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Spectrum Wars: The Hidden Battle
PacketMaster writes: "The USA Today is carrying an interesting commentary entitled All-but-secret battle rages over fate of airwaves. The article sheds light on some topics that many people are completely ignorant on - the fight over the broadcast spectrum. The most interesting tidbit is that the current broadcasters, who were given the new digital spectrum for applications like HDTV for free, now want to keep their old ones too and auction them off for industry profit to help pay for the transition to the new spectrum."
Gore Vidal, the great American essayist, novelist and playright said, "When you hear the word privitization, there is a burglar lurking."
I'm much funnier now that I'm a subscriber.
I think one of the problems we will start seeing before long is interference. With more and more people/devices crowding into a static amount of space (until more of the spectrum is released) it is bound to get a little bumpy. How long until your wireless network won't work when you sign on to your local wireless "last-mile" provider?
visit my free wallpaper collection, wp.erasei.com
I think digital radio would be a logical first step before digital TV - there's tons of wasted spectrum b/c of the pathetically outdated mandatory distance frequencies.
Fix the easy stuff first (or at least concurrently).
</sarcasm>
When has the US been the fore-runners of technology that didn't involve killing people somewhere else?
Send your friends messages of love at fuck-you.org
It seems to me like the way things should work is that if a company doesn't use a frequency (or is only duplicating things available on other frequencies) for a certain amount of time, it should revert to the government for reassignment. After all, they don't "own" the frequencies like they do physical property - they're on loan from the government. Just my $.02...
Omnes arx vestrum sunt adiuncta nobis.
Nothing a high altitude nuclear explosion won't fix :) Enough argument already ;) God knows 50 years from now we'll discover all the waves passing through our bodies gives us colon cancer or somthing.
- "Scientia non habet inimicum nisp ignorantem"
Unfortunately, International treaties seem to have remarkably short lives, around a certain GWB. It wouldn't surprise me, if his "resolution" to the problem was to deregulate radio transmissions entirely.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
If they would have payed for the new spectrum, My guess is they would have had an argument for auctionning the rest, but since they've got it for free, they've "saved" that extra investment (or tax), plus, knowing that in the end, it won't be a reason to lower the cost of the products they will sell using that spectrum, I'd say, leave the lower almost unused spectrum a bit more open for developpement for projects or org. that couldn't afford to pay a tax/license right for it (i.e. local or + wireless community internet access, school research projects).
It's a bit like computers, it's not because a workstation is old and not useful for rendering in your graphics/video editing company, that it cannot do a nice web server (or anything else requiring less power) in an non-profit organisation.
--- Metamoderating abusive downgraders since my 300th post.
What were the conditions of returning "their analog spectrum to the public"? Did they forbid broadcasters from making a profit when they returned them to the public? Did they limit how the broadcasters could return them to the public?
After my knee-jerk "how dare those bastards" reaction, I took time to think about it and I'm not so sure this is a problem.
-jhon
Aren't our elected officials supposed to at least TRY to protect their electorate from this kind of thing? $200 BILLION is a lot of money! I don't think we should have to rely on one or two reporters to stop a $200 BILLION theft. It would be nice if our elected officials would stop counting their kickbacks, bribes and lobbyist money and start doing their jobs.
While the whole process is working out less than ideal, I'm pleased to see the government taking an active stance on bringing 3G to the states. I know there are a couple of GSM cel carriers here in the states now but they don't really have the same coverage as the old CDM and TDMA (I think those are the acronymns) systems that AT&T and such have. I'd love to have some of the whiz-bang new phones (or one of the more stylish australian models) but because the rest of the world operates on a different system I'm out of luck.
Chalk it up to good intentions but (potentially) poor implementation I suppose.
Ad in classifieds: Pandora's Box (no box) $5
The machinations on Capitol Hill are increasingly out of control. Of course the broadcasters will get their cake and eat it too (selling spectrum they were given for free) since they only have to funnel a small % of the proceeds to suddenly supportive senators.
