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Besides the Presidential election, there's another big political battle brewing in Washington on Nov. 4. This one is over the airwaves that are used to deliver communications signals to consumers across the country, and like the race for the White House, this contest has created a big divide.

Japan will start an aggressive push to market abroad its mobile technology, especially the nation's popular "wallet phone," a government official said Tuesday.

Although Japan boasts some of the most sophisticated cell phones in the world, delivering high-speed Internet connections, digital TV broadcasts and video downloads, the nation has failed to make its handsets, wireless technology and mobile services hits outside of Japan.

Having organized a coalition to promote open networks to the Federal Communications Commission with some success, Google has launched a new effort in support of "white spaces" called Free the Airwaves.

White spaces are the static between channels. According to Google on a new Web site promoting the Free the Airwaves initiative, more than three-quarters of those airwaves are not being used. Google cofounder Larry Page has described the potential as "Wi-Fi on steroids."

'A Revolution in Wireless Services'

Sony, Samsung and other consumer-electronics heavyweights are uniting to support a technology that could send high-definition video signals wirelessly from a single set-top box to screens around the home.

The consortium due to be announced Wednesday is an important development in the race to create a definitive way to replace tangles of video cables, but doesn't end it -- both Sony and Samsung also are supporting a competing technology.