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Putting the TV Broadcast Spectrum to Better Use?
KoshClassic asks: "Recently, on the NPR show All Things Considered, an interview was broadcast with Thomas Hazlett, formerly the chief economist of the FCC. Although short on details, Mr. Hazlett raises the point that, with the high penetration rate of cable / satellite TV into American homes, broadcasting television over the air has (or soon will) become superfulous and that this portion of the radio spectrum could be better utilized for other purposes. What do Slashdot readers think of this idea and, for those who agree, what alternative uses of the broadcast spectrum would you like to see?"
how about using the frequency for handheld TV or is this just killing a gadget that has been useful for fishermen,sportsfans,campers for 30years ?
But I still use rabbit ears, you insensitive clod!
Cut broadcast radio, too! Let's trick those darned aliens monitoring us into thinking we blew each other up or something.
It was a joke! When you give me that look it was a joke.
Sell it all to ClearChannel.
You never know who will get one.
Give it back to the public for them to use as they see fit. I think The Goatse.cx Channel would get quite a following, at least it's not Trading Spaces.
Trolling is a art,
What's the point? If anything useful attempts to use this spectrum, the FCC will simply sign it over to the corporations.
- Twilight1
I think the airwaves are still good for HD content (cable company here doesn't throw any our way). Over the air hdtv is still a reason to use the airwaves.
what do the people who can't afford cable do then? For quite a lot of people who work on minumum wage/on welfare, etc., the minimum package cost of satellite or cable is still too expensive.
...but I wouldn't mind "broadcast" 802.x wireless internet service. Would this even be possible, though?
keeping VHF for the time being and killing off UHF? I can still see VHF TV being handy for EBS (or whatever they are calling it now) -- not to mention in many urban areas, broadcast TV works fine and is a good backup when cable TV is out and/or for portable TVs (Sony Watchman).
Could be fun to open UHF to the public for amature low power broadcasts for a while, too.
The bandwidth for TV stations when used digitally is something like 18MB/bs (can't exactly remember). You could use that bandwidth to stream movies/music to receivers. I was on a project that was doing just that, but we got axed. The infrastructure needed for VOD over TV isn't as great as for cable or Internet.
This would be fine for a good percentage of Americans, but it would cut off access to many who can't afford the monthly cost of cable or sattelite.
What they might want to do is to reduce the bandwidth dedicate to TV by reducing the number of UHF channels. Outside the larger markets, they could probably eliminate UHF altogether.
Of course, that would limit the potential growth of broadcast TV, further supporting the existing large players by making new competition more difficult.
If they want to eliminate broadcast TV altogether, then they need to work out a deal where cable and sattelite companies give free access to a dozen or so local channels.
I think I'd agree to this if it were federally mandated that "Basic Cable" be 100% free. Including all the wiring to your house. Wires, wireless, what's the difference?
Good luck watching TV portably too... No more sports+BBQ in the back yard.
Something else to consider, since so many /.'ers are into the whole privacy thing: Brodcast signals are the only way you can watch TV without someone somewhere keeping track of what you watch.
Just some food for thought.
DISCLAIMER: This post was not checked for speling and grammar- if you complain- you're a whiner
The most ubiqutous and cheapest wireless gear has been for the unliscensed ISM bands. The large chunk of bandwidth that the tv spectrum uses would allow all sorts of high speed devices to coexist because there could be a number of non-overlapping yet wide channels.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Like the 2.4Ghz ISM band for example. Keep the power levels low enough that it doesn't turn into one big interference mess, but high enough that you can actually cover some distance with it.
wireless internet would be nice
Yeah, I mean what use is there for free television? Poor people are so last year.
I all seriousness, are you guys that excited to buy more gadgets that you would deny the public access to free public television?? This idea is disgusting.
If you fall off a building, go real limp, because maybe you'll look like a dummy and people will be like hey, free dummy
I get the feeling that they should leave the spectrum in place for many years to come so that these people will always have access to the major stations. In Australia (I'm not sure if it's the same in the US), they forced the telephone company to service rural areas, because otherwise they simply aren't profitable.
As always, don't forget to remember the little guy.
Load the airwaves with about 100 more NPR stations. I can't get enough of it.
Basically, the government is subsidizing terrestial broadcast TV by allowing a profit oriented industry free use of valuable radio spectrum. What should happen is that the users of the spectrum should compete for the right to use it with other industries. Since most people already pay to receive TV over cable or satellite systems, most people would not see the increased cost. By reducing the number of broadcast TV stations, spectrum becomes available for more interesting and spectrally efficient services. After all the information transmitted in a 6 MHz TV channel can fit in a much smaller amount of spectrum using modern communication technology.
And let's face it, if a terrestial broadcast TV station turned off it's over the air transmitter, what perentage of it's customers notice?
Philip
I'm sure that "homeland america" will be reeeal okay with that. You know, those places where radio signals travel a decent distance, but no one wants to dig 4000 feet of cable to get to your house. Yeah, almost everyone out there has satellite. However, not everyone wants to pay a monthly fee to watch TV, and more importantly, the middle of nowhere are the areas most likely to want some kind of highly localized tv channel. You think that a satellite provider is going to carry WLCD, Frederick, Oklahoma? No. And *no one* in that part of Oklahoma, practically, has cable. This means if you cut out the broadcast spectrum, this area can no longer have local channels of their own.
I'm also sure that there will be bad consequences from the fact that using exclusively satellite/cable means that in many area, cable would be *it*. There would be a couple people willing to go with satellite, but satellite has some inherent problems in it and these would likely continue, as they have been, to be a minority.
These are privately held and privately controlled networks. I don't exactly trust or like the FCC, but at least they have SOME accountability to the public. AOLTW has none.
