So I read this story from Broadcast Engineering's Beyond the Headlines e-newsletter:
http://broadcastengineering.com/news/broadcasters_white_spaces_broadband/The headline suggests that broadcasters can use the white spaces, coveted by potential competitors, to develop broadband services...
Read it and pay close attention to the last paragraph.
Broadcasters can use white spaces for broadband Oct 15, 2007 1:56 PMThe lobbying campaign to protect spectrum white space ratcheted up another notch last week when the heads of four broadcast networks urged the FCC to limit use of unlicensed devices.Jeff Zucker, president and CEO, NBC Universal; Peter Chernin, president and CEO, News Corp.; Robert Iger, president and CEO, Walt Disney; and Leslie Moonves, president and CEO, CBS, asked the FCC to be cautious in their efforts to open the spectrum.In a joint letter to FCC chairman Kevin Martin, the four executives echoed broadcast industry arguments that unlicensed wireless devices could cause interference and "permanent damage" to over-the-air television transmissions."Interference in the digital world will cause a digital picture to freeze and become unwatchable," the group wrote.However, unlike some opponents of the white space initiative, the executives brought up the notion that use of the spectrum by others could also compete with its own business interests."The analog spectrum being vacated by the broadcasters in 2009 and auctioned by the FCC in early 2008 will be available for multiple uses, including the same types of broadband services envisioned by those who seek to operate on an unlicensed basis in the digital spectrum allocated for free, over-the-air broadcasting," the executives noted.The executives had no objections to a "fixed" broadband system, which does not operate on a co-channel or adjacent channel. That, they said, "will help expand broadband opportunities without causing interference to digital television receivers."Those "broadband opportunities," of course, would be controlled by broadcasters and not members of the coalition of companies seeking use of white space spectrum.
So did I get it right that broadcasters may be interested in using those portions of the white spaces that do interfere with DTV broadcasts to deliver a competitive broadband service?
If this is the case, do these "network executives think they own the white spaces too?
Do they think that they should be allowed to continue to use their licenses as a means to collect subscriber fees via competitors, while they use the white spaces to develop a potentially lucrative new service that will compete with cable and telco broadband?
Sounds a bit incestuous to me. At the very least, this is an interesting new twist in the decades long battle to control this very valuable beach front spectrum property.
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