Microsoft investigates ‘white space’
Microsoft Corp. has turned its headquarters campus into a single wireless hot spot, giving workers in scores of buildings and aboard a shuttle bus a steady Web link to test a potential $4 billion market.
Google Inc., Hewlett-Packard Co., Motorola Inc. and Sprint Nextel Corp. are also making plans for a new era of wireless video and data traffic using vacant frequencies previously reserved for television. The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) plans to vote Sept. 23 on releasing the spectrum for nationwide use.
“We’re going to do something big here,” FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said in an interview. “This is very high-quality spectrum.”
The FCC in 2008 approved the use of white space, or gaps between TV channels, over objections of television broadcasters who said their signals might be disrupted. The agency left final rules on technical standards for later, and these are the matters coming to a vote next week.
Like TV signals, the radio waves being used can carry long distances and through building walls. Uses may include easier Internet connections, remote monitoring of industrial systems such as power plants and taking over some mobile-phone traffic to ease sluggishness for users of devices such as Apple Inc.’s iPhone.
The United States will be the first nation to deploy the technology, which is being examined by the United Kingdom, France and Brazil, Genachowski said. The action is the most significant release of unlicensed spectrum in 25 years, and will help fulfill the Obama administration’s pledge to almost double the airwaves available for new wireless devices, he said.
White-space applications may generate $3.9 billion to $7.3 billion in economic value each year, according to a September 2009 study funded by Microsoft and written by Richard Thanki, a London-based analyst with Perspective Associates.
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