In an October 2007 letter to the Federal Communications Commission, executives from the four largest TV networks told the Commission that proposals to allow low-power Wi-Fi type devices to operate on vacant TV channels, "could cause permanent damage to over-the-air digital television reception." Such a dire warning would ring alarm bells for policymakers, if not for the fact that similar nightmare scenarios have been predicted before. In numerous public relations and lobbying campaigns, broadcasters and their respective lobbies - particularly the National Association of Broadcasters and its technical arm, the Association for Maximum Service Television - have relied upon similar doomsday pronouncements to inhibit competition and maintain their exclusive control over the valuable, but grossly under-utilized, broadcast spectrum.
