RSSFCC Strikes Down Net-Over-TV Device
By Ed Oswald | Published August 8, 2007, 3:46 PM
The FCC has struck down a proposal brought forth by several technology companies that utilizes unused portions of TV spectrum for high-speed Internet.
Supported by companies such as Microsoft, Dell, and Google, the device uses what is called "white space" to deliver Internet, especially in rural areas. However, the FCC said the products shown did not reliably find unused spectrum, and would cause interference.
The White Spaces Coalition is the group responsible for the effort, and said its own test conflicts with the findings of the FCC. It said Wednesday that it planned to work with the agency to answer its questions, and also identify the discrepancies between the FCC's and its own findings.
FCC Chairman Kevin Martin apparently wished to stress that the denial of the proposal was not a rejection of the idea itself: he said the agency was still very interested in finding a way to use "white space" to deliver Internet access.
Supporters of the technology claim that the frequencies, which reside between 54MHz and 698MHz (the analog television band) could be capable of delivering speeds of 50 to 100MBps for "single use application."
Service would begin once broadcasters migrate to their new digital television channels. The White Spaces Coalition is fighting broadcasters though: many believe that the technology will cause interference, which the FCC seems to agree with.
This may be a baseless worry however: even if the device is approved later this year and moves into production, it appears none would be sold until February 18, 2009 when the analog- to-digital television transition is actually completed.
Interference??? Probably about as much truth to that as there is that cell phones crash jet liners. They're right, digital signals are far less prone to interfering with neighboring signals than analog signals are to each other.
Besides, couldn't the FCC simply allocate a 20 to 40 mhz block out of a possible 640ish mhz of frequencies available in those for use by broadband providers? Or better still, make a standard where the wireless broadband equipment works through the whole spectrum, they only have to be able to be "tuned in" in the local market frequency that are allocated to the wireless broadband provider(s) in that area?
I mean, if they're so worried about "interference" why couldn't the broadband providers simply apply for a license to broadcast like any other TV station, and the FCC decides where in the spectrum in their particular market to broadcast? I'm quite sure I could pull up a local market and find a relatively large block of the frequencies and stick a station in the middle of it, far enough away from the others that would preclude them from "interfering"...
I don't know the whole story here, but the more and more I see about the whole DTV switchover and the bandwidth that will be available, it makes me believe that a money grab by the FCC is really the only thing running the whole show, not concern for the public's welfare or innovation.
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|They need to allocate such a large part of the future open spectrum otherwise the service wouldn't be able to compete in the future. We're already in the era of 10 to 20Mbps connections in many areas of the country and for this to succeed in competing with cable and phone companies in terms of bandwidth, they're going to need a lot of spectrum to allow the service to ramp up to 100Mbps and beyond in the future.
It's not like WiFi where a smaller amount if spectrum can support high speeds like 802.11n because of the short range. A person may be miles from a broadcast tower and to sustain those high speeds requires more spectrum.
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