Realize that *MANY* areas have a literal monopoly, locally, on cable. Realize that this means we'd be removing the monopoly on who determines who gets a television license out of the hands of the FCC and putting it in the hands of an unaccountable, private, local monopoly. Don't like the fact that AOLTW Cable doesn't carry X Channel You Like? Want to start a public access public service station that at one time the FCC would have greenlighted, but AOLTW cable isn't interested in handing bandwidth to because it's not a money maker and they'd rather go with Animal Planet 2? Get reeeal used to it. And once everyone else gets "used to" this, get very used to any and all complaints being met with "hey, you have choice. if you don't like it you can always move".
Welcome to the new global Feudalism.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
You WANT a goatse.cx channel? I've only seen the picture briefly, like 2 years ago, and I've been scarred for life...sniff sniff...every time someone makes faces in a window, I start to gag. Any time someone mentions goats, I get a cold shiver down my spine. I've had to stop eating middle eastern food.
If Mr. Edison had thought smarter he wouldn't sweat as much. --Nikola Tesla
Correct me if I'm wrong, but europe is transitioning to digital TV as well, but when a station wants to broadcast in a DTV format, it has to eventually give up the VHF frequency it was using for a UHF one. This way, once completed, the entire VHF band will be free.
...and do what with the extra bandwidth? Auction it off to yet another foriegn telecom company? Rename it the "Clear Channel band" and play the same top-40 music station on a coast-to-coast repeater network? Given the FCC's recent penchant for giving too much power to too few megacorporations, I don't think letting them restructure the TV band is a good idea.
0 1 - just my two bits
Exactly. One of the reasons for broadcast TV in Canada is CBC, a government-backed broadcasting station that makes an attempt at keeping the people informed about public events. One of our duties in a democratic society is to keep informed, while there's obviously other means available this one is free less the initial cost of television.
-Matt
--- Need web hosting?
The thing that this gentleman forgot to account for was the loss of sales to electronics manufacturers. He's focused on the media companies, which are only a part of the equation. How many portable TVs end up at sporting events, fishing trips, etc.? Though I haven't been able to find hard statistics, Circuit City carries five models and Casio even has a section for portable TVs on the front page of their website. I don't think he understands what a lobbying power the electronics industry is. Without broadcasts, every one of the portables out there would be useless and a revenue stream for manufacturers would dry up. How about anteanna sales and such for companies like Recoton? I'm sure they would join the fight ageanst any legislation destroying the boradcasts.
US Democracy:The best person for the job (among These pre-selected choices...)
24/7 broadcasts of geeks/antiM$people/Slashdotters ranting and raving about the new Great Satan. We could have weekly code compares with ANY *nix, hosted by Leonard Nimoy.
Hourly updates about the zillion lawsuits spreading throughout the world claiming ownership of linux. The Iraq InfoMinister could interview SCO Veeps and they could all deny or assert whatever seems appropriate. Sundays would have Linus leading us all in prayer that SCO dries up and disappers. Oh, and NO M$ or MSN commercials! I hate rainbow-colored moths!!
In fact the FCC has already decided sideband usage for DTV over broadcast waves, I am sure there are other unique uses in this band, especially if two way communication were eventually allowed. In fact DTV broadcasters will be able to squeeze a lot into a current "channel". I think I remember reading somewhere that four channels could be compressed into an existing one.
Truly the slicing and dicing of this spectrum is antiquated. We should be like the British and cut our ties with backwards compatability, like when they moved from B&W to Color.
What about heavy usage of UWB in that spectrum. I am not sure how far our TV signals travel in a low wattage scenario, but I am sure you could cram a lot into UWB that included this spectrum.
What about truly interative TV and or features? Maybe high grade digital audio?
There are 3 spectrums out there, and UHF is way underused. Lets get some more bang for the buck!
D.O.U.O.S.V.A.V.V.M.
What I wonder is this: Why can't I watch my local high school or local college's sports teams on TV? Why can't I watch the town meeting/local gov't on TV? (Yes, I know about public access cable, but that isn't available where I live.)
We have all sorts of TV, but all of it is controlled by large corporations, and all of it is funded by large corporations. It stands to reason that we're going to get biases from those controlling powers in our media.
The FCC is looking at the picture all wrong. They assume that there's something to watch on TV and that people are satisfied with it.
I, and most of my friends, are in now way satisfied with TV. I'm in the process of moving and my semi-new (only several-months old) 27" TV won't make the move -- I'm dumping it.
If the FCC wants to do something, why not open things up for hobbyists, citizen groups, NGOs, and non-multi-national corporations?
When my local high school and college both have AV departments, it amazes me that I cannot watch their sports games or cultural events on my TV. Instead, I get homogenized crap fed to me by large, out-of-touch media monopolies.
Am I the only one that feels this way?
This is a terrible idea. Broadcast reaches places where cable doesn't. Sattelite requires too much hardware and is hard to use in obstructed areas. For example, at my cabin (where broadcast works - usually).
For a very long time the FCC was criticized that it was unresponsive, too deliberative, and an example of a staid, entrenched beauacracy that did very little good for the people. Somewhere that was turned around and now they are overboard in almost exactly the opposite direction! Frankly, I'd prefeer an FCC that took lonmger to deliberate.
The airwaves require regulation, they are an extremely valuable, very public resource. They are crowded and need to be managed in the public's best interest. The FCC does not exist to make mega-media companies rich, it exists to protect a resource - in much the same way that the National Park Service exists to protect our national parks!
Unfortunately, somewhere along the line, the mega-media has gained an inordinate amount of influence over their regulators. Somewhere along the line, the FCC started to manage markets more than resources. We the little people are shut out of the process and even when we complain loud and long, we are ignored.
The FCC has finally become what everyone said it was - an example of a staid, entrenched beauacracy that does very little good for the people.