Let's dispense with the formalities and just post a large for-sale sign outside the capitol:
laws and regulations starting in the low 500's. modern and convenient. spaciously appointed. no need to wait.
1) Get something for the government for free / dirt cheap.
2) Go back on the contract / agreement.
3) Make bucketloads of cash.
4) Government (and taxpayers) suck it up
Rather than a a shortage of bandwidth, I think the true problem in the States is a lack of decent, informed, relatively unbiased regulation headed by the Fed and too many interested parties such as corporations with a lot of money and lawyers.
The whole HDTV plan is a disaster. No one is buying HDTV (and, reports to the contrary, I don't think it looks significantly better, so I don't think anyone will). You can't force people to buy it, and you can't deploy it when no one has it.
It's a spectrum-hungry technology that no one really wants. Plus, it's a big selloff to companies that don't deserve the help.
InstaPundit! Ahead of the Curve Since 30 Minutes Ago
This quasi-privatization of the airwaves combines the worst of both worlds, with few, if any, of the best. All the worst of government regulation, and all the worst of business since they control a product which someone else owns.
Let's have real privatization of the airwaves. Yes, their is a fixed amount of frequencies available, but the market works for other fixed resources, like real estate. Will there be some large players that will grab up large chunks of frequencies? Of course! But I would rather have half a dozen mega conglomerates competing with each other, than a single government agency accountable to no one at all. (and of course, government regulation has done nothing to hinder the current crop of megacorps, but plenty to keep the small independent off the market)
How would it work in practice? Just take a look at the internet. Next to zero regulation, backbones that in many areas are fixed resources, heavy commercialization, yet there are unlimited opportunities for individuals, non-profits, and other noncommercial organizations.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
while it brings in alot of $$$ has always seemed somewhat shady to me. While this article isn't well balanced, it has always seemed like the users of that spectrum have been well-funded businesses and I get nervous when they get in too tight with the regulating agency. A breath-taking example of this coziness is that the NAB would have the balls to propose auctioning their old analog spectrum and keeping the money. And yes, I read the article and if you don't think they won't manage to stuff most of that money in their own pockets, you're crazy. I thought that by giving the networks free spectrum for HDTV (or whatever it may be called by now) the Gov't and, by extension, the people *were* speeding up the process and cutting broadcasters costs.....sheesh.
I hope you're still employed.
I don't have a lot of experience with wireless communications. Thus far all I've used is radio, a wireless phone handset, and an emergency cell phone. In my daily life then interference has never caused any critical problems. Sure there is the occasional static on radio or what not, but the signal to noise ratio is generally quite good and a little corruption isn't that bad.
My question to you then is how bad is interference now and has it been getting worse? When you are running wireless networks and systems where single bit errors can be serious, how well do the failsafes work? Can you give examples where interference was/is a persistent serious problem?
Obviously if we keep expanding the spectrum and pumping more things into the air, there will be more interference. So right now are we doing pretty good that we can tolerate more interference, or are in the position of making a real problem much worse?
PS While I respect radio astronomers, your problems are not typical. We may simply have to accept that what's useful to us is harmful to you and the overall utility might trump some methods of research.
TV was actually worth anything...
:)
I mean, come on...I'm at my girl friends appt in west BY GOD Virginia, she's got 500 channels and there isn't a DAMN THING WORTH WATCHING for about 23 hours out of any given day.
and HDTV? do you really think joe sixpack is gonna notice the difference? That's like joe sixpack being able to pick out conversion artifacts on a 128m MP3. It doesn't happen.
Tech is a great thing...I love it to death, love watching it grow and spread. But there's a time when the new tech just isn't significantly better, or is looking for a different problem to solve than the one it gets crammed into. I mean, I could see getting a HDTV for console gaming, maybe...if they were less expensive.
I dunno, maybe thats just me
when all is said and done, all a man has left are his blades and his honor.
