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."

Comments

keep it and manage it like roads and airspace

[k6mfw]

instead of those with the big bucks owning huge lots of spectrum, FCC should regulate it like public roads and airspace to be sure everyone has a fair share and still follow the rules. It seems few corporations will get big slices so they can do whatever they want with it, and everyone else get scraps like 2.4GHz which become useless (classic example of tragedy of the commons).

Re:keep it and manage it like roads and airspace

[jythie]

Sad thing is that is what the FCC is supposed to be doing. Limited resource for the public good, but the current meme of 'private enterprise is the solution to all problems' has twisted their mandate into enforcing who gets exclusive lucrative access to what is essentially a shared resource.

Re:keep it and manage it like roads and airspace

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

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?

Re:keep it and manage it like roads and airspace

[hawguy]

Sad thing is that is what the FCC is supposed to be doing. Limited resource for the public good, but the current meme of 'private enterprise is the solution to all problems' has twisted their mandate into enforcing who gets exclusive lucrative access to what is essentially a shared resource.

frankly, i prefer private enterprise to another bloated nanny department. did you know TSA has 54,000 employees? last thing we need is a weaponized FCC "enforcing fairness."

What's the other option? Open the airwaves to all uses and forgo all regulation? Whoever radiates the most power wins? I don't see how there can be any rational use of airwaves if there's no organization to control and allocate bandwidth.

Would you advocate abolishing all traffic laws and law enforcement on streets too? No speed limits, no stop signs, no DUI laws, anything goes. If someone runs you over in an 18 wheeler -- well, too bad, you should have had a bigger car - might means right in this lawless public resource and who needs weaponized law enforcement when private industry can sort it out through selling people bigger and bigger cars.

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.

Re:keep it and manage it like roads and airspace

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

The transmit power limits and some of the Part 15 stuff was what I had in mind. You aren't allowed to just out-shout other people, and you have to tolerate the noise that they make. That keeps the playing field reasonably level, while still allowing people to do more or less whatever they want.

Were it not for power limits, the bands would likely be flooded into uselessness; but the restrictions required to keep things in order are really pretty minimal, substantially less, in practice, than the unpleasantness of dealing with stuff on many of the licensed bands.

Re:keep it and manage it like roads and airspace

[PopeRatzo]

frankly, i prefer private enterprise to another bloated nanny department.

Then let "private enterprise" manage it. Why sell it? Do you have any idea what that bit of spectrum is going to be worth in 10 years? 20 years? Neither do I, so who do you trust to put a fair price on it?

Plus, the government has a fair bit of experience owning and managing vast bits of infrastructure over a long period of time. Certainly more than Clear Channel or Comcast or any of the big telecoms.

We've seen the ugly side of privatization here in Chicago, where the previous mayor sold off every street parking spot in the city to a company that has both jacked up the prices more than 1000% and done a terrible job managing it. But now it's too late. We're fucked and the low price that was paid can't be given back. We've lost the next 30 years of public revenue that was used to fix streets and traffic infrastructure.

Maybe you can tell us which company you'd like to see own the "white space" part of the spectrum that is now a public trust? Who do you think is going to to a great job with it?

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

Now you know that's bullshit. If anything, the FCC has been going in exactly the opposite direction. We've got a handful of companies owning the entire radio spectrum, and there has been practically no regulatory oversight. The federal government managed the broadcast spectrum since before WWII, and a lot of people have been able to make great use of that spectrum for a lot of great things, including a lot of commerce and communication.

I'd rather see the white space left as an open preserve than have it become the property of a multinational that owes no allegiance to this country or its people.

Re:keep it and manage it like roads and airspace

[ron_ivi]

The same rules being used for 802.11 works for me.

Those rules are largely governed by physics -- where even if you wanted to, the signals don't make it that far.

With different wavelenths having very different properties, it's not obvous that the 802.11 rules (don't exceed some small limit that extends about as far as an average property line) would work.

Re:keep it and manage it like roads and airspace

[hawguy]

There is a huge difference in safety regulations and laws, trying to compare something like traffic laws to something invisible that will bring no harm to anyone (physically) is overreaching.

So is your argument that there's no public safety use for radio, or that there's no way that RF interference could get in the way of public safety use of radio? So if I, say, decided to run my "pirate" radio station on the same frequency that the local fire department uses (because I know those guys will want to hear my station!), there's no possible problem with that? I put "pirate" in quotes, because without the FCC, of course, there is no pirate radio stations, anyone anywhere can run a radio station on any frequency.

The FCC, FDA, FAA, ect.. ect.. do NOTHING to make sure things are safe. This is what cracks me up about people in this country they do not trust government but have some false sense of faith in federal agencies or regulations, they wont buy a drug unless it has an FDA stamp, and they do nothing to test the drugs themselves

The FCC sets exposure limits, among other things, and they type certify most devices to ensure that they are within legal limits for power and spectral purity among other things.

and they "trust" the results from research and testing. The FAA has been caught numerous times not testing any of the equipment used in airliners, but they stand there to witness testing by the companies, and there is nothing wrong with that (like fixing the tests).

