CTIA, carriers join NAB against white space devices

Sprint Nextel, T-Mobile USA and the CTIA have sided with the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) in the white spaces battle. Just as Google announced that it was turning its attention away from the 700 MHz spectrum auction and focusing on the FCC's white spaces tests, the CTIA and other wireless carriers have done the same to fight the Internet giant on this front as well.

Up until now, the NAB has been leading the fight against Google, Microsoft, and Philips and Motorola, who plan on creating devices that run on the unlicensed spectrum that exists between television signals. NAB claims that the white spaces are necessarily vacant to ensure nothing interferes with the television signals.

"The way we look at it is there is a model that works, and continues to work," said Paul Garnett, CTIA's assistant VP for regulatory affairs. "There is some potential there to use [white spaces] in a licensed way to allow incumbents or new entrants to provide new broadband access."

For more on the white space debate:
- read this white spaces report from the Hill