Regulators, siding with techs like Google and Microsoft, rule that “white space” freed up by digital TV is best used for high-speed wireless hot spots
While the country was picking its next President on Nov. 4, the Federal Communications Commission federal communications commission was making its own momentous decision. The country’s top communications regulator unanimously voted to free up the biggest ever swath of airwaves to be used by the public for cheap high-speed wireless Internet access.
The vote came after more than six years of public scrutiny and decides the fate of airwaves that will be made available when television broadcasts switch over to digital signals from analog in February. A broad coalition of opponents, including lawmakers, musicians, and broadcasters, argued that free public use of the airwaves would interfere with TV broadcasts and wireless microphones. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like this [amount of pressure] from broadcasters before,” says Steve Sharkey, senior director of regulatory and spectrum policy at Motorola (MOT), one of the companies that welcomed the FCC’s decision.
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