After Bill Gates testified before Congress yesterday, he and Craig Mundie, Microsoft’s chief of research and strategy, visited lawmakers on Capitol Hill to talk about their concerns over U.S. competitiveness.
One example, Mundie said, was the FCC’s decision to auction off available public spectrum rather than allocating some of the airwaves to white space technology.
Microsoft is one of the founding members of the White Space Coalition, and Bill Gates wants to see the FCC give the green light for vacant airspace in the TV spectrum for wireless broadband. A Microsoft prototype that would use such white spaces is being tested by the FCC.
“We’re hopeful that will be made available so that Wi-Fi can explode in terms of its usage, even out into some of these less dense areas where distance has been a big problem for Wi-Fi,” Gates said in response to a question from the audience during an appearance before a Northern Virginia technology group.
How goes the FCC’s 700 MHz auction? It’s still going…round 232 and counting.
Maybe not today…maybe not tomorrow…but soon.
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