(1 Karma point for the first person to post the correct Simpson's ref.)
I'll try:
Lisa: "Fox turned into a hard-core porn network so gradually, I didn't even notice!"
For my money, we're already heading in the right direction with the switch to digital broadcasting, since that change involves moving all of the TV broadcasters up to UHF. The big VHF give-back is, IMHO, the important part. There are 12 channels of VHF TV. At 6 MHz each, that's 72 MHz of space, or more than a quarter of the available VHF spectrum. VHF is prime real estate that could be much better used than for a fixed-point broadcasting service (most TV receivers don't move).
The larger point, however, is that networks of terrestrial broadcast stations are already obsolete. Back before widespread adoption of cable, it was the only option. But now, having NBC programming come out of a few hundred transmitters scattered across the US is wasteful, given that just about everyone gets TV programming from a satellite (directly or indirectly from their cable company). NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox and PBS should each have a single channel on that satellite, just like Comedy Central, and the local broadcasters should use their bandwidth to serve local needs. It's just common sense.
73 DE KE6ISF
This sig no verb.
Seriously, using MPEG-2 and compressed HDTV, the bandwidth currently used by one analog channel can support 24 standard definition or 6 high definition broadcasts.
Leaving out a few of the extra compressed channels and you have a nice data stream for interactive content.
Consider a sporting event broadcast this way:
This is currently possible with the bandwidth available for one broadcast channel and would be a very good use of the spectrum.
One other thought: consolidating on sats/cable could have the nasty side effect of eliminating local programming altogether.
-Chris
is television a right?
If I have received a license to broadcast programming to a certain market, my programming (whatever it might be) is "must carry" content for the broadcast spectrum of my market area. If someone (intentionally or not) intrudes on my spectrum and prevents my potential viewers from receiving my programming, I have a course of action against whomever is causing the interference.
Contrast this with the other media outlet formats mentioned. For both cable and satelite, the owner of the service decides what content will be carried, and how much extra will be charged for it.
And anyone who thinks the Internet is a replacement for broadcast television is off their rocker. Not only can an ISP (or anyone along the pipe, for that matter) choose to block access to a selected web site, we have laws requiring libraries and such to perform exactly that function.
We need to ensure that there are platforms for free speech to ensure our democracy. The closest thing we have for that right now is the Internet, but even there sites are getting disconnected left and right.
The thing about things we don't know is we often don't know we don't know them.
the TV spectrum is fine the way it is. if you want to shoot other things through it, then send the HDTV signals!
Maybe Joe Soldering-Iron will get worked up in a tizzy, but I doubt it lasts, he will probably get tired from all the fresh air...
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
OTA HDTV is nice. It's free, beyond the cost of the set box,
and on ebay, it's not much. No static or ghosts and I
don't have to pay $50 a month to DirecTV.
It's not a firehose of content, but it's enough.
UHF would be great for wireless internet, especially in rural areas. The "wave" would be able to travel farther than it does using 2.4Ghz or 5.8Ghz technology.
Off-hand I know that UHF TV (approx. 440MHz I believe) is usually city wide in coverage, but remember analog TV is far more accepting of data errors (no error correction, no retransmissions) than digital data needs to be.
Also UHF TV still follows the 1-directional broadcast methology. That means, one powerful transmitter (~10-100kW I think) and an antenna at one high location, e.g. hilltop.
For wireless networking, you need bidirectional transmission, longer antennas (17cm versus 3mm if I have my math right), and because the signals transmit further you need frequency coorditation (i.e. licensing) from the FCC to prevent interference if you also want higher power station, over 100 milliwatts.
Strangely I'm actually considering going back to broadcast. I'm extremely sick of the "quality" of the digital cable signal I'm getting. It's significant worse visually (artifacting, and the occasionally complete loss of picture when the signal hiccups). Re-allocating the broadcast spectrum is a interesting idea, but it's also a fairly bad idea to get rid of it completely. The new HD specs should let them combine everything into a single HDTV band with several SDTV channels, which might be an acceptable compromise.
...as long as they don't take away the private/amateur portion of the radio spectrum. Even though I'm not a HAM yet, I do think that personal communications without the service of a big corporation is important.
-- Liberalism is a mental disorder.
what do the people who can't afford cable do then?
The logical answer would be that we pass a point in society where it's so valuable to those among us (who, incidentally might not be me) who want to "move ahead" that they will pay to bring the others up to speed. People are so stingy, though, I don't see this ever happening.
For example, when I was a student in Boston years ago, I was told that the Boston subway system operated at a greater loss by paying state employees to collect tokens (at $0.25 back then) than it would if it were free (with no tolltakers to pay), but that taxpayers liked to see money coming out of the riders' pockets and that's why they continued to charge money. I never did find out if this assertion was so, but it had a ring of truth to it.
Perhaps it's just as well, though.
Personally, I have a little black & white TV that is battery powered and that I can turn on during power outages (e.g., due to hurricanes) to find out the weather. Is someone going to offer me a replacement--and better yet, buy it for me? Not only would a change be inconvenient for me, but I worry that it will make our society fragile against catastrophe.
Although we can make one big all-in-one digital information device, I'm not sure that it's wise to. I like the idea of separated systems so that if one breaks down, another might continue to work so I can find out what's going on...
Kent M Pitman
Philosopher, Technologist, Writer
This is actually a very interesting and far reaching proposal. I very much like some aspects of this proposal, however, in practice I think that the idea suffers from some critical flaws.
