Dr Ray Stantz: Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies. Rivers and seas boiling.
Dr. Egon Spengler: Forty years of darkness. Earthquakes, volcanoes…
Winston Zeddemore: The dead rising from the grave.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together - mass hysteria.
– Ghost Busters
Members of the White Spaces Coalition say their wireless broadband device tested by the FCC for interference with television broadcasters did not failed, as the NAB claimed last week.
The prototype device submitted by Microsoft lost power during tests. Another white spaces device malfunctioned in tests run by the FCC last year.
Ed Thomas, a tech advisor to the White Spaces Coalition and a former chief of the FCC’s Office of Engineering and Technology, said that while the devices power supply failed after many hours of continuous testing, it did not interfere with television signals due to the power failure.
Thomas, during a press briefing, said the NAB was engaged in “rhetoric” designed to complicate the FCC’s device testing.”Let this be based on science, not politics,” Thomas said of the ongoing testing at the FCC. “Let the facts prevail.”
As Free Press explains, very market in the United States has empty or unused airwaves set aside for broadcast television. Many markets have so few broadcast stations that less than a quarter of the channels are used.
The White Spaces Coalition, including Microsoft, Philips, Dell and Google, is asking the FCC to allow wireless devices to operate in the so-called white spaces. The coalition wants the white spaces opened up to give consumers more wireless broadband options, which would be targeted at longer-range broadband than traditional Wi-Fi.
If the FCC approves the devices this year, commercial white spaces wireless devices could be available as soon as late 2009.
But television broadcasters have opposed the coalition, saying it’s likely that the that wireless devices will interfere with TV signals. White spaces devices are “not ready for prime time,” said Dennis Wharton (right), the NAB’s executive vice president.
The FCC’s in-house testing of four devices will continue for a couple more weeks, then the agency will conduct field tests for up to eight weeks. A second white spaces device has experienced no power failure problems, said Ed Thomas, of the White Spaces Coalition.
Related DailyWireless stories include; White Spaces Prototype: Dead Again, Sprint and T-Mobile Support “White Space” Use, White Space Gets Hot and NAB: Unlicensed Devices Threaten America
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