The debate whether to unleash a potentially huge amount of vacant broadcast spectrum—called white spaces—for Wi-Fi and other low-power wireless applications has reached a critical juncture, with federal regulators set to conduct another round of testing on a new group of devices to see if they can avoid interference with digital TV signals.

Google Inc., which plans to bid in the upcoming 700 MHz auction and a member of the alliance developing an open-phone platform, provided the Federal Communications Commission results of internal testing that the Internet search-engine giant said proves its white-spaces technologies work without disruption to DTV signals and wireless microphones.

Also this month, Philips Electronics—whose white spaces “sense-and-avoid” gear passed muster in previous government testing—gave FCC engineers an updated version of the device. Adaptrum Inc., a startup founded by Robert Broderson, an engineering professor at the University of California at Berkeley and co-founder of Atheros Communications Inc., also dropped off a smart white spaces device for testing at FCC labs in Columbia, Md.

Adaptrum’s technology uses the entire 6 megahertz of the DTV signal and contains a time domain matched filter, a technique designed to permit greater sensitivity than pilot tone detectors. Microsoft Corp. is ready to deliver a new device for technical analysis by the government. Microsoft previously had a white-spaces device fail in FCC testing, which Microsoft said was due to defective equipment. Motorola Inc.

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