The US gives a lot of spectrum to TV (and the military, but that's another story). So, Americans are behind in cell phone technology, but get to watch more TV channels (even without cable).Network Magazine has an interesting article about this.
of the article (and others I've read) are that the broadcasters return the analog spectrum at no charge. They *did* recieve the digital spectrum for free after all. It seems quite clear that the government didn't intend to have to bid to get the spectrum back.
And don't forget the seriously abusive plan to encrypt all HDTV broadcasts with this 4C (or was it 5C?) encryption system so that all HDTV sets sold to date will be relegated to merely displaying 480i even though they are prefectly capable of going up to 1080i.
Thank the MPAA (Motion Picture Ass of America) for that one - they say they won't let any stations broadcast their precious movies unless the channel is fully encrypted end-to-end.
At least there are rumblings that 4C has already been cracked, but the cracker is afraid to publish for fear of being skylaroved. Sweet irony that.
Which seems to be quite a few knee-jerk posters...
The point of the article was that the broadcast industry wants to profit from the sale of the analog spectrum they agreed to return to the public in 2006. They were given the new spectrum, valued at over 70 billion, for free. So, they want to take our property, and sell it.
In addition the current military spectrum is very much desired. The military would either like to keep it, or obtain the anaolog spectrum from broadcasters. Some folks in congress want to auction off the military spectrum, and the debate is whether the money goes to the military to help convert to another spectrum, or to other programs.
Well, of course the broadcasters are going to try to do this. Do the math, they only need to contribute 20 million or so of soft money to reap a 200 billion windfall. That's a 1000000% return on investment.
personal attacks hurt, especially when deserved
Eben Moglen (Prof. at Columbia Univ. and General Counsel for the FSF) was talking about the spectrum giveaway to TV broadcasters 4 years ago. See here. Interesting historical perspective.
My friend recorded over my copy of Rampage for the 48k, so I got into a fight with him. That was the best spectrum war I've ever had.
Why should broadcasters or other services be forced to pay more for spectrum allocation than it costs to administrate it?
Just asking, this is not flamebait, but is offtopic.
--fatboy
Digital Television != High Definition Television.
Of course HDTV typically has a digital signal (some countries actually have tried analog high-def signals), but digital television just means using a digital signal instead of analog and that can include the contemporary TV format.
Afterall digital cable companies and satelite providers already commonly transmit digital signals of contemporary sized and formatted television programs.
The plan was to transmit over air TV signals digitally because it is a more efficient use of spectrum than analog and then retire the analog transmissions once there was sufficient penetration of TVs that could read and decode digital signals.
Of course the companies would like to get everyone behind the higher res, wider, bandwidth hungry HDTV format and spew that all over the air waves as well or exclusively, but personally that seems more like a marketing gimmick than an especially useful technology. Even if digital broadcasting takes off, don't expect all the shows on the air to be HDTV formatted, at least not any time soon.
But with the Telecommunications Act of 1996, it was Trent Lott who prohibited the auctions, and forced the FCC to give licenses away. The act also prohibited consideration of anyone but the renewal applicant for the license, assuring that only the owners of the ill-gotten licenses would be keeping them, and I quote:
You do the math.
Deciding whether to side with the FCC or with Corporate America in this matter is easy. I live in a democracy; if I don't like the government I can run for office and change it. I don't like Carnivore, Echelon, the DMCA, and I would like to play a significant role in having the NSA and the CIA dissolved and opened to the scrutiny of the world. Why does it work this way when 90% of the country, left and right, libertarian and conservative, doesn't like it? Why can't I change the way this government works? It's because no one takes office without large corporate donors behind them, and no one campaigns without the millions of dollars needed to get themselves on corporate airwaves. The public would never know your name, and that would gaurantee you a sideline seat for the election debates that, by the way, happen to be corporate-sponsored as well. It's one big joke.
In any Spectrum war it is esential to be the one armed with the +2 or the +3 as they can be wielded like a cricket bat and thereby cause far more damage than your opponent can if he gets stuck with a 48k.
What're you gonna do rubber key boy, throw your tape recorder at me?