What is most attractive about this proposal is the potential to separate fixed portions of the spectrum from specific uses. I would love to see a system in which bandwidth, be it wired or wireless, was used to carry undifferentiated data. End users should have the option to download whatever they bloody well pleased over their pipes. Freeing up spectrum from fixed broadcasts towards undifferentiated pipes is intuitively attractive to me. At the same time, this type of analysis presupposes that media companies have migrated towards new business models that are no longer based on âoebroadcastingâ uniform data to the public at defined intervals; but rather customers are able to download whatever content they want from the great TIVO in the sky.
My expectation is that we there will be a gradual shift in spectrum allocation. Some data such as stock quotes, breaking news, sporting events, etc has value in real time. If large numbers of users require simultaneous access to this class of data, then there may be a sustained requirement for broadcast portions of the spectrum such as conventional TV/Radio. Over time, as progressively larger shares of information becomes time insensitive, we should expect to see more spectrum shifting towards undifferentiated usage.
As a vehicle to wrestle our American government away from corporate interests I would like to see it used for publicly funded, political discourse and campaigning. I think all debates, party presentations, platform, town hall meetings etc, should be available (and probably limited to) any of the parties through a publicly funded broadcast network. The point being that the money spent by political parties on access to the airwaves for campaigning is very tied to business interests due to the extremely high prices paid for access to that medium. It seems to me that removing a business interest from our country's political discourse would drastically help.
I can't even begin to count the ways. Portable TVs? No more. My parents live 20 miles from the nearest cable provider, so they'd have to get a dish. Oh wait, they don't have a view to to the south. Oh, and it costs $40/mo for channels you didn't want in the first place.
How the hell is this a GOOD thing? In ANY way???
There is no reasonable defense against an idiot with an agenda
:wq
Erm. No. You've got that completely wrong.
It was decided years ago that digital TV broadcasts (whether HD or not; that hadn't been decided at that point) would occupy the same slices of spectrum we used for analog broadcasts: 6 MHz channels. So a single HD channel occupies the same amount of spectrum as a single analog channel. Which is why HD has to be so highly compressed for broadcast. (HD starts out at over 1.3 Gbps, and gets MPEGged down to 19 Mbps.)
The 6X figure comes in when you start talking about subchannels. Inside a 6 MHz channel, you can broadcast as many subchannels as you want, dividing up the channel's bandwidth among them. A SD broadcast can be squeezed down to about 3 Mbps (1 MHz) and still look acceptable, so you can put 6 SD subchannels inside a single digital broadcast channel.
This is not HDTV, however. In order for a broadcast to be called HDTV, it has to have a vertical resolution of at least 1,000 lines. (That's the ATSC's definition.) Broadcasting SD digitially is not the same as HD.
I think the concept of doing away entirely with broadcast television is absurd, or at least, highly premature. While I've had cable for years and couldn't fathom why anyone would _prefer_ broadcast ("wireless") television, I have to say that I know people without cable.
I don't believe for a second that every home in America has a cable line, and I don't believe that 30 years from now 'wireless' TV will have been phased out. Not only do some people like 'free' TV, but I can't tell you how valuable our small battery-operated TVs have been in horrible weather. Trees have taken down all the wires -- we have no power or phone, and turning on an emergency generator proved that cable TV went down, too. But with a small TV, we were able to get live information on the storm. Will this ever be replaced?
I agree -- the TV Broadcast Spectrum can be put to better use. But by that, I mean a more spectrum-efficient way. I see no benefit in phasing out broadcast TV, but there are plenty of reasons not to. Plus, as we continue to move toward more spectum-efficient technologies (2-way radios are starting to move to 12.5 kHz bandwidth; spread spectrum use is ever-growing...), I find it difficult to believe that we're ever going to run out of spectrum for radio. I hope that 20 years from now I'll be watching 'spread spectrum' TV or whatnot, but I sincerly hope that I'm not tied to a wire for my TV.
It's really ironic, too -- everything is moving toward wireless. Need a network? Why not go wireless? Want a new phone? Why not just get a cell phone, or at least a cordless phone? It won't be long before the Internet is as ubiquitous wirelessly as cell phone service. But when it comes to TV, why would people want to move _away_ from the wireless trend?
Yes, cable TV is hugely popular, and I certainly prefer my cable TV. But the concept of replacing it entirely with cable is about as ingenious as noting that everyone has a cell phone now, and shutting off residential phone lines to all homes, because the wires can be used for something else. Sure, some people might never notice. But there will always be people who still depend on their regular phone.
________________________________________________
suwain_2
I use an antenna (rooftop in my attic, not rabbit ears), and it's not because I can't afford cable. I get a noticeably better picture than cable that way.
I also have DirecTV, but I refuse to pay $5 a month for local channels. This is actually because taping programs is really kludgy using their system. Yes, I could get TiVo, but it seems like paying yet another subscription fee just so that I can pay the "local channel" subscription fee is a bit backwards.
This might be slightly off-topic, but I think we (the American people) are being robbed when FCC sells frequencies to corporations. The airwaves belong to all of us, and they don't have that right. They should licence them for an annual fee.
Yes, I'm talking to you...
Height: 38U, Weight: 0 Newtons, Eyes: #0000FF, OS: Gray Matter 1.0 (Alpha)
I'd like to see that trainwreck when everyone's signals are bleeding all over the place, rendering the whole thing useless.
Next, let's try getting rid of air traffic control!...dumbass.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
Let's be honest, neither you nor I can figure out the all of the wonderful ways that this spectrum might be used and then decide among them what is the best way it should be used.
Rather than setup a command economy for spectrum, let's put it out there as a common that people can use for various ideas with relatively low barriers to entry. For example, we have for the last several years been discussing how intelligent tuning, spreadspectrum, etc., make a myth of spectrum shortages. If this is the case, then let's put it to the test.
