"I have long advocated vigorous promotion of unlicensed use of the white spaces, provided such use does not cause harmful interference to others." This is what FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell (R) told the assembled masses at the Conference on Spectrum Management this week in Washington. He noted the vigorous debate being waged over technical issues, and said he expects this will only intensify. "But at the end of the day, we will have a resolution. Inventors will continue to invent, and a workable technical solution will develop. We should let science, and science alone, drive our decisions. If we don’t pollute science with politics, powerful new technologies will emerge, and American consumers will benefit as a result."
RBR/TVBR observation: If one of the main goals of white space use is bringing wireless broadband rapidly to rural areas, what’s wrong with licensing a fixed slice of spectrum between TV stations so that it can be provided in a halfway orderly manner? What else are we talking about here, throwing order out the window so that someday some inventor can sell a cord-free, hands-free electric razor that hovers along your face for a smooth, completely effortless shave for the terminal sluggards among us? At any rate, the one thing FCC tests in this area have proven is that the science isn’t there yet. Let the experimenters experiment all they want for now. There should be absolutely no attempt to resolve this issue until successful tests are run in the DTV environment that will exist 2/17/09.