If we totally deregulate the airwaves except, we'd have problems for a while, but eventually it would FORCE efficient allocation of the spectrum, ala CDMA or other means, as the only way to reliably get a signal through the newly created mass of noise
Reboot macht Frei.
I believe Wired had an article about this. It came out maybe winter 1997. It was called "The Great HDTV Swindle" or something. It harped on the points that:
1.) all these companies get something for free
2.) on account of the existing TV standard being an official HDTV format, companies don't have to do anything
Given points 1.) and 2.), we come up with
3.) we get shafted, and
4.) the FCC rules
First they fine the hell out of Howard Stern, then this. Bastards.
A. Nonymouscoward
Aren't our elected officials supposed to at least TRY to protect their electorate from this kind of thing? $200 BILLION is a lot of money!
$1.4 trillion is even more money, and some politicians were involved in aiding and abetting that theft.
It would be nice if our elected officials would stop counting their kickbacks, bribes and lobbyist money and start doing their jobs.
What? Be actual representatives of the people in their districts? Stand up for justice? Do the right thing? Not when there's an electoral war chest to build!
And now you begin to understand just how close to death democracy in North America truly is. Money isn't just a unit of trade; it's a measure of power. The more you have, the more powerful you are, the more influence you have over lawmakers (what? citizens? screw 'em; they don't buy me campaign ads and dinners). As for "campaign finance reform," only a complete and total overhaul of how elections are run could even begin to attack the root of the problem with government in the US, Canada, and other Western "democracies"; the position of lawmaker has become one of authority without responsibility, instead of servant with great responsibility.
I wonder if the distance, real and political, between representatives and citizens has become so great as to make accountability meaningless, simply because the politician lives in a completely different world than the people who voted them into their positions. I wonder if politicians would make different decisions if they had to live with their effects on a daily basis, alongside the people who gave them that power and corresponding responsibility, instead of acting like first-graders and covering up their messes with spin and flat-out lies.
--end rant--
Someday, you're going to die. Get over it.
Aren't they a subsidiary of Sirius Cybernetics?
You know, the inventors of the talking doors...
The first ones with their back against the wall when the revolution comes.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Ultra WideBand looks promising for PDA/ Wireless data transfer, and with that kind of bandwidth you could shove quite alot of stuff including video.. Lets just do away with 'traditional' broadcasters - Its the future already.
air and light and time and space
Digital communication is inherently immune to noise caused by several types of interference. Many channel encoding schemes exist precisely to deal with interference that is typical of the frequency range of the band, doppler effects, echoes, etc. Yes, there is a statistically small amount of bit error you will receive given a statistically small amount of noise energy present in the band, but there is no recent trend of rising noise energy in any given frequency band.
So don't worry, your phone, tv, AM/FM radio, talkabout, bluetooth device, etc will not eventually stop working due to the noise level passing some magic threshold.
For more info, look at the frequency allocation on the FCC web pages:
http://www.ntia.doc.gov/osmhome/allochrt.pdf
From the article: "We risk losing our leadership role."
We can't loose something we don't have, Finland had the first commercial mobile networks, the first digital GSM networks and soon will be amongst the first UMTS networks, a few months after the same can be said for the rest of Europe.
Let's not kid ourselves, they were ahead to start with and continue to be, American is great for many things but our mobile networks have always sucked. I'm not sure if it's even a matter of leapfrogging, the Europeans were installing digital GSM networks in the late 80's and early 90's whilst at the same time we were still deploying analog technology, of varying standards.
This mess needs to be sorted out, this is a critical infrastructure like the highways (or slashdot), when you have former Eastern Block countries with better cellular services than NY it's a disgrace. I'm a libertarian, but the free market has really failed us here.
I'm sincerely disappointed with the state of things, and it only gets worse, the providers are too busy cramming yet more subscribers onto the overburdened networks instead of solving the core problems with the infrastructure. And the market isn't solving a thing, because the competition is doing exactly the same thing.
...who were NOT given a choice of whether or not they wanted to switch to the new digital spectrum.
