Paul Barbagallo
For TV ‘White Spaces,' the Global Outlook Is Hopeful but Cautious
Opposition from incumbent spectrum license holders like 3G and 4G wireless service providers and TV broadcasters has either halted or greatly slowed the regulatory processes surrounding TV white spaces in scores of countries across Europe, Asia, and Africa, which in turn has discouraged manufacturers from building new white-spaces devices, chipsets, and infrastructure.
In the United States, the Federal Communications Commission's coming auction of broadcast TV spectrum to mobile carriers has added another layer of complexity and uncertainty, with reverberations being felt not just in Silicon Valley but down the entire global supply chain. And yet, despite all this unsettledness, white spaces are starting to find a place in the spectrum policies of developed and emerging economies alike.
Slowly and methodically, regulators in a growing number of countries are laying the groundwork to leave at least some white space unlicensed -- and useable for broadband.
In Baker, CTIA Gets a Spectrum Czar -- and at a Crucial Time
Nearly six months after launching a nationwide executive search to find a replacement for its retiring president and CEO, Steve Largent, CTIA-The Wireless Association finally has a new leader.
And it didn’t have to look too far, either. Meredith Attwell Baker, the former Republican Federal Communications Commissioner and acting administrator of the Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration, will take over as president and CEO of CTIA on June 2.
In Baker, CTIA is getting an influential Washington insider and lobbyist who has a deep understanding of spectrum policy -- at a time when both the FCC and the NTIA are carrying out an ambitious Obama Administration plan to double the country’s supply of airwaves for use in high-speed wireless Internet service by 2020.
In a statement accompanying the news release, Baker wasted no time in outlining three spectrum policy priorities. Specifically, she said she will “place more emphasis on technical and engineering expertise related to spectrum and wireless technologies; work with commercial and government users to produce a viable five-year plan for the future of spectrum usage; and begin to regularly assess how efficiently spectrum is being used.”