Japanese Broadcasters Refuse the White Spaces

We held the ICPF Symposium yesterday in Tokyo. Kevin Werbach made a good presentation about the American experience of DTV transition. He emphasized that the problem is not DTV but opening up the wasted spectrum for the New Network Age when various types of wireless media compete.

However, after his presentation, Chiharu Kamise, the Technical Director of Fuji TV, surprised us saying "There will be very few white spaces in Japan. While there are only 1,500 stations in the U.S., there will be as many as 13,000 DTV stations in Japan". He might have mistaken the white spaces as the geographical spaces not covered by airwaves.

I pointed out the misunderstanding, but Kamise insisted that broadcasters would not allow entrants to white spaces because mobile terminals would interfere with the broadcasting signals. It's the same logic as American broadcasters protect their vested interests. As Werbach said, the interference is not a technical term but a political slogan.

Good news is that METI submitted a public comment (in Japanese) to the MIC that encourages them to consider the utilization of white spaces. It's usual in the U.S. for a Department to criticize another's policy, but it's rare in Japan. It's a long way to the New Network Age in Japan, but it's changing slow and steady.