Google helps form 'white space' database coalition
Google is teaming up with other technology companies to develop specifications that the Federal Communications Commission can use in developing its "white space" database.
Google said earlier this week that it is joining several technology companies, including Comsearch, Dell, HP, Microsoft, Motorola and Neustar, to form a new coalition called the White Spaces Database Group, which will provide and compile into a database technical specifications for devices that will use white space spectrum.
White spaces are unused slivers of spectrum in the 700 MHz band that sit between broadcast TV channels. Google and others successfully lobbied the FCC last year to open up that spectrum for unlicensed use so that new wireless devices could access that spectrum.
In its ruling in November, the FCC set rules stating that devices using a combination of geolocation technology and spectrum-sensing technology could be approved for unlicensed white space use. Before sending or receiving data, devices will be required to access this database to determine available channels. And the device will not transmit in channels that are already known to be in use.
Technology companies such as Google, Motorola, Microsoft, and Dell had been lobbying the FCC for years to open this spectrum for unlicensed use. The hope is that the spectrum could be used to augment existing wireless services or eventually be used to create new wireless broadband services.
But TV broadcasters and wireless microphone companies have long opposed the use of this spectrum, saying it will interfere with their services. Google believes that using geolocation technology used along with spectrum sensing technologies will offer complete protection to licensed signals from harmful interference.
"We don't plan to become a database administrator ourselves, but do want to work with the FCC to make sure that a white spaces database gets up and running," Richard Whitt, Google's Washington Telecom and Media Counsel, said in a blog post earlier this week. "We hope that this will unfold in a matter of months, not years."
Marguerite Reardon has been a CNET News reporter since 2004, covering cell phone services, broadband, citywide Wi-Fi, the Net neutrality debate, as well as the ongoing consolidation of the phone companies. E-mail Maggie. 
So, a device can't access the spectrum without first checking a database, but to access that database it must go online, unless it has an offline version, but that could get out of date very quickly and could get quite huge, so the device may not have all the information it needs to keep from interfering with local channels.
We go through this every time there is new slice of spectrum made available to consumer. First, it was 900MHz, which quickly became an unusable wasteland thanks to every device on the planet trying to use the space. Then, we moved to a new neighborhood at 2.4 GHz and all the tech companies said, we have technical solution using digital signals and spread spectrum and instead, we all turned into quasi RF engineers as we worked to get all of our wireless devices to play nice. It was an improvement, but still a headache. So, we pretty much took the same solutions and moved to another new neighborhood at 5.2 GHz where we are well underway to pollute, with the only saving grace being the shorter range in this spectrum.
This is a hack, plain and simple. Spectrum should be properly allocated and all affected parties should be addressed in the allocation effort. I realize there is a finite amount of usuable frequency, but we should give the priorty to the folks that are already using the space and not the companies with the biggest lobbyists.
As for spectrum: had the FCC actually not been in the pocket of the telcos, they would have conducted the 700 MHz auction using an ROI for the American economy, not just auctioning it off to the highest bidder. Gee, who'd have guessed Verizon would have won the auction?
So instead of having more competition and more innovation in wireless, we have the same old reconstituted Ma Bell operating walled gardens and dictating which devices and applications are allowed to use their networks.
The FCC could have touched off a massive swell of innovation -- like the web in the 90s -- had they required the winner of the 700 MHz spectrum to wholesale service at reasonable rates. This occurred in France and has been a huge success with some 50 companies now selling wireless services.
But this is what happens when you have FCC officials who have inherent conflicts-of-interest (like Kevin Martin, who came from the firm Wiley Rein and which represents Verizon).