White Spaces Update: It's Amazing What You Learn From Field Testing

[Commentary] The primary opponents of opening the broadcast white spaces for use, the broadcasters and the wireless microphone manufacturers insisted that the FCC conduct field tests on the white spaces prototypes. Of course, because these are concept prototypes and not functioning devices certified to some actual standard, everyone knew this would leave lots of leeway for the broadcasters and the wireless microphone folks to declare the tests a "failure" regardless of the actual results. Which, of course, they did. Needless to say, Phillips (which makes one of the prototypes) said the opposite, and it all depends on whether success means "the device functioned perfectly as if there were actually some standards for building a functioning device" or "the device proved it could detect occupied channels at whatever sensitivity the FCC decides is necessary." But one of the nice things about field testing is that you learn the most amazing things that you can never learn in a lab, as demonstrated by this ex parte filed by Ed Thomas for the White Spaces Coalition, the industry group that backs opening the white spaces. Apparently, in front of eye witnesses (including the FCC's engineers), both broadcasters and unauthorized wireless microphone users in the Broadway field test operated wireless microphones on active television channels, at power levels well above what white spaces advocates propose for mobile devices. All apparently without interfering with anybody's television reception or even — in the case of the unauthorized Broadway users — screwing up the hundreds of other illegal wireless microphones in the neighboring theaters. A few rather important take aways here:

1) the danger of interference claims by broadcasters and Shure are utterly bogus, as the wireless microphones do not screw up either television reception or each other;

2) the broadcasters and Shure know their interference claims are bogus.

(Feld is Senior Vice President of the Media Access Project, a non-profit, public interest telecommunications law firm.)