STATEMENT OF
COMMISSIONER MIGNON L. CLYBURN
Re: TV White Spaces Demonstration, July 19, 2012
To Julie Knapp, John Leibovitz, and the staff of OET, thank you for informing us about 
the progress that the industry is making on implementing operations in the TV White Spaces.  All 
of this is great news for those Americans, who live in sparsely populated rural communities, and 
low-income urban areas.  To date, licensed communications companies have not developed 
profitable business plans to serve these areas.  So, the successful development of TV White Space 
databases and devices gives us hope that these underserved communities will be moving closer to 
enjoying the affordable advanced communications services that the vast majority of Americans 
already enjoy. 
I find last month’s announcement of the AIR U initiative very exciting, because we all 
recognize the fact that universities that are located in certain rural areas are struggling to find 
access to affordable broadband networks.  This challenge often makes it more difficult, for these 
institutions, to attract the best faculty and students.  By employing unlicensed TV White Space 
services, the AIR U initiative can offer a low-cost means to provide these universities with 
increased coverage and capacity.  In addition, the initiative will stimulate and aggregate demand 
in the adjacent community.  All of this will encourage greater investment in, and development of, 
new services.  So I join a host of others in congratulating the New America Foundation, GiGU, 
the United Negro College Fund, Google, Microsoft, and the other founding members of AIR U, 
for developing such a creative partnership to assist rural universities and promote the 
development of White Space services.
Finally, I wish to acknowledge that this announcement also underscores the public 
interest merits of a bi-partisan effort that Representatives Anna Eshoo and Darryl Issa led to 
ensure that the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2012 contained statutory 
provisions to protect unlicensed spectrum.  I commend Representatives Eshoo and Issa for their 
leadership on this issue.  As their February 2012 letter stated, it is estimated that unlicensed 
spectrum generates between $16-37 billion each year for the U.S. economy.  In November of last
year, the Consumer Federation of America issued a report, which found that Wi-Fi offload 
resulted in wireless carriers not having to construct 130,000 cell sites.  This resulted in annual 
cost savings of more than $25 billion.  Staff presentations, such as this one, show that this 
Commission understands the value of unlicensed spectrum to our economy, and that we are 
committed to encouraging the development of more advanced unlicensed services in the TV 
White Spaces.