, the country's wireless landscape had already started to shift, with a marathon session of voting at the FCC - with key decisions opening up the broadband wireless market and promising a host of new services. A Democrat-controlled Congress and FCC may spell further liberalization and more aggressive support for open access and new entrants, but FCC chair Kevin Martin left his mark, particularly with a unanimous vote to free up the white space spectrum in the TV bands for unlicensed broadband wireless applications.

Another significant vote was to approve the merger of Clearwire with Sprint's Xohm unit to form the company with the best chance of building a nationwide mobile broadband network for open access, 4G-style services - putting new pressure on Verizon and AT&T into the bargain. Verizon also scored a win, with its takeover of Alltel being cleared by the FCC, though only after four hours of debate.

The FCC had been forced to delay votes on some other significant issues, notably intercarrier compensation and the structure of the Universal Service Fund, though it hopes to address these next month, and it now says it will begin a review of pricing policies at the cablecos and Verizon (but not, for some reason, Martin's friends at AT&T).

The white spaces vote is a huge victory for a group of powerful companies, led by Google, Motorola, Microsoft and Philips, which has been campaigning to open up this wasted spectrum for six years. Despite protests from broadcasters and some other camps, the FCC approved rules for devices in the 300MHz-400MHz of prime spectrum, which has strong ability to penetrate walls.

"As an engineer, I was really gratified to see that the FCC decided to put science over politics," Larry Page, co-founder of Google, said on his blog. "For years the broadcasting lobby and others have tried to spread fear and confusion about this technology, rather than allow the FCC's engineers to simply do their work." A report from the FCC engineering department recently found that, given suitable anti-interference safeguards - a combination of sensing and geolocation - devices in the white spaces did not affect broadcasts or other systems like wireless microphones.

Page argued the FCC move would spur significant new services and support new providers, as well as sparking technological innovation around various devices that could use the spaces. The unlicensed nature of the bands could create a market on the same scale as Wi-Fi, which is likely to be included in one billion chips this year

The new rules will require fixed and portable unlicensed devices to include geolocation technology in addition to spectrum sensing technology. For some low power devices that do not incorporate geolocation, there will be a far more rigorous approval process. All white space devices must be tested and certified by the FCC Laboratory, like cellphones.