The network, using AWS-3 (Advanced Wireless Service) bandwidth, is to be auctioned at a future date. T-Mobile has opposed the use of the AWS-3 band citing concerns that it could interfere with the AWS-1 band that delivers its 3G network. Earlier this month, T-Mobile unveiled the G1 Google Phone, which exploits the network's high-speed capabilities.
The FCC, at T-Mobile's insistence, conducted a series of tests in Seattle Sept. 3-5 and issued a report that AWS-3 could operate "without a significant risk of harmful interference" to other wireless services.
Once auctioned, the winning bidder would be required to build 95 percent of the nationwide network within 10 years at marked intervals. Further regulation of the public bandwidth would require that the network block content judged pornographic by "contemporary community standards."
As previously reported in XBIZ, no definitive ruling has determined exactly what those "standards" are.
The AWS-3 band auction is the latest opening of federally maintained signals. The mandated digital television conversion in Feb. 2009 will also offer new space in the spectrum of airwaves. As television stations abandon analog signals that require more space on the spectrum, blank—, or "white-spaces," will allow additional capacity.
Wireless companies and high-tech firms like Google and Microsoft have already expressed interest in this new bandwidth.