FCC Gets Competing Bids to Become White-Spaces Database Manager
The FCC received at least nine proposals from companies to build and operate a TV white-spaces database. Google made headlines Monday night when it announced its proposal. But NeuStar, Spectrum Bridge, Comsearch, Key Bridge, WSdb, KB Enterprises along with LS telcom, Telcordia Technologies, and Frequency Finder with Mountain Tower also offered, in filings posted Tuesday on the FCC website, to set up databases.
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In November, the FCC Office of Engineering and Technology sought proposals from companies that want to be named TV band database managers. Candidates were required to submit their plans by Monday. The expectation since the FCC approved its white spaces order in November 2008 has been that the first devices would hit store shelves within a year of the launch of the first database.
“There is clearly a great deal of interest, and from a surface reading it appears that several technological approaches are feasible,” said Legal Director Harold Feld of Public Knowledge, a white-spaces use booster. “This bodes well for those of us who believe that there is money sitting on the sidelines waiting to invest in unlicensed spectrum technologies.” President David Donovan of the Association for Maximum Service Television, said he was still reviewing the various proposals.
“Why are we offering to do this?” Rick Whitt, Google’s Washington telecom and media counsel, wrote in a blog entry late Monday about the company’s proposal. “We continue to be big believers in the potential for this spectrum to revolutionize wireless broadband, and we think it’s important for us to step forward and offer our assistance to make that vision a reality.” Since starting the White Spaces Database Group last February, “we've been working with other stakeholders to exchange ideas and perspectives on how to best operate a working database, and we believe we're in a strong position to build and successfully manage one,” Whitt said.
In a filing, Google asked the FCC to endorse “an appropriately flexible and market-driven approach” on white spaces databases “that avoids either limiting the number of database providers or mandating a single database” architecture. “We continue to believe that allowing a significant number of retail database suppliers will best ensure a healthy and competitive ecosystem that promotes innovation and competition in both basic and enhanced data services” the company said. “To that end, Google is prepared to provide an end-to-end TVWS database solution, preferably as one of several such suppliers competing in the market."
NeuStar said it has long experience running similar databases. “Founded to meet the new technical and operational challenges of the communications industry related to telephone number administration and local number portability, Neustar has evolved, like the communications infrastructure it supports, to enable new services that rely on new technologies such as Internet Protocol,” the company said. “One relevant example is the Internet based Telecommunications Relay Service (iTRS) Telephone Number Directory, an ENUM clearinghouse service that Neustar provides to the iTRS industry under a contract with the Federal Communications Commission.”
Key Bridge called its proposal for a database “comprehensive and complete.” The company continued, “Our system completely satisfies all of the FCC"s technical requirements to administer a TV bands database. … It is also flexible enough to accommodate future changes or modifications to those requirements.” Comsearch said, “Based upon our long-standing background in spectrum management, our history of developing and maintaining some of the largest and most accurate commercial telecommunications databases, our relative strength and corporate breadth, and our approach to the database development and eminence as detailed in our response below, we believe we should be selected as a database administrator.”