I propose that we let any "service provider" use this spectrum for a small registration fee and a small monthly rental payment (say on the order of 5% of revenues, which could be used for a number of purposes, including giving poor people cable if we decided that is the best way to spend it) for use of the spectrum, as long as they use a technology that 1) doesn't interfer with any other use of the spectrum using "intelligent tuning" technologies and 2) that doesn't demand exclusive use of the specturm in question.
What would this achieve? Well, it would give us a commons (where multiple service providers might exist) for creative us of this spectrum at the same that the people get to share in the benefits. By running multiple different applications of the spectrum, we would be able to determine what is the best use - in terms of demand - without looking out other miniority uses of the spectrum. Another cool thing about this plan, is that it could be rolled out over time. We could start by taking channels 3 and 4 off the air across the country (moving existing broadcasters to open holes that are no longer needed due to the improvments in transmission equipment since the advent of TV), see how it works. If over-the-air TV continues to be less and less important, then we could roll up more and more of the spectrum available for the "spectrum commons".
If you love your spectrum set it free.
If it doesn't come back to you it was never yours to sell in the first place.
"The last thing I want to do is deal with a bunch of people who want something."
Major Major
First off, I'm all for liberalizing the rules for using spectrum, things like allowing people in rural communities where ther are one one or two broadcast TV channels to make use of the wasted spectrum in their area.
But, the guy on NPR claimed some stupid statistic like 90% of american homes get have cable or satellite so we don't need broadcast. One of the big groups he is forgetting is all those DSS subscribers who still have to have bunny ears to get local channels. The best had to be though when he was asked why there was so much lobbying to surrounding allocation of television spectrum if it was such an unused commodity. basically he said...well....um...there is always resistance to new ideas. they jsut don't realize how few people are watching.
To free up the broadcast TV spectrum (as we know it -- there may still be a market for a spectrum using a different technology) will take a long time, too. First, the FCC will have to go through a lengthy hearings process to decide whether or not to do it. If they do, expect a process something like this:
FCC opens up a new broadcast spectrum (maybe); sales of new-spectrum TV receivers begin
FCC stops issuing new licenses for the old spectrum
FCC bans sale of current old-spectrum licenses to other parties
Sales of old-spectrum TV sets are stopped
FCC sets date when all old-spectrum licenses expire
EPA goes into crisis mode when all of a sudden millions of TV's end up in landfills, setting off an ecological disaster
Government bans the disposal of old TV's ("You must keep them in your attic forever")
Wally Shumacher, janitor and garage tinkerer, invents new use for old TV's, saving the planet from destruction and making a few bucks in the process (before getting bought out by Microsoft)
Oops, got a little sidetracked there. Anyway, expect it to be a LOOOOOOOONG time before the broadcast spectrum as-we-know-it goes away.
Give me my freedom, and I'll take care of my own security, thank you.
Last time I checked, over the air use of TV was between 10-15%, with cable penetration being close to 90%. It appears that folks highly value clear TV signals. The folks I know that don't have cable are folks that could afford it, but don't choose to have it.
That said, if we are truly worried about folks having TV access, it might be better to charge a monthly rental fee for the use of this spectrum and then use a portion of this rental income to fund "lifeline" access to cable and/or satellite TV. This would allow folks - on a sliding scale - to receive cable and/or satellite TV at a subsidized price depending on their adjusted gross income.
Since technology (spread-spectrum, digital) now makes broadcasts of many more channels on these frequencies possible, and since broadcast TV is still the best way to get a consistent message out to a mass audience, and since we'd all like to keep elections from being decided by amount of airtime bought, I think it's time to reslice the pie.
Either chop up and sell the licences in smaller pieces for shorter terms, or sell them to broadcast "utilities" that themselves sell the ability to broadcast, but can not create or edit programming. (I'm sure such utilities would quickly discover how many channels they can slice their limited frequencies into!)
Toss in some regulations about not owning too many channels in one spot, and some about providing free air to public-interest programming, political candidates, private citizens, etc. and you've created a more diverse, more accessible, free version of cable.
Why would this matter to politics? Well, this could be a great chance to reform the rules as a whole new game is created. Maybe you could ban selling political ads, and give politicians free air time instead. Maybe you could even give parties their own little channels. Maybe, if you dealt with the ownership/licensing rules correctly, there would be a natural diversity and competition of ideas and viewpoints, and less political influence wielded by any particular media company.
"You can't get something for nothing." - my grandfather, on the stock market and Reaganomics.
While I'm all for getting free basic cable, I DON'T want that mandated.
...well, maybe they will just print money, but that wouldn't be much different from raising taxes to pay for it since it would fuel inflation.
If, whenever somebody builds a house (perhaps a long way away from any existing cable), the cable company has to run new cable lines out to them for free, the money to pay for that is going to have to come from SOMEWHERE. The cable companies aren't just going to say "oh, darn. more costs" and do it themselves. They're going to lobby for government subsidies.
And the government isn't just going to print more money to pay for it, they're going to raise taxes or cut programs.
On the other hand, if they can be convinced to cut something that never should have been funded anyway, cutting programs wouldn't be so bad (except that they'd just be cutting one bad program to fund another one). But that's a moot point, because the cuts would come from things that are already underfunded like education.
In short, I think the broadcast spectrum should be left alone.
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Since when is it an inalienable right to watch television?
Besides, the networks don't broadcast to benefit the poor. You pay for "free" television by sitting through the ads, and the ads are there to get people with money to buy products.
I don't watch tv (broadcast, cable, or satellite) and I'd like to see that airspace put to good use. Anything would be better than this god awful spoonfed shite that appears on all the networks right now.
There's a company based in Saskatoon, where I am, which manufactures wireless internet connectivity products that emulate cable. So, basically, you plug a cable modem into it, and as far as the modem is concerned it's connected to Coax all the way to the central office. Currently the units they sell cost about $400 CAD each... but they can sell a unit that does the same thing to people in India that costs only $50 CAD, because they can use the TV spectrum there.
