Gates, Mundie make a pitch for white space

Bill Gates went to Washington this week, testifying before Congress the other day to advocate for more high-tech visas and promoting white-space spectrum. Speaking at a DC-area high-tech forum, he called on the government to approve white spaces, Dow Jones reports.

"We're hopeful [white spaces spectrum] will be made available so that Wifi can explode," Gates said.

At his side, Microsoft research chief Craig Mundie, added:

The white spaces is sort of our last hope to get some good spectrum. "The only way to do it is to use the unused tv channels and very smart radios. Ultimately the public will pay the tab either because we fall behind as a society or we have to make extraordinary adjustments to catch up.

Congress and the FCC could have opted to make Wi-Fi available across the nation by allocating part of the 700Mhz spectrum to that purpose. Instead, they "decided it would be better to balance the budget and auction off that spectrum," Mundie said. "If we don't make informed policy choices, the country may fall farther behind" in terms of broadband penetration, he added. Last year, Microsoft developed a device that would allow consumers to connect to the Internet using the parts of the spectrum that aren't devoted to other uses. Rather than pursue that approach, the FCC auctioned off the spectrum formerly occupied by TV broadcasters. We still don't know who won that auction but most observers suspect it was Verizon.