Beset with preliminary technical woes and a lack of political traction in Congress and at the Federal Communications Commission, a new organization started up on Dec. 12 to promote the unlicensed use of interference buffer spectrum between television channels.

The Wireless Innovation Alliance, a coalition of technology companies, public interest advocates, think tanks and higher education groups, said it hopes to work with Congress and the FCC to develop regulations for the use of the spectrum known as "white spaces."

Although broadcasters are allocated hundreds of megahertz of spectrum in every U.S. television market, significant chunks are unused, serving as interference zones from other channels. In Boston and Chicago, for instance, almost 50 MHz is fallow. The unused spectrum is considered ideal for wireless broadband because the radio signals penetrate walls and other objects.

Google, Microsoft and other tech firms covet the spectrum as an alternative to telecommunications and cable companies delivering Internet connections. A group led by the companies known as the White Spaces Coalition has been unsuccessfully lobbying Washington all year for approval of unlicensed white spaces devices.

With many of the same players from the coalition in attendance Dec. 12, the new Wireless Innovation Alliance promised a new push.

"Much as telephones, radios and TVs revolutionized telecommunications in previous generations, white space devices will transform every aspect of civil society," Michael Calabrese, vice president of the New America Foundation, said at press conference at the National Press Club. "White space devices provide an innovative platform for a new generation of technologies, services and applications." ...

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