Old,
unused TV signals could soon become the rural broadband of the future —
but the TV stations of today have some qualms about the idea.
People
have been making claims like this for “white spaces” connectivity since
the early 2000s. But this time around, it’s Microsoft (MSFT) that’s
putting its money and influence behind the effort.
And
nearly nine years after the Federal Communications Commission approved
the concept , that company and other white-spaces advocates can finally
start pointing to real-world results.
Surfing on the airwaves
The
notion the FCC began studying in 2002 goes like this: Since
broadcasters don’t use all of the available television airwaves — and
since that spectrum, expanded by a recent FCC auction , reaches long
distances — let’s allow internet providers to use them.
That
could deliver downloads of 10 megabits per second or faster up to 10
miles from a transmitter — at half the deployment cost of LTE wireless.
But
because those openings aren’t uniform nationwide, the FCC couldn’t
simply offer one block of spectrum. Instead, it’s had to create a
database for white-spaces devices to verify they’re limiting themselves
to vacant airwaves.
After testing this concept for more than a decade in the U.S. and abroad, Microsoft wants to take it nationwide.
In
a July 10 report and a July 11 speech by president and chief legal
officer Brad Smith, the company outlined how white-spaces technology can
bring broadband to 80% of the 23.4 million rural Americans lacking it
by July 4, 2022.
To
get there, Microsoft will invest in white-spaces providers, offer free
licensing of 39 patents covering the technology, and support
digital-skills training from the National 4-H Council and other groups.
As
for the remaining 20% of unconnected rural Americans, Microsoft thinks
satellite (historically plagued by data caps) suffices for more isolated
users, while denser populations merit fiber-optic and fixed-wireless
connections.
Microsoft
puts this vision’s capital and initial operating costs at $8 to $12
billion, although its share will be considerably less: It estimates that
its direct investments will bring white-spaces broadband to 2 million
people by 2022.
That still amounts to a significant white-spaces endorsement from a big company — something the technology has lacked.
“We’re
now at a point where things have gelled,” said Harold Feld, a senior
vice president at the tech-policy group Public Knowledge who backs white
spaces as “the duct tape of rural broadband” that can patch gaps in
coverage. “What you need is something to jump-start it.”
A start in Virginia
For
on-the-ground proof of this potential, Microsoft points to the test
it’s backed in Charlotte and Halifax counties in southern Virginia .
In
that rural area — where OpenSignal’s crowdsourced coverage map shows
spotty LTE even along major roads — Microsoft and partner Mid-Atlantic
Broadband Communities Corp. have brought broadband with speeds that are
faster than DSL to some 130 households, with faster and more widespread
access expected this year. Still, the speeds are below cable internet
rates.
Mid-Atlantic
Broadband CEO Tad Deriso said those users — whose options before
amounted to “satellite, dial-up or nothing” — had downloads of ”right
around 5 megabits per second” from as far as four and a half miles away.
Uploads are slower, as happens with most wired broadband outside fiber.
Deriso
said that ongoing channel-bonding tweaks should get those speeds as
high as 15 to 25 megabits per second. That top number is considered true
broadband according to the FCC.
Mid-Atlantic
Broadband did get help from public investments in broadband : Twelve of
its 16 transmitter sites are at schools with fiber-optic links.
Deriso
said the technology has lived up to advance billing in keeping
broadband out of the way of TV broadcasts — unlike a test MBCC and
another vendor ran a few years earlier.
“It’s been easy sailing,” he said. “We’ve had no interference issues with the broadcast stations.”
The
technology will get a bigger test later this year when a partner
internet provider, B2X Online , will start selling access. B2X CEO
Warren Kane said it will offer three tiers: free access to whitelisted
educational sites, $10 a month for downloads up to 2 Mbps, and $40 a
month for 5 Mbps or more. While he said he’s still deciding what exact
speeds to advertise, neither paid service will include a data cap.
Deriso
said he sees no other viable broadband system in his firm’s rural
context: “We’re all-in on this type of technology in our little
footprint down here.”
Microsoft’s big request: one more channel
The
tricky part of Microsoft’s agenda is its request that the FCC make one
additional white-spaces channel available in major markets.
The
National Association of Broadcasters — long skeptics of the
white-spaces concept — has not been amused by this. In a press release ,
spokesman Dennis Wharton called it “the height of arrogance” and asked
why the company hadn’t bid on that spectrum in the FCC’s recent auction.
“It’s
Microsoft that is asking for something new from the FCC,” he said in a
follow-up email that noted broadcasters aren’t seeking new spectrum for
their pending conversion to a next-generation TV standard , ATSC 3.0,
that will let them offer data services. “We vigorously oppose that idea,
because of the negative impact on TV broadcasters.”
Broadcasters
in particular fear that smaller stations that relay network signal to
isolated areas will get squeezed out — a point Craig Fugate, a director
of the Federal Emergency Management Agency under President Obama, made
in a Friday op-ed warning that rural residents could miss storm warnings.
Feld
said this extra channel wasn’t needed in rural areas but would allow
economies of scale nationwide — in turn driving down white-spaces
equipment costs, today on the order of $800 for a receiver.
That
political argument will not be settled quickly. But by the time it
does, white-spaces technology should no longer be a blank space on the
broadband map.