How else are they supposed to raise money to switch from analog to digital equipment? We are talking millions and billions of dollars of equipment that ALL broadcasters (large and small) have to switch to because the government said so.
Since the government mandated that all stations must change from analog to digital before 2006 do you think that equipment manufacturers are gonna drop their prices before then? Very unlikely.
So where does the money come from?
Maybe the FCC could auction them off and give a cut of the sales to the broadcasters.
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
The irony here is that all you people complaining about how the corporations are attempting to rip you (the public) off by auctioning off the analog spectrum when they were given additional spectrum for free. You will be posting complaing about the high costs and evil corporations ripping you off for your HDTV, 3G cell phones and PDA's and higher speed wireless internet access.
As popular of a notion of blaming everything on Corporate America is in this country. You might want to consider this, more money for corporations means lower prices and faster rollout of our beloved 3G technology.
Now, I realize that companies with the likes of Microsoft are inherently evil (.NET) but I still believe in the values of Capitalism and the free market. Lower costs means lower prices in the long run.
Did anyone actually to expect the corporations just to happily hand over 70 billion dollars? Of course they will fight and probably win, but just consider although the downside will be the continuance of rape of the public by corporations there will be will be added benefits to you the consumer in the form of lower overall costs for everyone.
Besides, if the gov't took over the old airwaves they would squander it or sell it off and use it for some unecessery pork bill or yet another raise for our poor senators.
Can't have it both ways, but since "We the People" will lose anyways might as well look to the upside.
Bobuhabu
Now I understand why they call it a "Free Market System". Its because once you've got a ton of money, you get more for free.
My handle breaks slashcode, what does your handle do?
That the FCC and Congress can be "bought" too easily.
Back in the fifties, the FCC allocated both VHF and UHF TV frequencies. The VHF were more valuable simply because every TV made could receive them. Many UHF stations put on in the fifties went belly up (see www.listen.to/peterq for the UHF morgue). It took legislation from Congress in 1964 to make TV's receive all channels and it didn't actually begin to happen in the home until 1968 or so (due to attrition).
By then, the three major networks had wound up on VHF channels making them MUCH more valuable then a UHF channel (which more then likely had an independent station programming old shows).
In Europe, they handled things differently.
Color TV was becoming big by the late sixties and they said: "Ok, if you want to broadcast in color, you must move from VHF to UHF". This also allowed for a far superior color TV system because it didn't have to be compatible with the existing (older) system like the U.S. color system did (If you've ever watched TV in England you know what I'm talking about). This is the reason that Europe has more spectrum available now! The last VHF station in England signed off in the early eighties! They went through what the U.S. is going through now twenty plus years ago.
Now..did the U.S. learn from their mistake? NO WAY..
Guess what...the FCC is STILL allowing broadcasters to have the new (digital) stations on both VHF AND UHF. They didn't learn in the fifties, in the sixties or today! In fact, there was originally a plan to (at least) keep the new digital stations off channels 5 and 6 which would have allowed the FM broadcast band to expand by about 50% (in case you didn't know, channel 5 runs from 76 to 82 mhz, channel 6 goes from 82-88 mhz and the FM band begins at 88 mhz). NOW the FCC is (even) allowing DIGITAL stations on channels 5 and 6 even though it's been shown that the educational FM band (88-92 MHZ) will suffer HUGE amounts of interference from these digital stations due to the power distribution within their RF bandwith (analog TV stations' power falls off quickly on either side of the AM carrier; digitals' have full power out to the very edge of the channel).
What does all of this show? That the radio waves are TRULY for SALE (or bribe). The FCC and Congress don't care about you! If they did, they'd put a stop towards allowing digital stations in channels 5 and 6. That way more people could broadcast on FM. Instead they want to keep the status quo, ie: the big companies having everything and the rest of us getting nothing.
By the way...the N.A.B. is the second or third biggest lobbiest (read; BRIBER) to Congress.
Don't be surpirsed if they get their way this time too!
