The FCC on Thursday proposed to auction off more airwaves for commercial ground-to-plane broadband communications. We’re not just talking about a handful of frequencies here: The FCC is eyeballing a 500 MHz block of spectrum, which could boost the connection speeds available to aircraft by a factor of 100,000.

As my colleague Stacey Higginbotham explained in a recent post, current in-flight broadband is so pricey and low-bandwidth because airlines rely on expensive satellite or ground-to-air transmissions systems to link aircraft to the internet. The dominant airline provider GoGo uses what is in essence a 3G CDMA network pointed at the sky. That means a single 3Mbps EV-DO connection must be spread among all of the internet users in an aircraft. Your fancy new laptop may support gigabit Wi-Fi, but the bottleneck in the ground-based backhaul link can slow you down to dial-up speeds.

The FCC’s plans, however, key in on a proposal Qualcomm made last year to clear a massive swathe of spectrum in the 14 GHz frequencies over which a kind of super-LTE network could be built. That network would only sport about 150 towers but each of those nodes would blast a high-powered signal into the northern horizon. Airplanes would fly between these huge crescent-shaped cells just as our cellphones move from tower to tower on the ground. But each of these aerial cells would have a whopping 300 Gbps of capacity, which would be shared among all of the planes occupying the surrounding airspace.

That’s a lot of bandwidth, but it’s conceivable that the airlines and their passengers could find a use for it. Today’s in-flight Wi-Fi is priced for the business traveler with an expense account and the inability to go four hours without email access. But these days everyone in the cabin from first-class to steerage is carrying multiple Wi-Fi-enabled devices. And they don’t just want to check email — they they want to stream video and play networked games. Airlines could also use that bandwidth to offer on-demand entertainment and live programming from the cloud, not just from their on-board hard-drives.

As for costs, a more efficient network could allow airlines to drop rates — or maybe even eliminate in-flight broadband fees entirely — to make high-bandwidth connections available to all customers. GoGo’s current network uses 160 towers, making it the same the size as Qualcomm’s proposed system. The infrastructure investment would be about the same, but by using the latest 4G network technologies and hell of a lot more spectrum, we could shove a lot more bandwidth into that infrastructure.

The 14 GHz band is currently used by fixed satellite providers as an uplink path to their birds in orbit. The FCC proposal would require that the any new in-flight network share those frequencies with its current tenants. In its notice of proposed rulemaking, the Commission said it is seeking industry comment to ensure there will be no interference between those two uses.

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On Monday, the Sprint’s board announced that it has formed a special committee of independent directors to “carefully evaluate” Dish’s $25.5 billion offer to buy up the company. But it also wants to keep its original $20.1 billion deal with SoftBank deal on track — despite Dish’s attempts to put it on hold.

On Friday it asked the Federal Communications Commission to keep its official review of Sprint-Softbank going, keeping the deal on target for final approval this year. The FCC is already 140 days into its initial 180-day review, but the U.S. Department of Justice has asked the FCC to delay proceedings while its National Security division looks into foreign ownership issues.

When Dish countered SoftBank’s offer last week it asked for a suspension of the regulatory review, but Sprint said there is no reason to stop clock even as Sprint negotiates with Dish. In fact, in its FCC filing Sprint accused Dish of political maneuvering to muck up the SoftBank deal. From the letter:

“DISH wrongly suggests that it would be prudent for the Commission to derail this review while it waits until an alleged uncertainty – uncertainty that DISH itself is attempting to create by its unsolicited proposal – is resolved. DISH has this exactly backwards. The Commission has been working diligently on the pending applications, which now stand at day 140 of the Commission’s shot clock. The Commission must not be distracted by DISH’s latest maneuverings, just as it was not distracted by DISH’s original request, and, based on long-established precedent, continue the orderly processing of the applications to conclusion.”

Meanwhile, the special five-director committee will weigh whether the Dish’s bid represents, or will likely lead to, a “Superior Offer” to Softbank’s. Dish may be offering more money, but as TMF Associates analyst Tim Farrar points out, Sprint has to look at other factors besides value to determine if a Dish-Sprint tie-up is worth the trouble.

Dish may offer Sprint some strategic advantages — combining both companies’ spectrum with Sprint’s mobile network and Dish’s satellite TV service — but if SoftBank matches Dish’s offer, Sprint may figure it can buy whatever strategic advantages it needs with SoftBank’s cash.

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The Securities and Exchange Commission, for instance, just announced it is updating its rules for social media. The rules may “fall short” but, overall, the SEC’s initiative is a welcome effort to adapt policies to emerging technologies. In other words, the government gets it. And not just for financial reporting — regulators are also updating rules to account for the impact of new technologies on everything from crowd-funding to video rentals to the Patent Office.

