White Spaces Debate More Heat Than Light

WHITE SPACES DEBATE MORE HEAT THAN LIGHT
[SOURCE: tvnewsday, AUTHOR: Harry A. Jessell]
[Commentary] Right now, nobody really knows what impact unlicensed wireless devices in the broadcast band would have on digital TV reception. If Jessell were an FCC commissioner and had to vote today, he would go with the conclusion of the FCC engineers and vote no, but with no certainty that he wasn't, as the white spaces proponents claim, squandering many megahertz of valuable spectrum. He writes, "What kills me is the certainty with which groups like the Media Access Project, Freepress.net and the New America Foundation are backing the white spaces proponents, blindly accepting the high-tech industry data and treating the proceeding like a political campaign." He continues, "NAF, Freepress.net and MAP ought to go to bed each night thinking about how they can preserve FREE over-the-air TV, instead of crawling into bed with a bunch of computer geeks who want to sell more toys to the rich." His advise to FCC Chairman Martin: Put the proceeding on hold and ask the NTIA to test the white spaces prototypes and the feasibility of broadcast spectrum sharing at its well-respected Institute for Telecommunications Sciences.
http://www.tvnewsday.com/articles/2007/10/01/daily.4/

* Broadcasting coalition calls unlicensed broadband devices "germs"
[SOURCE: Lasar's Letter on the FCC, AUTHOR: Matthew Lasar]
The debate over "white space" just got a bit more colorful.
http://www.lasarletter.net/drupal/node/478