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FCC Considers Expanding Unlicensed Spectrum

Syntari writes "Reuters is reporting that the US Federal Communications Commission has begun to seek comment (the first step in promulgating regulations) "on whether unlicensed devices, like wireless home networks for Internet service, could operate on television broadcast airwaves in areas where they are not being used or at times when the spectrum lay fallow". The news release by the FCC itself, in MS-Word format, is online. This is pretty big, as these things go - especially since television spectrum, being of a wavelength that easily penetrates walls and is not overly affected by rain or snow, is ideal for wireless services. Should any slashdotter actually want to submit a comment (gasp! could it be?), read this first (FCC's rules on electronic comment submission), and then go here."

2 of 172 comments (clear)

  1. Rant about DOC vs PDF by d3xt3r · · Score: 1, Offtopic
    Why the hell do people release documents to the public, or anyone for that matter, in .doc format?

    Seriously, I'm not trolling. .doc is for text editors, not presentation. When I send out documents, like my resume, etc., I use PDFs. Why? PDFs are print-quality doucments that cannot be edited by the recipient. Furthermore, they don't display assinine red and grey lines underneath words that the viewer's editor doesn't understand.

    People, if you are going to release documents, please, use a real print-formatted file format. Docs are for editing, PDFs are for viewing. sheeeesh!

  2. Anyone Else Complain to FCC about "Word"? by rdmiller3 · · Score: 2, Offtopic
    The FCC is releasing practically everything in proprietary formats (MSWord and AdobePDF), despite the fact that almost everything is just text.

    Is there any reason they should be using proprietary formats for plain text?

    Is there any reason that everyone reading this Slashdot article couldn't take a few minutes to send a complaint to one or more of their commissioners?

    Contacting the FCC

    -Rick