As previously reported the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) issued an attack two weeks ago on FCC test results released in connection with a proposal from the Google- and Microsoft-led Wireless Industry Association (WIA). The NAB asked the FCC to delay a vote scheduled for November 4 to allow for a period of public comment on the WIA's plan to open up the "white spaces" around existing licensed spectrum for free public access.

Representative John Dingell, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, issued a letter last week challenging the FCC’s plans for a formal vote on Tuesday, November 4, Reuters reported. Dingell wanted to know whether the FCC’s technical analysis was peer-reviewed and why the FCC didn’t just license the white spaces out. "Why did the commission [FCC] decline to adopt a licensed approach to some of all of this spectrum?" Dingell asked the FCC. That part of the spectrum, known as white spaces, sits between broadcast TV channels and will become available when broadcast TV stations switch from analog to digital in 2009.

In a recent interview in The Washington Post, Microsoft's Bill Gates summed up his support by saying an auction would be a disaster and compared the white spaces spectrum to Wi-Fi, which operates in unlicensed spectrum bands.

The support of Gates and Page for white space devices is due to the fact that both of their companies have devoted extensive work to the white space idea, and both have done so for the improvement of connectivity. Radio airwaves are powerful enough to transmit signals through walls and across large areas, which should make it easier to cover an area with wireless broadband by using white spaces than the less powerful Wi-Fi spectrum. But TV broadcasters say that using white spaces for broadband access could interfere with television signals.