Man, the spectrum atlas is way to web3.0 for me. How about a nice pdf that doesn't animate for you

www.ntia.doc.gov/osmhome/allochrt.pdf

with enough information that you can actually read it.

-The 700 MHz Auction was for 614 to 698 MHz. These are the upper batch of UHF channelsm and will go away in a year. There will still be UHF channels at 512 to 608 MHz. (Channels 21 to 36). If you still have an antenna hooked up to your TV, you'll notice that many of those channels are not used, for historical reasons relating to TV tuner linearity. The Google/White Spaces Coalition work is proposing to use the 512 to 608 MHz band to provide wireless internet access, coexisting with the current UHF bands.

Each radio in this system would need to be able to sense if there was a incumbent TV broadcast, and change channels so that there isn't any interference. You statement in brackets in the FUTURE PLANS is a little over reaching, this is a single system that would work cooperatively. Perhaps in the future things would work like that, take a look at the things that Shared Spectrum are working on (http://www.sharedspectrum.com/). The bandwidth is a little wide, but not out of the question. Software radio wouldn't necessarily be required, it would depend on what else you wanted to support

TECH PROBLEMS: This is indeed the same thing that Microsoft supplied to the FCC that failed to work. Not so surprising that a demo would fail. Somewhat embarrassing, but nothing fatal. Since when has new technology worked flawlessly the first time?

OTHER HURDLES: good propagation and through the wall coverage. Ranges potentially more like 3o to 40 miles radius from a base station. Wireless microphones are a potential issue, but apparently many of them are used illegally, so maybe not such a problem after all. If Sprint/Nextel can move all the public safety bands, then surely the wireless microphones can be addresses.

Final Questions.
-This is completely different from what Verizon is/may offer in the 700 MHz license that they have. They don't have to worry about coexistence with incumbent users.
-Whether it's more like WiFi or wide 3G coverage is more of a business model issue.
-Not sure why Android keeps coming up. I for one welcome our new Google overlords
-The NAB is freaking out because that's what they do when something threatens their spectrum licenses.
-Not sure how the White Space stuff will actually impact the wireless microphone systems.

IEEE is working on a standard, 802.22, that significantly overlap's the work of the White space coalition. There may be an overlap there.
http://www.ieee802.org/22/

Interesting blog I recently discovered at
http://spectrumtalk.blogspot.com/

Dave
www.keystoneradio.com