CommLawBlog : Broadcast & Communications Lawyers & Attorneys : Fletcher Heald & Hildreth Law Firm : Telecommunications, FCC Regulation, Communications Act

The FCC requests comment on white space database tests recently conducted by Google, Inc. and Key Bridge Global LLC.

In separate public notices, the FCC has asked for comment on white space database tests recently conducted by Google, Inc. and Key Bridge Global LLC. (The FCC paperwork misidentifies the second company as "Keybridge Global Inc.") Their respective test reports are here and here. Mark your scorecards: once approved, these will be database managers numbers 3 and 4.

Prior CommLawBlog entries on these tests are here and here.

Comments on both tests are due on June 13, 2013 and reply comments in June 20.

For background on the databases and what they do, see this article.

[Blogmeister’s Note: In keeping with the practice we introduced with our last white space database post, we have sought to capture the essence of these recent developments poetically:

An FCC Haiku to the Public

Key Bridge and Google
filed database test reports.
Comments?  We’re all ears.]

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Next up is Key Bridge Global LLC.

Add Key Bridge Global LLC to the list of TV “white space” database coordinators ready for testing. White space systems, we all know, operate in locally vacant TV spectrum; most must consult a database of other users to avoid causing interference. Of the ten FCC-approved coordinators eligible to provide access to the database, Spectrum Bridge, Inc. and Telcordia Technologies, Inc. have successfully completed their tests and are authorized to support white space devices nationwide, while Google and now Key Bridge Global are in the test preparation phase.

We will keep on keeping track.

[Blogmeister’s Note: As much as we here at CommLawBlog enjoy keeping everybody up-to-date on doings at the FCC, there are limits. Since the FCC started implementing its white space database coordination process, we’ve reported on the appointments of nine -- and then a tenth -- database administrators, three test launches, two requests for public comment on test results, and two final approvals. This post marks the fourth test launch. They are all starting to look the same.

We’re happy to keep reporting as we have done but, frankly, the repetition gets a bit tedious. So we offer here an alternative approach: limericks! 

Here are some examples. We encourage our readers to try their hand, too – submit them as comments. (Nothing X-rated, please.) We’ll post them without criticism. Honest.

Key Bridge Global Authorized to Test

Said the FCC Chief Engineer
To Key Bridge: "Do your test, do you hear?
Just prove you comply --
No, there’s no second try.
Get it right, or you’re out on your rear."

Summary of the White Space Coordination Program To Date

The FCC said to the nation:
We’ve settled on this delegation –
Just ten firms – no more –
That will take on the chore
Of inputting white space co’rdination.

Spectrum Bridge, Inc. became number one.
Telcordia’s next in the sun,
And then Google was blessed
With permission to test . . .
But the FCC still wasn’t done.

Next in line: Key Bridge LLC Global
Coordinates fixed and, yes, mobile
Devices that choose
Just what spectrum to use
And with no interference – that’s no bull.

The Commission has clearly mandated
That each of the firms designated
Will assure straightaway
That white spaces will stay
Non-color co-ordinated.]

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Google is up next; seven more to come.

Unlicensed “white space” devices, which operate in locally vacant TV spectrum, rely on a database of other users to avoid causing interference. The FCC has approved ten coordinators to provide access to the database, and has completed tests on two: Spectrum Bridge, Inc. and Telcordia Technologies, Inc. The FCC subsequently authorized white space operation over much of the eastern United States.

Now the FCC has announced tests of a third provider, a relative unknown called Google Inc. The 45-day public trial will begin on March 4. Details are here. We will let you know the results.

Seven more to go.

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If you live in Nottoway County, Virginia, you’re in luck.

The FCC has authorized TV white space database coordinator Telcordia to offer service within Nottoway County, Virginia, a mostly rural area toward the southern part of the state. Initial operations will include 20 sites serving rural schools and households. The action comes less than a month after the FCC approved Telcordia’s database, and four months after the first white space operations were approved for Wilmington, NC by coordinator Spectrum Bridge, Inc.

Included in the Nottoway County order are special procedures for registering wireless microphones entitled to protection from white space devices.

We assume the pace of approvals will pick up. At the current rate, we calculate it will take until the year 2797 before white space systems are fully deployed. By then, we expect to be communicating telepathically via devices wired into our nervous systems. Assuming, of course, the FCC can free up enough spectrum.

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Operations are still limited to Wilmington, NC.

The FCC has announced that Telcordia Technologies, one of the ten database managers for “white space” operations, has been approved to provide service to the public. See the details here. Telcordia, which completed its test in January, is the second database manager to secure this approval.   Eight more are waiting in the wings.

But most of the public that Telcordia is authorized to serve will have to wait for that service. For now the FCC has approved white space operations only in Wilmington, NC.

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FCC requests public comment on results of Telcordia system testing

“White space” wireless operation on locally vacant TV channels requires that devices consult a database of users entitled to protection, including broadcast TV stations and some wireless microphones. See a list here. The FCC has authorized ten companies to provide and operate those databases. The second such company, Telcordia Technologies Inc., recently completed a 45-day test that began in December.