In light of such progress, why then is the government so often reviled by the tech community? To see what I mean, look at recent stories (and related comments) involving issues like online privacy, file-sharing or the sad death of internet activist Aaron Swartz. These situations, which may reflect poor choices by individual prosecutors or bureaucrats, have served to reinforce an article of faith for many tech enthusiasts: that the government is populated by people who are malicious and intellectually inferior to those who read sites like Reddit or Hacker News.

The same phenomenon can be detected in headlines like “It’s a Crime for 12-year-olds to Read the New York Times Online” or “Senate bill rewrite leds feds read your e-mail without warrants.” These are examples of tech writers using hyperbole to reinforce an us-versus-them narrative that their readers take as a given. This narrative in many ways resembles the world of comic book protagonists.

While the press and tech readers are right to be vigilant, the larger caricature of bungling government fools is neither fair nor responsible. For starters, the people who work at places like the SEC or the Justice Department are not schleps off the street who can barely use a computer; instead, they are often top-of-the-class graduates who accepted less money in favor of more fulfilling work. The agencies they work in can be dysfunctional — like many big corporations — but the people themselves are not.

There is an even larger problem of looking at the government through the fast-moving prism of the tech community. Namely, the government is not supposed to resemble the tech sector in the first place — pivoting, rapid adaptation and “move fast and break things” are fine qualities for a start-up, but they’re ill-suited as a method of governing a democracy.

Don’t forget that the country as a whole looks nothing like the tech sector. America is not disproportionately composed of affluent white and Asian males, but instead contains a far more diverse population with a multitude of interests and incomes. This is the lens through which policy choices should be viewed — not through cliches that pit tech geniuses against bungling bureaucrats.

(Image by saddako via Shutterstock)

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President Obama nominated Genachowski to the commission in 2009, where he oversaw some fairly momentous -– and controversial — FCC actions: the creation of the National Broadband Plan, the quashing of AT&T-Mo and the approval of Verizon’s plan to cooperate with the cable companies on residential broadband.

Here’s the full text of Genachowski’s statement:

“Over the past four years, we’ve focused the FCC on broadband, wired and wireless, working to drive economic growth and improve the lives of all Americans. And thanks to you, the Commission’s employees, we’ve taken big steps to build a future where broadband is ubiquitous and bandwidth is abundant, where innovation and investment are flourishing.

“To connect all Americans to broadband, we adopted a landmark overhaul of multi-billion dollar universal service programs, modernizing them from telephone to broadband and creating the Connect America Fund and the Mobility Fund, an unprecedented commitment to broadband infrastructure.

“To unleash the enormous opportunities of mobile, we pioneered incentive auctions and other cutting-edge spectrum policies.

“To fuel America’s innovation economy, we put in place the first rules to preserve Internet freedom and openness.
“To drive competition and empower consumers, we opposed and modified transactions where necessary, deployed technology to drive transparency, and took unprecedented enforcement actions.

“We helped harness the power of digital technologies to give students a better chance, people better health care, and make Americans safer in their homes and communities, while also guarding against digital threats and strengthening cybersecurity.

“Today, America’s broadband economy is thriving, with record-setting private investment; unparalleled innovation in networks, devices and apps; and renewed U.S. leadership around the world.

“While there are challenges ahead in this fast-moving, globally competitive sector, a revitalized FCC is prepared to continue taking them on. I’m deeply grateful to President Obama for his vision, friendship, and the opportunity to serve our country.

“I’m proud of what we’ve done together to harness technology to advance the American dream for the 21st century. I know you’ll continue to fight hard to fulfill this agency’s vital mission, and I look forward to continuing to work together until my last day at the agency, and to count you as family and as an inspiration for long after that.”

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Update: A spokesman from the FCC Chairman’s office declined to comment on the Journal story.

Genachowski replaced Kevin Martin (and interim FCC chairman Michael Copps) in 2009 after being nominated by Obama. Genachowski worked on Obama’s first presidential campaign as chairperson of his Technology, Media and Telecommunications Policy Working Group. The working group germinated the seeds of Obama’s National Broadband Plan, which Genachowski oversaw when he took over the reins of the commission.

Since then Genachowski has been in the spotlight on many occasions, advocating the need for more cellular spectrum and proposing the reallocation of TV airwaves for mobile broadband use. Some of those spectrum proposals, however, landed Genachowski and the commission in hot water, such as the conditional waiver -– later retracted — they granted LightSquared to use its satellite spectrum for a terrestrial LTE network.

