Open Up The TV White Spaces

My friend and former entrepreneur Tom Evslin’s been on a tear on his blog lately. Today, he wrote a great post asking everyone to do what they can to lobby the FCC to open up the "white spaces", the frequencies between broadcast TV stations. Tom explains why this is good for you, me, and the Internet industry:

It is, in fact, highly likely that a vast array of new services
including Internet access at a lower cost and higher speeds than we’ve
so far seen in the US (or the world) will appear if this spectrum is
opened for unlicensed use (eg. not auctioned off for proprietary
networks). Think of the huge innovation that’s occurred in WiFi and
Bluetooth which operate in unlicensed spectrum even though these
technologies share just scraps of undesirable spectrum with microwave
ovens and cordless phones.

There is an online petition at freetheairwavess.com
whose wording you can use or change in order to make your views known
to the FCC. If you would prefer, you can also comment directly on the
FCC docket by going to http://fjallfoss.fcc.gov/prod/ecfs/upload_v2.cgi and typing the docket number 04-186 in the first box.

FreeTheAirwaves.com

Please comment right away. THE DEADLINE is TUESDAY, October 28th.

#VC & Technology

Comments (Archived):

  1. lee

    For those who are interested, further information on this issue is available here on slashdot: “White Space Debate Intensifies As Vote Approaches ” http://tech.slashdot.org/ar…Specific reference on Washington Post to Google co-founder Larry Page claims that an FCC field test of white space wireless devices was ‘rigged’ to make the test device fail to detect wireless microphone broadcasts. http://voices.washingtonpos…To be honest, I am still trying to get my head around this issue and its impact. Hence my reading all this stuff earlier this evening. I would welcome anyone else’s input just to clear my thoughts.

  2. Tony_Alva

    Great idea! I’ve sent my note in support of this.I’ve got another one… Why don’t we mandate a digital conversion of the entire broadcast FM band, give the encumbants a digital slice or two, recoup the excess spectrum, re-open the entire market of broadcast radio to competition including mandating localized/minority ownership.Oh that’s right, we can’t. We already gave away all those digital channels to the the existing big four analog encumbants who have esentially killed radio:-)