FCC Asks Court to Wait on White Spaces

(April 3) The Federal Communications Commission has asked a court to hold off on deciding the white spaces issue until after it considers petitions to reconsider or change it. The FCC received the petitions from a number of parties including the cable industry, but not the National Association of Broadcasters and the Association for Maximum Service Television, which took the FCC's initial decision straight to court, precluding them from also filing petitions for reconsideration with the FCC. NAB and MSTV jointly filed a petition earlier this month with the federal court of appeals for the D.C. Circuit, their preferred venue, to hold unlawful, vacate and set aside its decision last fall to allow mobile, unlicensed devices to share the so-called "white spaces" between DTV channels, a move opposed by lobbies for both those constituencies.