DTV != HDTV... however...
who in the hell still watches basic over-the-air TV anymore? Most, if not all of my friends have cable or DirecTV. This means that the change in broadcasted TV from analog to digital is probably completely meaningless to most of America. Furthermore, where I live, Adelphia has set up digital cable service. And I absolutely hate it. The artifacting is horrible. The analog version of HBO looked 10x better than the digital version. I'm not *that* much of a videophile, but when I see globs of tiles instead of a clear black screen, I get slightly mift. From what I can tell, few care about that though. In the end the promise of more channels seems to be the draw to DTV. Are we going to see more broadcasted channels as a result of widespread HDTV use? Almost definitely not.
At any rate, if people actually cared about higher definition TV, Sony Wega's would sell like hot-cakes. Are they?
I have discussed this with technical people a lot, and the basic conclusion, to solve all problems, is the government should take back static location broadcasting (home, work, etc...), give every one a sattelite dish, and make up the money with sales for the left over spectrum. From here, broadcasters might be given permission to run on one channel accross a large area, like a country, and they can then put in low power re-broadcasting stations on this channel as they see fit. This works with radio too.
There would also need to be a government body controlling broadcasting space on particular satellites.
So, now we have 75% of the problem solved, but what about time zones? and local area broadcasts?
Easy, satellite technology is at the point where they now can choose what you see when you point your dish at the satellite, depending where you are on the surface of the planet. I know that the current Australian Optus satellites split signals to an extreemly fine point, where you can watch one picture on one side of your house, and it changes to the other side of your house, and I belive that there are more than 10 regions like that around Australia.
The only other problem I see if getting the signals up there if you have 10 regions on one satellite, each taking up 35mb/s of bandwidth, that's 350mb/s to get up there, and I believe that laser link technology has solved most of that already.
On the other hand, this problem will go away within the next 50 years, there will be an invention that will open up communications bandwidth, I just don't think it will be using the electro-magnetic spectrum that we currently use.
VK3TST
-- "People aren't stupid. Usually." -- jd
I love arguing this.
- 20% better colour/resolution or 20% less flicker and smoother motion. Take your pick. (Americans I know find watching PAL sets a headache inducing experience)
(Since you mentioned the UK):
- American TV is free (if you use an antenna).
- British TV will cost you the price of 10 new American TV sets a year.
- Both systems work fine in B/W and colour. Either that or the flicker was _really_ bothering my eyes on my last visit to the UK when I saw a "B/W" TV (about 1995 methinks).
...is that it actually has a lower resolution than analog cable in order to cram in more stations. Cable companies claim the picture is clearer (which is true most of the time) but they won't tell you that they compress the signal so much that the resolution is worse than analog.
Another reason why I'll never have digital cable!
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
I refuse to upgrade to digital tv in 2006 or 65% of market saturation. If I happen to turn on the
tv and nobody broadcasting any NTSC signals then I will go read a book! They want everyone to upgrade to digital tv, come hell or highwater!
Selah,
Chess
"I'm a dirty white tomcat, enter my world..."
>to no one at all.
It is your government, and that agency is accountable to the American people, it is your civil service too. If the government isnt doing your bidding then take back your government and make it do what the American people want. Democracy is strong in this country and the US people are smart and active. Dont throw up your hands and route around them, they are there for you, remind the politicians continually that they are only there by your grace, and that they are there to represent your will and not theirs or the 1 dollar = 1 vote lobby. Take your government back, no need to be alienated, it is yours.
mocom
The optimal money-making strategy for the Government would be to lease, rather than sell, spectrum. Auction off 5-year leases every 5 years. That would keep broadcasters on their toes.
Thanks toyou moron Republican supporters. Go ahead, bash Clinton for his pecadillos--he and Gore understood these issues and weren't in the the back pocket of the corporations. BUt you must be proud--after all what's good for the corporations is good for America right? So stop yer whin' sissies! You voted for Dumbya--now reap what you sowed. LOL.