Perhaps the most controversial period of his tenure, though, was the nearly one year that the FCC weighed and eventually quashed AT&T’s planned acquisition of T-Mobile. The decision is considered a victory for the competitive market and consumer choice after a long period of unfettered consolidation in the telecom industry.

Not all of the commission’s decisions have been so consumer friendly under Genachowski. The commission let pass Verizon’s spectrum deal with the cable operators, which has big implications for competition in the residential broadband market.

Genachowski’s retirement, if true, doesn’t come as a huge surprise. News reports have indicated that the forthcoming departure of Republican FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell clears the way for Genachowski’s departure as well, as it leaves the commission with a 2-1 Democratic majority.

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So far the T-Metro deal has sailed past regulatory obstacles. The U.S. Department of Justice declined to initiate any antitrust review last week. The deal’s biggest remaining hurdle is a vote by MetroPCS shareholders on April 12. The MetroPCS board has already unanimously approved the deal, but institutional shareholders are opposing it, trying to hold out for a better terms.

The lack of a full commission review and vote is sure to earn the ire of the Communications Workers of America, which anticipated the FCC’s move earlier this week and tried to stop it. The “full Commission has voted on much smaller transactions, including the $72 million Guam Cellular/DoCoMo Guam transaction and the $2.8 billion AT&T/Dobson deal,” CWA said in a statement Monday. “There is no reason that the full Commission should not fully evaluate and assess all the elements of this $30 billion deal.”

Considering the deal would merge the country’s fourth and fifth largest carriers, you’d think the deal with merit the commission’s full attention. But in its declaratory ruling, the FCC’s Wireless Telecommunications Bureau staff said that the benefits of the deal for competition and the public interest were numerous:

… we find that the transaction is not likely to result generally in competitive or other public interest harms. In addition, to the extent there may be some possible competitive harms in selected geographic areas, we find that these possible competitive harms are outweighed by certain public interest benefits likely to result from the proposed transaction. Such benefits include the facilitation of Long Term Evolution (“LTE”) deployment, the expansion of the MetroPCS brand into new geographical markets, the development of a more robust, national network, improved quality of service, and the strengthening of the fourth largest nationwide service provider’s ability to compete in the mobile broadband services market.

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That’s one major hurdle overcome to closing the deal, which would make T-Metro a publically traded company majority owned by DT, though it still faces regulatory scrutiny from the Federal Communications Commission as well as vote from Metro stockholders.

The DOJ’s tacit blessing, however, isn’t a trivial matter. The Justice Department has become much more actively involved in U.S. telecom deals ever since it joined forces with the FCC to kill AT&T-Mo in 2011. Since then it has thrown up a roadblock to Sprint’s mammoth deal with Softbank, citing national security issues. It also played a big role is shaping Verizon’s spectrum acquisition and partnership with the cable providers, though it eventually let that deal slide through despite its potential impact on broadband competition.

The fact that T-Metro’s paperwork passed through the DOJ’s offices without a word is a good sign that the deal will surmount its remaining regulatory hurdles without a hitch. While the DOJ has frowned on consolidation among the Big 4 U.S. operators, this deal would combine the smallest nationwide operator with the biggest regional operator and put T-Mobile in a much stronger spectrum position. Since AT&T-Mo, regulators have been, first and foremost, concerned with maintaining the four-operator equilibrium at the top of the mobile market.

The combined spectrum of T-Mobile USA and MetroPCS as compiled by Mosaik

MetroPCS has set a vote for on the deal on April 12. The hedge funds opposing the deals want MetroPCS to negotiate better terms with DT – creating either a less debt-laden final company or giving Metro shareholders a better payout – but so far they only represent a little more than 10 percent of the voting shares of the company. But DT seemed worried enough about their influence to issue a warning Wednesday to those stockholders.

“The MetroPCS board unanimously recommends that stockholders vote their shares FOR all of the proposals relating to the proposed combination with T-Mobile,” DT said in a statement. “The failure to vote or an abstention has the same effect as a vote against the proposed combination.  If stockholders vote against the proposed combination, there is no assurance that MetroPCS will be able to deliver the same or better stockholder value.”

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The reason such a database is key is because the TV spectrum in question has to be allocated dynamically. When a broadcaster or other licensed user is present, nobody else can touch it. Such databases, which have been or are being developed by Ericsson, Microsoft, NeuStar Spectrum Bridge (see disclosure) and several others, would create central repositories detailing which airwaves are available for white space broadband use at any given moment or location. Devices capable of transmitting in the white spaces airwaves would check those databases on a regular basis and pick their transmission channels accordingly.