An ISP can provide wireless internet in a radius of 20 miles with the technology... they can set up a whole ISP in a day in India for under $2000... can't do that in North America, of course.
I heard the interview on NPR the other day-- the guy wasn't talking about getting rid of all TV spectrum. The simple fact is that there are 60-odd TV channels reserved, but only a handful are being used even in the largest markets.
We can keep all the channels we've got, reserve some for future growth, and STILL reclaim 30 TV channels worth of bandwidth to use for anything from wireless internet to community radio, or whatever else you can think of.
Wouldn't it be better to do SOMETHING with all that bandwidth (and it *is* a ton) than just let dozens of TV channel-sized chunks of our airwaves sit unused? The guy's point is that we're just not using much of it, and that people who want more channels aren't clamoring for more OTA channels, they're getting cable. So why not use the unused chunk for something else?
In terms of a lot of the information (?) content, over-the-air, cable, and satellite bandwidth are all wasted. However, one isn't wasted more than another. I can give several reasons why it should be left alone:
1) Much of my home state is rural, and we aren't alone. There is no cable. If you want anything that looks like local information, it comes over the air.
2) Neither cable nor satellite are making more than a token effort towards HDTV or SDTV.
3) When I look at an off air SDTV station, it looks so much better than satellite, there's no comparison. That's particularly true on a wide screen set. I can't comment about how it might look on cable, because they (for the most part) haven't even bothered with SDTV.
4) In those instances I can recall in which the FCC reclaimed part of the broadcast spectrum, the replacement wasn't an improvement. The old 44 mHz FM broadcast band was given to mobile radio services, as was TV channel 1. When UHF channels 70-83 were taken away, they were replaced with cell phones.
TV in North America uses 54 to 88 MHz for channels 2 to 6, 174 to 216 MHz for 7 to 13, and 470 to 806 MHz for channels 14 to 68. Much of the UHF spectrum is now shared with radio services in big cities. Several European countries have no VHF television at all now.
At one time UHF TV went from 470 to 890 MHz for channels 14 to 83, but the top end was changed to various radio services (including cellphones) some years ago.
Wavelengths:just under 6 meters at the bottom of VHF to about 130 cm at the top. About 70 cm for channel 14 to 35 cm for channel 68. The higher frequencies have essentially optical line-of-sight propagation, but the lower ones can follow terrain for a while. Unusual conditions can affect this, including tropospheric ducting (best on UHF), sporadic E-layer skip (VHF), even F2 (not so much channel A2, but some countries have TV down to 45 MHz or so).
Digital TV can be (and usually is) pretty robust in the face of various transmission errors, but like all such systems does not degrade gracefully. As you get close the edge of the coverage area of an aanalog station you get snowy pictures. As you get close the edge of the coverage area of a digital station you abruptly go from a perfect picture to none at all. Being a one-way medium digital TV doesn't do retransmission - the station adds error-correction informaiton to the transmission, which the receiver uses to correct bit errors on reception. Look up "forward error correction" in any decent communications text book. Also look up "convolutional codes", "Viterbi Algorithm", and various other goodies.
...laura
Show me a poor person and I will show you somebody who watches a lot of cable.
This is absolutely true. I lived in a ghetto in Chile for a while, and people spent all of their discretionary money on alcohol, marijuana, or subscription television services. Dishes littered roofs that could barely support them.
well, maybe they will. Maybe sometime, those quaint country bumpkins who need to do something productive, will. Maybe they'll get hip,maybe they'll push just one more stupid thing like the endangered species act or the "no, you can't mine anymore" act,or the "no, sorry, your wood cutting business you've had for three hundred years is no longer allowed, there's a small bug that will get squashed" act, or one of the multitude of various rural ethnic cleansing actions you have been pushing. All the things that constantly keep bankrupting rural people, kicking them in the face, and stomping them when they are down. And don't whine about "farm subsisides", they go to the top few percent international corporate farmers and such other leeches, we don't have any use for those folks either, it has nothing to do with poor people struglling to make a living in the rural and small town areas where your "global free trade" has bankrupted people, driven up cost of living, put people out of work,even entire small towns, driven up taxes,lost homes and other property, and then to boot get to see on TV about how they are all illiterate hillbillies.
Here's a clue, they aren't. And they have long memories, and are able to do things and accomplish tasks that you can't even conceive of. And if you think your fat city pigs with their shiny shoes can do it for you, or those elite west point morons who are leading 75% rural kids,who know their folks back home and their neighbors are always being shafted by urban jerks will forget who owes what to whom, well, think again.
Maybe eventually the rural people of this nation, with maybe a little help from out of work manufacturing joes, and now the truckers who got shafted with nafta and gatt,and a few others, will band together, and just stop food deliveries into the cities with zero notice, and turn off the valves on the water pipes that carry THEIR water leading into YOUR overly expensive and oh so sophisticated elite cities, and stop coal deliveries, and halt oil deliveries, and watch all you clueless idiot rich urbanite scum who are so superior because you "make more money" turn cannibal, and as you pour out of the cities when you find out your artifical lifestyles have no basis in reality, you can become target practice for sport.
What goes around comes around pal, you're an example of a complete clueless jerk in a nation of clueless jerks who only think of themselves and revolve around a culture of greed and maximum profits exploitation. That was really a foul but most typical statement you made, so I hope you appreciate who actually holds the real critical priority cards in this nation if they get pushed hard enough. Your laquered head suits don't. Your think tank academics don't. Your media moguls don't. Your business buddies and doofuses at the country club don't. Your trophy wife don't. those people on the train next to you don't.