The FCC now seeks public input on the Telcordia results, which are posted here. Comments are due on February 16, 2012, and reply comments on February 23.

In the meantime, white space operations were scheduled to begin last week in Wilmington, NC, using a database provided by Telcordia’s competitor, Spectrum Bridge, the first to complete testing.

There are still eight database providers to go. We will keep track so you don’t have to.

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First white space database and end-user devices to begin operation in January in Wilmington, NC.

The FCC has approved the first “white space” database and the first end-user devices to begin operation on January 26, 2012, initially limited to the Wilmington, NC area.

White space devices are supposed to provide Wi-Fi-like services, only better, using locally vacant TV channels. Successful operation will depend on complex databases to help each device identify channels on which it can safely operate, without causing interference to TV stations, radio astronomy, wireless microphones, and several other services entitled to protection. We reported just last month that the first of ten FCC-approved database providers, Spectrum Bridge Inc., had posted the results from a 45-day test of its system. The FCC has now announced its acceptance of that system, and simultaneously, its approval of an end-user white space device that operates in conjunction with the Spectrum Bridge database.

Operators of the various services protected against the devices – see a list here – should make sure their facilities are properly listed in the database.

White space operations will be limited at the outset to the environs of Wilmington, NC. Wilmington was also the city chosen by the FCC a few years back for an early trial of the cut-over from analog to digital TV. We’re not sure why the FCC keeps putting Wilmington’s TV reception at risk. Perhaps the city is an unheralded center for high-tech early adopters. Or the home of someone whom the FCC just doesn’t like.

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The first of ten database administrators has posted the results of a 45-day test.

We reported back in September about a test of the first database for “white space” devices meant to provide Wi-Fi-like service on unused TV channels. The database – developed by Spectrum Bridge Inc. – is intended to help prevent interference from those devices into TV receivers, wireless microphones, and other authorized users of the bands. The FCC invited public participation in a 45-day online test.

Spectrum Bridge has completed its trials and submitted a “summary report” about it to the Commission. The FCC, in turn, is now requesting public input on the test result and the summary report. The request includes links to the report and three attachments submitted by Spectrum Bridge. We have been unable to access the Spectrum Bridge report and attachments by using the links provided in the FCC’s release. Presumably this is just a slight technical glitch that the FCC will correct.  However, since the Commission’s notice came out just before the start of a three-day weekend, we thought our readers might appreciate some working links to the Spectrum Bridge materials now, to give them something to pore through over the long weekend. Here they are:

The Spectrum Bridge summary report

Attachment 1 – “Dashboard” (statistics concerning traffic to the Spectrum Bridge test site)

Attachment 2 – Registration Records

Attachment 3 – Comments

Attachment 3, in particular, makes for interesting reading. It reflects a number of comments, criticisms and inquiries submitted to Spectrum Bridge during the test, and Spectrum Bridge’s responses. Some of the problems identified in the test are troubling.  For instance, Spectrum Bridge’s database ignored, at least initially, some facilities whose licenses (a) appeared to have expired but (b) were actually still in effect because of pending litigation relative to renewal of the licenses.  But it does appear that Spectrum Bridge was responsive to the problems. We shall see.

Comments on the Spectrum Bridge report are due on November 28, 2011, and reply comments on December 5.

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Anyone can visit the test site to try out the white space channel availability calculator, the wireless microphone registration utility, and other functions.

Those long-promised “white space” devices, delivering super-Wi-Fi performance on locally unused TV channels, are moving a small step closer to reality.

The delay in actual availability – initial rules were adopted almost three years ago – results from the fact that these devices must protect several other services from interference. The main mechanism to achieve that protection is a set of databases that list the locations and frequencies of the services entitled to protection. A white space device is supposed to check in with a database for a safe frequency assignment before transmitting. The first of those databases is now ready for testing.

The services that qualify for protection, and which hence must be listed in the databases, are:

• broadcast television stations (including full power, TV translator, low power TV, and Class A stations);
• fixed broadcast auxiliary service links;
• receive sites (and received channels) of TV translator, low power TV and Class A TV stations and multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs);
• private land mobile radio service and commercial mobile radio service operations
• offshore radio telephone service operations;
• radio astronomy operations at specific sites; and
• certain wireless microphone operations.

The FCC has approved ten database administrators to keep track of these services. The idea is for each administrator to set up its own separate database. Each of the ten will extract information on protected services from the FCC’s licensing databases, or from the rules (except for some MVPD and wireless microphone information, which must be entered by hand by interested parties). This information need be entered into only one database, which will automatically share that information with the other nine – so that, as a result, all ten reflect the same protected services. Similarly, no matter which of the ten databases a white space device chooses to consult, it should get back the same information on available channels.

That is the theory, at least. Coordinating ten very large, constantly changing databases, each of a different fundamental design, is likely to present problems in practice.

The first of the ten databases is now ready for a 45-day period of public testing. Beginning on September 19, anyone can visit this site to test the white space channel availability calculator, the cable headend and broadcast auxiliary temporary receive site registration utilities, and the wireless microphone registration utility. Unfortunately the all-important sharing function among databases is not yet ready to try out.

Give it a try, and let us know what you find.

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