When the Federal Communications Commission gave the green light to "white space" devices—unlicensed wireless gadgets that can create broadband connections in prime, unused television bands—it also required these services to use a geolocation system to determine whether a specific TV frequency is in use in that location. The system will constantly update a database of all TV signals and unlicensed devices.

In November 2009, the Commission posted a "help wanted" sign for white space database administrators. Lots of companies applied. Yesterday, the agency announced the winners: Comsearch, Frequency Finder, Google, KB Enterprises LLC and LS Telcom, Key Bridge Global LLC, Neustar, Spectrum Bridge, Telcordia Technologies, and WSdb LLC.

You'll note Google's presence among the appointed. This decision was not without controversy, since the company has been a huge booster for white space technology, and may well produce white space hardware itself. In fact, Key Bridge, one of the other appointees, raised this concern.

"Google is a prospective manufacturer of TV band devices," the Commission acknowledged, "and as a database administrator it would be able to collect information such as the make, model, serial number, location and ownership of competitors’ equipment."

But while the FCC sympathized with this worry, it admitted Google to the team anyway:

While it is true that the company would be collecting certain information about competitors' products, the same basic concern applies to all other database administrators as they could make that same information available to manufacturers of TV bands devices. To address this industry-wide concern, we prohibit all database administrators from using the information collected to engage in anti-competitive practices, either by using the information themselves or providing it to third parties. We will oversee the continued database developmental work to ensure that all database administrators comply with requirements in the rules to make service available to all TV bands device users on a non-discriminatory basis.

Now all of these participants must send their respective staff to an FCC white space "database camp," which will be run by the agency's Office of Engineering and Technology. The OET will host a series of workshops for standardizing the database process and will make final decisions on all sticky questions. OET will also set up a webpage to post information about database-related matters.

The first such workshop is scheduled for March 10, 2011 at the FCC's laboratory in Columbia, Maryland. And in case any of the winners didn't notice it the first time, the Order repeats the privacy/competition warning for good measure:

"Database administrators must agree that they will not use their capacity as a database manager to engage in any discriminatory or anti-competitive practices or any practices that may compromise the privacy of users."

With this key piece of the white space ecosystem finally nailed down, the much-delayed devices can finally move forward on their slow journey to market.