Episode VI: Return of the Satellite
Episode I: The FedEx Envelope
Episode II: Attack of the Hayes Clones
Episode III: Strings Between the Soup Cans
Donate background CPU time to fight cancer.
IIRC, a couple of years ago when Congress balanced the budget, they used a little bit of trickery. It seems that they took the amount of money to be gained in 2006 from spectrum auctions and applied it to the current budget in order to balance it, essentially borrowing against future income.
Now what happens if the broadcasters keep the spectrum?
Well, I work at a broadcast TV station in the 76th market. We haven't even bought a DTV transmitter yet. The big three networks are providing some programming in HD. I attended the NAB convention in `99. I got to see real High-Def and broadcast High-Def. I was actually impressed with the picture quality of ATSC. I didn't see a bunch of MPEG blocking that I've seen with the Direct Broadcast Satellite systems. Currently, with the ATSC system, they can squeeze 20Mbps out of the 6Mhz of bandwidth given. Check out the petitions and protests by Sinclair Broadcasting. They want a system that uses COFDM encoding. Apparently you have better multipath for mobile communications but it had a slower data rate, and requires more power to cover the same coverage area as an ATSC signal. From all accounts, (broadcast engineers, and people who have worked for them) Sinclair is a pretty F'ked up company. Did anyone see the Gary Condit interviews on TV from a TV station in Mr. Condit's district? It had "SBG- Sinclair Broadcast Group" all over it. The viewer doesn't know who the hell they are, why clutter the screen with it? Probably just a rouse the bring their stock price out of the gutter.
It's mandatory to wash your hands before returning to the land of Dairy Queen.
According to a report at BBC News, discussing the USA spectrum auctions:
"Industry experts say the US licences are effectively 2.5G, rather than fully-blown 3G. They are known as broadband personal communications service (PCS) licences."
Why do people keep saying things like this? The broadcasters do not need to funnel a penny to supportive senators. The broadcasters can dictate who wins or loses an election.
The broadcasters can decide if they will publish good news or bad news about a political candidate. Inflame 5% of the voters and the election will shift from one candidate to another. Congress knows this, and that is why they will do anything the broadcasters ask.
Hey, the wright bros commercialised aircraft for sure, but Richard Pearse from New Zealand flew a motorised heavier than air plane before they did. He had high hedges on his farm though so he tended to crash into them, making the word "controlled" a bit dubious however, though he could turn the thing in flight. The wright bros flew on a deserted beach (less hedges!). They had more financial resources (govt. backing) and so kept at it until their beast was viable, unlike Pearse whose machines had lovely engines and design but lacked backers or modern materials. Kiwis often have great ideas but are unable to commercialise them :-(
But then you guys think Al Gore invented the Internet and Doom was the first game in 3d, right? :-)
I seriously thought this article was about some geeks discovering that ZX81s could do something extremely useful in the 21st century and were planning to take over the world with them.
Geek#1: My spectrum's running sendmail
Geek#2: So what, I've got Exchange Server on mine
Geek#3: My spectrum's rendering the Final Fantasy movie.
Hmmm... maybe they're not that good!
Still, with useable OSs getting as small as MenuetOS, maybe Spectrum's could be used for up-to-date things. <flame-resistant-suit>if only it was more portable than x86 asm</flame-resistant-suit>
Follow me
The plan was to transmit over air TV signals digitally because it is a more efficient use of spectrum than analog
Or so they say. It's much easier to encrypt digital signals than analog signals, and now that we have a DMCA passed by voice vote (the old "the ayes have it" style of anonymous voting, which is recorded as an essentially unanimous vote), it's illegal to make a device that restores fair-use rights that the architecture takes away. Watch as all your VCRs become useless when the DTV receiver box outputs Macrovision garbage all over its analog output.
and then retire the analog transmissions once there was sufficient penetration of TVs that could read and decode digital signals.
If the federal government thinks this will happen by 2006, it has something coming.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Common Cause "Channeling Influence the Broadcast Lobby and the $70 Billion Free Ride"t .htm
http://www.commoncause.org/publications/040297_rp