If you want to vastly increase funding to the FAA so they can do their own testing, you should lobby for it -- I'm sure industry would be happy to be off the hook for the costs, and also to shield them from liabilty. If the FAA screw up the test and certifies something that shouldn't be certified, then it's the FAA's problem. BUt anyway, I'm not sure why you're talking about the FAA since they don't regulate airwaves.

Congress would sell off anything for fast bucks

[Bob_Who]

They are bought and paid for.

Its our bandwidth and they're selling it off to their corporate cronies.

Where's the outrage, America ?

Re:Congress would sell off anything for fast bucks

[lgw]

Unless you plan to use that bandwidth with your mind it needs to be partitioned for specific commercial uses, so that companies call sell you products that benefit you.

What's messed up is that, apparently in a quest to raise every last dollar possible without lowering spending or raising taxes, they're auctioning it all off as monopoly interests, rather than setting aside chucks for "any consumer device that follows there rules". That would still benefit companies, of course, but it wouldn't be granting monopolies for a fee. I do so hate mercantilism.

is the super wifi going to be free?

[alen]

unless google, microsoft and others agree to cover something like 80% of the US population with free wifi in the next 2-3 years there is no reason not to sell it off. why does it matter if we pay the cell phone carriers or google/microsoft?

Re:I agree and stop the racism!

[noh8rz10]

to be fair, the red space will always be at the bottom of the pack. violet space FTW!

Re:Picking winners and losers

[unitron]

no, all frequencies are sold off to the highest bidder to do with as they please as long as they follow the rules for that block. only reason TV frequencies were free was because the stations agreed to free broadcasts

When TV first came along, TV frequencies were licensed to broadcasters to operate "in the public interest", same as with radio.

That was back before some gang of idiots got the idea to sell irreplaceable spectrum instead of just license or lease it.

May they suffer many various and sundry unpleasantries the rest of their days.

Re:Picking winners and losers

[postbigbang]

And more to the point: the allocations right now are pretty generous in the 5Ghz region. It takes only new and more interesting modulation techniques to double and double and double the data rates for those allocations. This has been done in WiFi and its antecedents many times now. It'll happen again.

Re:Senate Commerce Chairman Jay Rockefeller

[DaHat]

If it was common sense then referring highlighting either party in the subject was not needed... and yet what we see here is another case of 'guess the party' where when something bad ("zomg! wifi will be less cool & powerful in the future if this goes through!") is said about a politician in print... if they are a republican it is fairly common to make sure to highlight their party membership... while if it is a democrat their affiliation is conveniently left out.

short sighted

[hurwak-feg]

Radio (waves and their regulations) isn't my area of expertise, but I think this is very short sighted. It seems a better use for this band would be to wait until a new technology or service comes is developed that could make good use of this band, until then, it should be public domain or off limits. I say this because producing innovative goods and services grows the US economy (and the governments tax income with it) since at the very foundation money is just an abstraction of energy/labor that is easy to quantify and exchange. If some of the potential buyers have an innovative idea that uses this band of the spectrum, they can contact the FCC and get a license to operate devices on it. But just selling it to a buyer now for an arbitrary amount seems like it would prevent anyone with an idea that could improve lives and American society to act on the idea.

Easy fix

[Okian Warrior]

If you sell it like a fixed resource, you'll get high fees for access and discouraged use... like what we have now for phone and internet service (high monthly fees, data caps and rationed "minutes", kicking out high users, &c).

If you owned a museum which was wildly popular (say, "Mecca" as a museum) you'd hike up the ticket prices as high as you could, and would be under no incentive to improve the experience. If, on the other hand you could only charge a fixed upper price per person, then you have incentive to push more people through the museum - you'd upgrade the infrastructure to handle more people.

Change the model. If you have a fixed resource, sell it with the restriction that you can only charge for usage.

If the spectrum was sold with the restriction that you could only charge $.02 per gigabyte or less, then companies could only make money by encouraging higher usage. Instead of high monthly fees and discouraged use, companies would encourage innovative new applications, home servers, and high bandwidth.

The FCC could set the price equivalent to what is now charged under the fixed-resource model, so that companies wouldn't make any less than they do now.

But the model will change: companies would have to compete for users by improving the experience and encouraging use.

It's a Game Theory thing.

Vote not auction

[EmperorOfCanada]

The various companies who want the spectrum should be able to make a few 2 minute spots, not be allowed to spend 1 cent marketing, and then have the public vote on their getting the spectrum. There should be none of this making them spend billions on the spectrum and then charge billions to us to use it. My guess is that the company that promised the best service would get the spectrum. This should be a run off system where there are run-offs with eliminations until one company gets 50% of the vote.

Also companies should be able to lose their spectrum in the same way. Basically they would have to apply to keep it by describing what they did with it while other companies would describe what they would do with it. The threshold would need to be higher but if say 70% voted for a company to lose the spectrum it would be re-auctioned. In Canada the big 3 would lose all their spectrum.