You need to get real man see what's what in treality, not your eloi fantasy land you live in. The pig english mass exploiters got kicked out of India, remember? The big difference is, the country people here have a few more toys and skills.
You need to know this, country people all over this nation are medium whizzed off lately with the dictates from urban idiot land, they are really quite angry getting the shaft constantly because they don't have any pull anymore at all, tired of being treated like some third world colony to be exploited by morons who couldn't change a spare on their own car withoput having the vapors and forming a committee about it, and they are real sick of being ripped off by people like you and your policies that your urban oriented legislatures keep pushing. You can shove your cable and videogames where the sun don't shine, and eat your cable tv, and drink your ridiculous "stock options", and wallow in your hollywood "entertainment" filth. And enjoy burning your expensive furniture in your sink in the winter, because here's another clue, your fuel doesn't come from high rise downtown elitist
Yeah, I mean what use is there for free television? Poor people are so last year. I all seriousness, are you guys that excited to buy more gadgets that you would deny the public access to free public television?? This idea is disgusting
While I agree with what you're saying, American tv is considered by lots of non-americans to be just a proganda machine. While there are channels with some actual useful content, like perhaps PBS, the majority of american tv is controlled by, and used for the benefit of, the wealthy elite.
Perhaps a better idea might be restricting corporate access to sattelite or other means and giving the rest of the airways to public access and free media. Greater diversity in accessible media can help promote freedom and democracy; but this idea would still be dismissed. An informed populace can't help (and can only hinder) profits of corporate america, so it can't be allowed.
More to the point, current free access to 'useful' information in US television is minimal. So I do agree that removing what little access there is would hinder real democracy. But the current situation could still use a lot of improvement. And this certainly isn't restricted to US media, it is still far more pronounced and blatant in the US than anywhere else I've seen.
This is left as an exercise for the reader.
Here is an idea for re-use... I have noticed flipping channels in the LA area that 80-90% of the uhf band are unused... so why not consolidate. Move stations on the upper band down in frequency and take the upper 2/3 of the UHF TV spectrum and use it for DSSS IP access (think 802.16 tweaked) this should leave enough room for UHF TV broadcasters as some come and go and allow a HELLOFA lot more room for IP.
-OR
Loose all of the TV spectrum and require Cable providers to give a "basic" or "public intrest" type of access for free providing a similar type of service
I only say this because I hate seeing waste (this explains all my scrap machines rescued from the trash laying around running distributed computing software) and I see a BIG swath of spectrum going 80-90% unused
Now think about this... with the tiny slice given to 802.11 and the big impact it has made, think what could be done with the UHF TV spectrum...
I'm with this guy. I use antenna because I live in an urban area and I can get a decent picture for all the channels that I care about, and I'm tired of cable reaming me in the ass.
If those FCC biatches sell me out so that some yuppie asshat can have extra bandwidth for his doodads I will seriously consider moving to another friggin country.
If you mod me down the terrorists will have won
Here's what I wrote in my blog the other day:
3 9
http://randyrathbun.org/archives/000539.html#0005
We all know democracy lost the other day when the FCC gave Rupert Murdoch the go ahead to own every media outlet in the country.
Common Cause has a "write your congressperson" thingy up that you should sign. Not that the Republicans you write will do anything about it.
Also yesterday on NPR's 'All Things Considered', Thomas Hazlett, a former economist at the FCC, and, I might add, a total nutcase, said that free televison should be banished. What was even stranger is he sounded serious. I don't have a lot of time to write this story and try to explain on how many levels just how wrong and stupid this man is, but I owe it to you, the reader, to try.
First, the airwaves are public. I don't care how much 'campaign contributions' to the Republicans and Democrats say otherwise, the radio spectrum belongs to the public.
His entire argument centered around "well, 90% of the population gets their TV from cable or satellite." So what? Last time I checked you could not drive down the street with a cable or satellite dish strapped to the top of your car. I am not saying you should do this, but there are too many situations where receiving TV signals are a matter of life and death. A case in point are the recent tornadoes that ripped through this area. The local TV coverage has been credited with saving many lives during the May 4th storm. I do storm spotting when I can, and have a small portable TV that I carry with me so I can see either the TV station's weather maps. Without information such as this, Mr. Hazlett's plan would be putting too many citizens at risk. Ten percent does not sound like much, but in this past storm it meant that only one person died here in the KC area from the tornadoes vs a number I don't even want to begin to think about had free TV not been available.
The reasons behind free TV go way beyond just warning people about storms.
Oh, and according to Hazlett's web page, he is using a free email account at Yahoo. What a dumbass.
After writing that I got to thinking about some things in addition to my storm spotting scenario. Here in my area it used to be that every time it rained the cable went out because the cable company was beaming the signal over microwave from the receiving station to the head end that served our area. So, no matter what it was doing here at my house, if there was a storm anywhere along that path you got zilch from the cable. The same is true of what happens to satellite during a big storm - I loose sat reception for a while if there is any sort of big cloud between the dish and the sat. My only method of getting a signal from the locals is rabbit ears. If there is any sort of an emergency going on, such as a tornado, I would be left with only one recourse - my local NPR station. For now, that is. Chances are, if Hazlett gets his way that will go away too to turn all the TV and radio channels over to Clear Channel so they can broadcast sports talk and other drivel 24-7.
Hazlett is typical "big business rules" scum.
>Cable just looks like CRAP.
Then your broadcaster and your cable system have agreed to disagree, and its time to start lobbying both to rectify that.
First, let me state that I'm a semi-retired C.E. of a small market tv station, with 40 years in broadcastings technical back rooms, so at least you'll know my credentials to speak to the issue at hand.
