“I’ve got a touch of hangover, bureaucrat. Don’t push me”.
- George Washington McLintock
Things got lively at the 56th Annual IEEE Broadcast Symposium in Washington, D.C. this week when the talk turned to white spaces, reports TV Technology:
On the second day of the annual three-day event, presentations dealt with operation of unlicensed devices in the television broadcast bands, with representation from both advocates and foes of the plan.
“Repeat after me, ‘he is not the enemy,’” said Carl Stevenson, as he launched into his report on the progress of the IEEE 802.22 standards group.
The goal of the group is to establish operating standards for proposed wireless regional area networks–WRANs–aimed at delivering broadband communications to rural and remote urban areas of the country.
“It’s pretty clear from both the FCC and Capitol Hill that some other use of these channels will be permitted,” he said, adding that broadcasters and broadcaster groups including MSTV, NAB, Fox and CBS have been actively participating in the work of 802.22, “making sure that we get it right.”
Countering remarks by Stevenson that cognitive radio device technology would enable television signals and unlicensed devices to coexist, Dr. Oded Bendov, a consulting engineer, presented information indicating that harm could result from unlicensed devices.
As the FCC moves to establish technical standards for unlicensed devices on TV channels, broadcasters are concerned that rules previously proposed may not be sufficient to protect TV viewers from interference, says TV Technology.
The Association for Maximum Service Television announced a paper, “Why Unlicensed Use of Vacant TV Spectrum Will Cause Interference to DTV Viewers (pdf),” by Victor Tawil and Bruce Franca.
It counters claims made by the New American Foundation Issue Brief on July 2006 titled, “Why Unlicensed Use of Vacant TV Spectrum Will Not Cause Interference to DTV Viewers (pdf).”
MSTV rejected NAF’s suggestion that the FCC could reduce the out-of-band emission levels for these devices,saying the devices would require, “expensive filtering and additional cost that unlicensed manufacturers may not want to bear.”
You can thank MSTV for ATSC, arguably the worst HDTV standard on the planet.
COFDM modulation is said to be better at handling multipath in metropolitan areas, where the great and increasing majority of North Americans live. It’s also used by DVB-T (Europe) as well as DVB-H (Global Mobile TV) and HD Radio in the United States as well as Wi-Fi and WiMAX, world-wide. More than 10 million Freeview DVB-T receivers have been sold in the UK. The COFDM service provides some 46 TV channels and 27 radio channels. Free.
MSTV will have none of that. Whose side are they on? Some believe group owners, the power behind MSTV, will buy up bankrupt local stations and run them as “remotes”. Only a cynic would say that’s why Kevin Martin is the FCC commissioner. And we’re not cynical. No, we’re not.
[...] Finding, FCC: License-free 700MHz Devices Failed Test, Broadcasters: Portable Devices Kill DTV, Mud Fight in White Space, Pushing for “White Space”, Consumers to FCC: 700MHz Democracy Now!, Broadband Wireless — [...]
Left by The White Space Un-auction on January 30th, 2008