Mega-church steps up criticism of white spaces plan

Joel Osteen, senior pastor of the huge Lakewood Church in Texas, has asked the U.S. Federal Communications Commission to reject a request by several tech companies to allow proposed wireless broadband devices to operate on spectrum now occupied by wireless microphones and television stations.

Osteen, whose Houston mega-church draws about 40,000 attendees a week, asked the FCC to turn down requests by some tech vendors and consumer groups to open up the so-called white spaces in TV spectrum to new wireless devices.

The proposed devices will "most certainly interfere" with the church's ability to operate, Osteen said in a letter to the FCC.

"There is clearly no reliable technology that can protect wireless microphones from the interference that comes from new portables devices operating in the same or adjacent channels," wrote Osteen, whose weekly television broadcast attracts millions of viewers. "Static and audio dropouts due to interference from an unlicensed mobile wireless device would create a devastating distraction."

Lakewood Church was one of more than 70 U.S. churches that signed on to an October 2007 letter expressing concern over the FCC's testing of prototype white space devices. That letter also asked the FCC to reject requests from tech vendors including Microsoft, Google, Dell and Intel to allow wireless broadband devices to operate on unused channels in spectrum assigned to broadcast television.

Osteen's new letter comes as the FCC nears a decision about the use of white spaces devices, following several rounds of testing over the last year and a half. In a handful of FCC tests, prototype devices have failed, but generally because the devices stopped working, not because the devices interfered with TV stations or wireless microphones.

In addition to churches, the National Association of Broadcasters, wireless microphone makers and some mobile phone carriers have opposed the white spaces proposal. But several consumer groups, including Public Knowledge, Free Press and U.S. PIRG (Public Interest Research Group), have called on the FCC to open up the white spaces spectrum.

Both sides have accused the other of lobbying based on their narrow interests.

The Wireless Innovation Alliance (WIA), one coalition pushing for the FCC to approve white spaces devices, has "no interest or intention of harming the wireless microphone business or adversely affecting their users," said Jake Ward, a spokesman for the group.

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