Ars Technica has a nice article about plans to make use of the unused "white spaces" between frequencies allocated to television broadcasters. Despite broadcaster worries about interference and concerns of wireless microphone manufacturers who already utilize frequency white spaces, the FCC is moving forward. An industry group is devising methods by which devices with geolocation capability can report their position to a database of frequency usage information that will return a list of allowable frequencies in that area. Compilation is ongoing, apparently. Today, Google offered to host one instance of the database for at least 5 years, and for free. The intent is to have multiple synchronized instances of the database available.
Will white space utilization open the door to new rural broadband services? Stay tuned for future FCC action on this front.
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http://www.zdnet.com/blog/open-source/long-distance-wifi-rule-could-be-just-10-days-away/7318?tag=nl.e539
ReplyDeleteLooks like the opportunity could be right around the corner. Maine, and other rural states, can only hope for a lack of lobbying by big guns to kill the adoption of such liberating technologies. Those for "less government control" should push to have this technology adopted. Even if it isn't cleared by FCC regs there should be exemptions for rural areas of the country where there is currently NO wireless or high speed internet.