Back when even the big time cable ops had to pickup an off-air signal from someplace, and often microwave it to their headend for final mixing, the 'local' off-air signal was often left at second rate, a situation that has grown worse since the fcc started allowing the cable folks to sell their own commercials. If the broadcaster really leans on the cable folks for a bad signal, they can sometimes fix it for a few months, but there isn't any payoff for them in maintaining it as the best signal on their system when its a 100% cost item to them.
This of course leads to a natural bias skew in the ratings because the cable signals, usually obtained from a satellite and therefore pretty clean, were often of higher quality than the local off air signals they also carried.
This satellite-ization of the cables signal distribution medium has lead to a generalized desertion of the hilltop antenna farms the cable folks used to maintain, and to chase them back down into the valley's where they won't get 5 grand worth of equipment blown to hell everytime somebody calls that stuff butter and mother nature objects.
So what have we as broadcasters done to facilitate competing against that? In our case, its relatively easy as the glass fibre used to interconnect the various cable systems goes right by our studios. So we now feed the cable systems in 2 major population areas with a signal straight out of the studio switcher, instantly making our signal quality at least the equal of any of their satellite feeds.
They (the local cable folks here) were damned glad to get a quality signal, actually 2 of them, for almost free. We also program another non-broadcast channel for their use. This non-broadcast channel is dragging in enough markers in the ratings books that we are actually making a small profit on it.
This alone, has been worth 3 to 5 points in the ratings books for the main over the air channel, and has long ago paid off the approximately 8 thousand we had to spend to get the 4 channel fibre transmitter/receiver installed at both ends of a 39km fibre. Cable ran the fibre into our studio and we had to furnish the interfaceing on both ends.
The downside is that the studio is often monitoring the cable instead of the off-air, and transmitter problems that used to be cause for burning rubber are treated with considerably more restraint now.
I'd like also to make note that the 90% penetration figures being bandied around in this thread are not true, by quite a few percentage points locally, where the cable penetration is not more than 65%, the dish folks having a good share too.
But lets be reminded that the dish folks also charge out the yang, often approaching 90 bucks a month according to one daughter who has it. All those promo's that get you to buy it in the first place have a nasty tendency to expire, and the normal bill soon gets the dish tossed in the bin for those who really cannot afford that kind of a monthly bill.
But we are still free for the taking if you want to put up an antenna. Many retired folks find themselves reduced to that as there simply isn't room in the SS check for a monthly cable or dish bill.
Anyone who wants to take away that free option and replace it with yet another toy band is thinking in terms of the elitist, not the general population. Thats the equivalent of Ms. Antoinette's famous statement "Well, let them eat cake" when told that the commoners had no bread.
That attitude has no place in the 'Land of the Free'. It would become valid only if enough 'dish' bandwidth were to be launched so that every over the air broadcaster could ha
Eliminating the Airwaves of Free TV is most likely lobbied by Cable/Satellite Providers... That is a market they can't tap into... Alot of people are happy with just a few local channels and don't want to look at all the Blah Blah commercialized Hype. Once there is no more free TV it will force them to get cable/sat and pay a rate and get alot of what they don't want.. Big Network TV with the absolute minimum ammount of localized content they can get away with...
US TV is way over commercialized.. There is getting to be less and less programming available as the big media conglomerates continue to buy up their competition untill the FCC say Slow down your going to upset the balance.. so what is left is a minimal ammount of content left which is watered down with commercialism..
The CRTC Canada's Similar Equip of the American FCC actually does alot of good to promote new original content.. If you have kids you would be Very interested in seeing what Canada has for children programming its some of the most top notch tv you can find.. instead of Pokemon and Power Rangers ect which are just huge marketing machines influencing the minds of the young into "Gotta have the newest action figure/trading cards" mind set.
The reigns need to be pulled and the massive media conglomerates need to be slowed down and new original networks need to be let onto the market place to bring back original programming that is allowed to be truly unique. The barrier of entry has been raised substantially and its not so easy to break into this market and eliminating free tv will only help raise this barrier even higher.
Who needs WiFi when we can have Packet Over Sheep! http://datacomm.org/PoS-InternetDraft.txt
First off - Over The Air broadcasting is going nowhere. Period. Your local affiliates will exist well into the future. We need local news and local TV competition... and as much as some affiliates suck, they're absolutely necessary.
Now, what about idle TV spectrum? Metro and/or Suburban Area Networking. Meshed, fast(?) bla bla bla. I'm no technical genius, and I'm sure that a good protocol for this doesn't even exist, but remember, 802.11x didn't exist several years ago. At any rate, Make it commercial. Make it public/free. Do both. Do whatever is needed to make it happen. It'll never be a replacement for fiber to the home, but maybe it'll allow for the holy grail of telecom competition... wireless VoIP. Even better, maybe it'll allow everyone to have a small chunk of bandwidth out in BFE rural areas. Who knows. At any rate, something is better than nothing, which is what is going on with the majority of TV spectrum.
Finally - "3G" radio. Satellite radio isn't local which IMHO is its only drawback. Current regulations and standards for AM/FM need to be updated for more efficient use of spectrum. But fuck it. Lets just go all out and make an FM2 or something. Yes, I know there is a technology in the works to "digitize" local radio, but they're going about it in a legacy-supporting way. By going about an upgrade in this manner, the FCC is preventing smaller players from going live. UHF was over-allotted sand box, and FM is an overcrowded ClearChannel clusterfuck... and the FCC needs to fix it... starting over from scratch. Hell, let ClearChannel keep FM... but give us another way to broadcast and receive local content... digitally. "FM2" should have about 100 medium-power channels for everyone to use... requiring an FCC permit, but unlike AM/FM, it should have very low or nonexistent broadcaster fees. It should be what LPFM strived to do, only much better.
Of course, if we had a good Continental Area Network (ho ho!!) we could just use that to power 3G radio. But I think I've already shot at the stars at it is.