Microsoft eyes buffer zone

Plan unveiled as provider looks to extend high-speed internet to rural areas

Microsoft wants to extend broadband services to rural America by using the buffer zones separating individual television channels in the airwaves.

Microsoft plans to partner with rural telecommunications providers in 12 states, from the Dakotas and Arizona to a far eastern edge of Maine. The strategy calls for a combination of private and public investments and regulatory co-operation from the Federal Communications Commission to get about 2 million rural Americans connected to highspeed internet in the next five years.

Microsoft’s initiative, unveiled Tuesday, comes as policy makers struggle to extend highspeed internet services to rural areas, which cable and phone companies have often shunned as cost prohibitive.

The National Association of Broadcasters dismissed the initiative as the “height of arrogance” for Microsoft to “demand free, unlicensed spectrum after refusing to bid on TV airwaves” in a recent FCC auction.

“Policymakers should not be misled by slick Microsoft promises that threaten millions of viewers with loss of lifeline broadcast TV programming,” spokesman Dennis Wharton said in a statement.

Although the buffer zones, known as white spaces, are currently unused, Wharton said they are important for preventing adjacent channels from interfering with each other.

Microsoft is already piloting its idea in a sparsely populated region of southern Virginia, where it’s providing $250,000 to the Mid-Atlantic Broadband Communities Corp. The South Boston, Virginia-based telecommunications provider will contribute another $250,000 and use a $500,000 grant from Virginia Tobacco Region Revitalization Commission.

Mid-Atlantic Broadband’s chief executive, Ted Deriso, said Tuesday that he reached out to Microsoft several years ago after seeing the Redmond, Washington, company deploy the technology in other parts of the world.

“We said, ‘Wow, the problems they’re trying to solve in rural parts of Africa are the same we have in rural Virginia, on the technology side,”’ Deriso said.