In a suit filed Tuesday (April 18) in the Circuit Court of the District of Columbia, FreeSpace asked the court to overturn portions of a March 9 FCC ruling that restricted use of the 6-MHz guardbands surrounding the primary frequency windows that the FCC will auction. FreeSpace founder Mike Farmwald said the FCC's "arbitrary decision prohibits consumers from using this spectrum for broadband Internet access, and gives it away to private mobile radio." The FCC ruling said that the 6-MHz frequency chunks could be licensed only to special holders called "guardband managers," who may not use cellular-like infrastructures for the frequency bands, and must lease the bulk of their guardband windows to unaffiliated third parties.

FreeSpace's original proposal won the support of the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association, Microsoft Corp., Intel Corp., Yahoo Inc., AT&T Co., L.M. Ericsson, and Excite@Home Inc. A CTIA spokesman called the FCC ruling "puzzling," since the commission had indicated it was skeptical of private-radio industry claims of interference in these guardbands.