DTV Transition & Media Reform

It takes fewer airwaves to transmit a digital signal than it does an analog one, which means companies can use the reclaimed airwaves to enhance the way we communicate, said Michael Calabrese, director of the Wireless Future Program at the New  ...

The coalition "is very definitely still interested in avoiding any unjustified cannibalization of TV white space by broadcast licensees unless they can demonstrate they need to do this to continue coverage to households within their" market who could lose access to DTV signals after the analog cutoff, New America Foundation Vice President Michael Calabrese told us. "We reiterated those concerns to commissioners" Friday. LINK (subscription required)

In an October 2007 letter to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), executives from the four largest TV networks told the Commission that proposals to allow low-power Wi-Fi type devices to operate on vacant TV channels, “could cause permanent damage to over-the-air digital television reception." Such a dire warning would ring alarm bells for policymakers, if not for the fact that similar nightmare scenarios have been predicted before.

Google co-founder Larry Page was in Washington Thursday trying to strum up support to open unused broadcast TV spectrum to wireless devices. Page came to D.C. to meet with Congressional leaders and the Federal Communications Commission to talk about allowing device manufacturers to design products that use spectrum known as "white space." This spectrum, which is in the 700MHz band of frequency, sits between analog TV channels and is not being used for anything more than a buffer between broadcast TV… more

...[T]he soft-spoken and baby-faced Page met with key lawmakers including House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman John Dingell (D-Mich.) and policy makers at the Federal Communications Commission to push an idea to use empty television broadcast spectrum, called white spaces, for high-speed wireless connections by anyone, anywhere in the U.S. That spectrum will be freed up with the conversion of analog to digital television in February 2009. "There's a huge opportunity to make this stuff work," Page said in a discussion… more

In an event hosted by New America Foundation, "... Page argued that opening up vacant TV spectrum after the February 2009 switch to digital TV will help to spread broadband as well as boost Google's bottom line, calling opening up the white spaces "the most important thing the FCC [Federal Communications Commission] can do this year to promote broadband deployment and tech-sector innovation..." LINK

San Jose Mercury News | Auction Takes 'First Step' to Open-Access Wireless

. . . Michael Calabrese, director of the Wireless Future Program at the New America Foundation, said Verizon's ability to subsidize certain handsets gives it enormous market power in determining which devices and applications will ultimately become popular with consumers.

But Calabrese said the auction did help achieve the goals of increased openness and innovation. "We need to extend these consumer protections, but this was an important first… more

Wanted: A More Digital Congress (New York Times)

. . . Another way to share content online with voters, said Sascha Meinrath of the New America Foundation, is including access to a program like Google Documents, which allows multiple users to edit the same document. The idea is that if congressmen put a preliminary draft of a bill in an open source program on their sites, then specialists out in their home districts could amend the language or… more

RCR Wireless News | State's Role in Consumer Protection Bill Pondered

. . . "Allowing consumers to purchase unsubsidized handsets without a long-term wireless service plan, and at a fee no higher than subsidized wireless plans, would begin to knock down those obstacles and promote increased consumer freedom in the wireless market," said Michael Calabrese, director of the Wireless Future Program at the New America Foundation. . .

Although much public attention has focused on the US digital TV transition -- and the resulting reallocation of analog TV channels by auction to wireless carriers -- the US Federal Communications Commission will decide how to reallocate an even larger swath of prime TV band spectrum this year: the unused “white space” between occupied DTV channels. This reallocation of unused spectrum from broadcasting to broadband permits unlicensed access for both fixed and mobile applications.

In 2002, the FCC’s Spectrum Policy… more