FCC Missed Mark on One Part of TV White Spaces Rules, Says Group Representing Database Administrators
The White Space Database Administrator Group (WSDBA) said a provision buried in FCC rules approved in August could complicate Wi-Fi in the TV white spaces. The order concedes it doesn’t make sense to make white spaces devices recheck a database…
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every 20 minutes, as some propose, the group said. But the order requires that database administrators “push” information to white space devices in the area where licensed wireless microphones will be used “notifying them of changes in channel availability.” The FCC appears to not recognize “it's not possible to really ‘push’ data to specific devices at a specific location at a specific time” and the requirement will mean white spaces devices will have to poll the database “all the time no matter where they are,” the group said. The requirement “would cause significant burden on the database administrators and white space devices, with many potential real-world costs” including draining battery life of the devices and consuming bandwidth, the kinds of problems the FCC wants to solve, the group said. WSDBA said it represents Comsearch, Frequency Finder, Google, LS telcom, Microsoft, Neustar, Spectrum Bridge and Telcordia. The filing was posted Wednesday in docket 12-268.