White Spaces Coalition "Cause The FCC Won't Let Me Be"

So, as a reminder, there is a government mandate that analog television signals are to cease as of a February 2009. That means that all of the wireless spectrum that was previously allotted to this purpose will become open for business if you will.

Well, almost as soon as that mandate was made, just about all of the major players in the technology world grouped up and formed the White Spaces Coalition. The companies that are included are as follows: Microsoft, Google, Dell, HP, Intel, Philips, and Earthlink.

The goal of this coalition was to bring about a new wireless broadband technology that ran in the "white spaces" of the analog television spectrum. Well apparently the two units they sent to the FCC, the original and the backup, were put to tests, sadly they only used the original and let the backup sit, not even considering that maybe the device developed by the top manufacturers of such devices just had a malfunction and that the entire line might not be faulty. Well they wound up taking that route and more or less failing the device for open access.

Microsoft has shown the FCC engineers their reports from their tests, and even took a look at the device they tested and found the problem. The Coalition seems to be hoping they take another look at the technology, with the working backup model, and give it another chance, but they don't really seem to care too much whether the FCC does or doesn't.

Fast wireless broadband backers: c'mon FCC, you know it works [via arstechnica]