Google co-founder Larry Page was in Washington Thursday trying to strum up support to open unused broadcast TV spectrum to wireless devices. Page came to D.C. to meet with Congressional leaders and the Federal Communications Commission to talk about allowing device manufacturers to design products that use spectrum known as "white space." This spectrum, which is in the 700MHz band of frequency, sits between analog TV channels and is not being used for anything more than a buffer between broadcast TV channels.

Google and other Silicon Valley companies have been lobbying the FCC and other lawmakers to free up this spectrum, which is ideal for sending data wirelessly over long distances and penetrating through walls. Some of the 700MHz spectrum has already been auctioned off by the FCC earlier this year. And companies such as Verizon Wireless, which won a big chunk of the spectrum, plan to use it to build a next generation wireless broadband network.

Page spoke in the morning at an event hosted by the Washington think tank, the New America Foundation. He emphasized that opening up the white space spectrum for unlicensed use could have a huge impact on the U.S. economy and economies throughout the world, if other countries adopted similar spectral policy. He also said that it made little sense for the U.S. to allow this resource to go unused. LINK