Google is building its database – which is currently being tested by the FCC — as you would expect Google to build any data tool, as a browser-based app that allows anyone to search the white spaces in their area. Here’s what the channel map in my neck of the woods, Chicago, looks like:

The different colors represent the concentration of broadcasters in different airwaves. As you can imagine, Chicago is a pretty cluttered market when it comes to TV stations. But as you move outside of the cities, more channels clear up, which is one of the reasons a principle focus of white spaces broadband is on rural underserved areas. This search centered on Rockford, Ill., shows that contrast between Chicago’s and Milwaukee’s crowded airwaves and the large swathes of white spaces in rural Illinois, Wisconsin and Iowa:

Google may have more interest in white spaces than becoming a simple database administrator. Lately Google has sought permission to conduct a bunch of wireless technology trials using mysterious gear that hasn’t yet made it into any commercial network. I’ve postulated that Google is experimenting with the idea of a heterogeneous network, or HetNet, that combines advanced Wi-Fi, super-dense cellular clusters and largely unlicensed airwaves. If that proves to be true, then white spaces could be a key component of its strategy.

Disclosure: Spectrum Bridge is backed by True Ventures, a venture capital firm that is an investor in the parent company of this blog, Giga Omni Media. Om Malik, founder of Giga Omni Media, is also a venture partner at True.

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Nevada’s governor signed the law on Thursday with bipartisan support and described it as a “new frontier” for the gambling industry. The law came about after the federal government in late 2011 decided to change its policy and permit online gambling to take place in states that explicitly permit it.

The new policy is significant in light of research that predicts online gambling will be worth $100 billion worldwide on mobile devices alone by 2017. This potential market has attracted the established casino industry as well as tech companies that are vying to make gambling games or process back-end betting operations.

The new U.S. gambling rules are also a potential lifeline to social game maker Zynga which has seen its titles like Farmville and Mafia Wars stutter. And since being cast adrift by Facebook last year, Zynga has seen its shares fall around 80 percent.

The Nevada law, however, is unlikely to change Zynga’s fortunes anytime soon as it only applies to internet users in the state. The law is also primarily intended not to help social gaming sites but to ensure that Vegas casinos have a first-mover advantage in providing operational support when — and if — other states follow suit. As the Las Vegas Review-Journal reports, the Nevada law is written to keep out companies that already have existing player data. The story in question refers to “illegal operations” and those who “operated online gaming with U.S. patrons” — it’s unclear if this refers to organizations like Full Tilt Poker who broke the law in the past or to any company with gaming data.

The upshot is that the U.S. will, at best, have a patchwork of states in the foreseeable future where online gambling is permitted. If big states sit it out, it will not be easy for companies to guarantee that online poker tables are full. It also means operational headaches and potential criminal penalties for the game makers which must ensure, for example, that a player in Colorado doesn’t slip into a Nevada-based poker game.

The bottom line is that full-scale online gambling is still far on the horizon as the U.S. regulatory process shakes out. In the meantime, the winners and losers among Zynga and other tech companies like Big Fish are likely to be determined in the U.K. and elsewhere.

This story was updated at 12pm PT to clarify how the law may favor Nevada companies.

(Image by Beto Chagas via Shutterstock)

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The TV white spaces are the unused airwaves lying between TV channels, and governments around the world have proposed using those frequencies to develop a type of “Super Wi-Fi” – basically combining Wi-Fi’s unlicensed, free-to-access model with the much longer reach of these low-frequency TV airwaves.

In the U.S., regulators and the technology’s boosters want to use TV white spaces to expand the availability of cheap broadband, though the issue has become a political hot potato in the upcoming TV spectrum incentive auction. Microsoft is working with African regulators and ISPs to experiment with whites spaces broadband access in Kenya.

In the U.K., though, regulators are earmarking the spectrum as a means to ease the burdens of traditional cellular data networks — using unlicensed airwaves to offload 3G and 4G traffic. British entrepreneurs have interpreted that offload concept as making white spaces ideal for machine-to-machine (M2M) communications, the long-range wireless grid concept for linking together the internet of things. In Cambridge, Neul has begun testing smart grids and other sensor networks in a citywide trial. Neul has drawn in other U.K. heavyweights, including ARM, CSR and Cable & Wireless, all of which joined the Weightless SIG.

Neul and Weightless said the new chipset can tap the entire range of UHF frequencies from 470 MHz to 790 MHz, which means it could be used in countries beyond the U.K. (The location of white spaces differ from country to country and even city to city, depending on which frequencies local TV stations use). However, they didn’t reveal which partners were taking possession of its samples, so we’ll have to wait to see which hardware makers are interested in the fledgling standard.

Feature image courtesy of Cillian Storm.

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