AT&T Says TV White Spaces Database Problems Cited by NAB Are 'Worrisome'

AT&T filed in support of NAB’s April petition asking the FCC to suspend the TV white spaces (TVWS) database system until “serious flaws” are rectified (see 1503190056). AT&T said the petition has bigger implications as spectrum sharing becomes the norm in a growing number of bands. Google and Microsoft separately objected, as comments continue to be posted on the petition in RM-11745.

The evidence presented by NAB is “worrisome,” AT&T said, in comments posted Tuesday. “NAB’s petition argues that after five years of effort,” fewer than “1,000 TVWS devices [are] registered in the database, far from the billions of dollars of economic activity that was predicted for the service,” AT&T said. The lack of accuracy in the database also “presents an obvious concern of harmful interference to the licensed broadcast spectrum users, the very users the TVWS database was devised to protect,” the carrier said.

The FCC plans to locate unlicensed operations “directly adjacent” to licensed operations in the 3.5 GHz shared spectrum band and the TV band following the TV incentive auction, AT&T said. “The assumptions underlying this approach are that a database can accurately manage the scope of unlicensed use while providing accurate information on the users so interference concerns can be addressed,” AT&T said. “NAB’s petition now exposes those assumptions to some serious doubts.” NAB raises questions about database managers can effectively keep track of fewer than 600 TV white space devices, the carrier said. “This raises serious questions about the ability of a database to patrol the complexities involved in robust spectrum sharing, including in the 3.5 GHz band.”

The big four broadcast network affiliate associations called on the FCC to heed NAB calls that the agency address flaws in the database. The commission apparently made efforts to clean up the database, which are commendable, the associations said. The stakes are high, they said. “Millions of Americans rely on over-the-air television for everything from news, weather and emergency information to sports and entertainment programming,” the affiliate associations said. “Millions more rely on cable delivery of local television that is relayed from an over-the-air signal. It is one of the core functions of the Commission to ensure interference-free operation between the various services, and, crucial to this proceeding, establish very clear rules that prevent secondary services from interfering with, and diminishing the value of, licensed operations.”

Google and Microsoft disputed NAB's arguments. “Despite its theatrical title and overheated rhetoric” the NAB petition “identifies no actual interference or other harm to its member broadcasters, no failure of any FCC-certified television white space database, and no violation of any Commission rule,” Google said. The company said it's working with database operators and FCC staff to make the databases better. “Google is participating in discussions on uniform treatment of inactive device registrations,” the Internet company said. “There may also be automated processes that could improve the data quality of fixed device registrations, for instance requiring test devices to use specific IDs or serial numbers (like ‘WXYZ0000-TEST’), so that test registrations can be filtered automatically.” Google said the TV whites spaces are being used to access the Internet in Thurman, New York, in California’s gold country, through Cal.net, and in Wilmington, North Carolina, which “uses white spaces to offer free Wi-Fi in some public spaces, as well as to manage a variety of smart city initiatives, including monitoring water quality and traffic conditions in real time.”

NAB claims are “pure conjecture,” Microsoft said. “NAB has failed to justify emergency suspension of database operations, and its proposed rule changes (also unwarranted) are better addressed, if at all, in the Commission’s current rulemakings to amend Part 15 of the Commission’s rules for unlicensed operations in the television bands.”

The WhiteSpace Alliance also criticized NAB. “Most startling in a request replete with hyperbole, is the utter absence of any assertion of interference or any other harm to broadcasters or other protected users, or any suggestion of how such interference could even result from the supposed database anomalies identified by NAB,” the alliance said.