Dec. 7 (Bloomberg) -- Google Inc., owner of the most popular Internet search engine, demonstrated two experimental technologies for U.S. regulators as part of its push to free up unused television airwaves for wireless Internet access.

Early tests found the technologies can ``amply'' protect occupied TV channels from interference if they are built into mobile devices that use vacant channels, Google told the Federal Communications Commission in a letter this week. Google showed the technology to FCC engineers at a Dec. 4 meeting, company lobbyist Richard Whitt said in the letter.

Google is the third company to build technology that would work with the unused airwaves, known as white spaces, located between channels used by TV broadcasters. Microsoft Corp., the world's largest software maker, and Royal Philips Electronics NV, Europe's biggest consumer-electronics company, submitted test devices to the FCC earlier this year.

The three companies are part of a group that wants the FCC to free up the airwaves for unlicensed uses, such as free mobile Internet access, after broadcasters convert to digital signals in 2009. The so-called White Spaces Coalition must first convince the FCC that the products won't disrupt TV reception.

``Anything with even a remote likelihood of being a licensed signal would be protected'' by Google's so-called spectrum- sensing and anti-interference technologies, Whitt said in the letter.

Unwatchable TV?

Broadcasters such as CBS Corp. and Walt Disney Co.'s ABC oppose the technology companies' plan, saying the gadgets may cause digital TV screens to freeze and become unwatchable.

FCC tests on such devices have already shown that the white- spaces technology isn't ``at a stage where it would effectively prevent interference in the television band,'' Disney Chief Executive Officer Robert Iger and other media executives said in an Oct. 11 letter to the FCC.

Microsoft's device may interfere with broadcast TV signals and wireless microphones, the FCC's Office of Engineering and Technology said in a July 31 report. The agency agreed to conduct more tests after Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft said a damaged component in its prototype skewed earlier results.

Google, based in Mountain View, California, fell 39 cents to $714.87 at 4 p.m. New York time in Nasdaq Stock Market trading. The shares have climbed 55 percent this year.

To contact the reporter on this story: Molly Peterson in Washington at mpeterson9@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: December 7, 2007 16:15 EST