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WiFi Signals In Between Television Frequencies
compgenius3 writes "The FCC unanimously voted today to allow wireless providers to use the frequencies between television stations to broadcast WiFi in rural areas. Broadcasters argue that this will cause interference on television stations but the FCC chairman says otherwise."
Update: 05/18 23:40 GMT by T : compgenius3 points out NAB president Edward Fritts' skepticism of the plan, as reflected in this press release citing fears of intereference to over-the-air broadcasts.
This will provide millions of people who cannot get wired broadband with an alternative along with a possible cheaper alternative for those of us who can but are too cheap to get it.
Perhaps it will drive the wired broadband prices down as well. That way whoever wins the election can take credit for it.
Not everything is analogous to cars. Car analogies rarely work.
Doesn't the entire FM range fall between channels 6 and 7? Why aren't the TV stations getting pissed off at the FM stations???
I'll turn into a supernova and burn up everything. Well I'll turn into a black little hole and you'll turn into string.
Sure there might be some leakage...and the channels may get some interfearance...but that would mean that the networking signal would be getting interfearance too. And hence they will move to a "cleaner" frequency to lessen the problem...so if there is a problem its a problem for both...and hence they will work together to avoid such problems.
As long as the interference from the WiFi doesn't impinge on Rupert Murdoch's broadcasting, what does Michael Powell care? This kid has been in the pocket of the big 3 for his entire time as Chairman of the FCC.
If there was any doubt that this new regulation would cause problems for the media giants, there's no way it would happen.
Why should I argue rationally with someone being irrational? I'll just mock them instead.
I don't think that people in "rural" areas who depend on broadcast TV (trailer parks?) will go for the satellite option. You have no idea about High Class White trash living do you? My brother installs DSL for a rural telco. You probably wouldn't belived the stories I get to hear about the rusted out trailer with a DirectTV dish on the side, a Harley and a mustang (the car not the horse) in the driveway, and how he has to climb over all sorts of crap/garbage to get to the computer. It is mostly that their priorities are different.
Please don't take this as a bash against trailer parks, I know a bunch of really great hard working people that happen to live in a trailer park, but I have also seen some pretty odd things..
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Anything to further diminish the viability of broadcast TV, with all of its pesky "fair use" and legalized home recording. Of course, once everything is HDTV, and all receivers everywhere have built-in, FCC-mandated DRM, there will be less to worry about.
[/tinfoil-hat]
dinner: it's what's for beer
All that needs to be said to naysayers of this proposal is: DOCSIS, DOCSIS, DOCSIS (a.k.a. cable modem technology).
Cable modems don't hurt analog cable television, and they've been using spare television bandwidth for over 5 years.
"I know expecting the editors to RTFA is too much to ask"
No, it's not. That's what an editor's job IS. Print editors (good ones at least) don't just print whatever gets handed to them...they check it first.
If God had had a computer it would have taken him 7 months to create the earth...if he even bothered to do it at all.
As the article says, the WiFi gear would have to be responsible for scanning the spectrum for existing broadcasts (and other WiFi gear) and finding a quiet spot to use.
You were 80% angel, 10% demon. The rest was hard to explain. - Over The Rhine
"Math in a song is good."-Linford
That's one way to get them to move to digital TV faster - crowd them out of the old analog channels.
With regard to solving th problem of interference, the argument of "switch to a different amateur band" could be equally applied here as "switch to a different TV channel"...
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
Whenever I read a rant against inner-city neighborhoods, trailer parks or other low-cost housing, it invariably speaks more about the ranter than it does about the low-cost housing denizens.
You have to be successfully indoctrinated into the hamster-wheel system from birth to accept it as valid. What exactly is wrong with living in a trailer, so long as it suits your needs? How are they much different from an apartment or condo in terms of shelter and provisions, aside from the fact that they are standalone?
Given the same location, would you rather live in a $25000 manufactured home built in 2004, in a $1000/mo. studio apartment built in 1976 or in a $300000 2-story house built in 1918?
This thread strongly reminds me of my experiences in the 3rd grade, when buying anything from K-Mart meant you were poor and therefore uncool and unpopular.
I wonder if this decision, when implemented, will have consequences for other countries.
Even now, my wireless nic allows me to select the place I am in (Europe, Japan, United States), and bases it's channel allowance on that fact.
If this is implemented, I could be "allowed" (by the software) to select a TV channel which is actually occupied in my country and thus pirate that channel with my Wifi-static...
Sure, different software could be delivered for different countries. Heck, even different firmwares. But we all know that that doesn't stop anyone from updating their card to another country-version.
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The FCC has for its entire history put most of the burden on transmitters to avoid interfering with other devices and 50 years ago that might have made sense, today it does not.
The idea was that 50 years ago most use of the airways was broascast and requiring smart transmitters enabled receivers to be dumb (and thus cheaper). Today as more and more use of the airways is bi-directional there is no particular cost advantage to putting the burden of interference solely on either the receiver or the transmitter.
And if you think it's your right to own a cheap TV that can't handle interference because the airways are a public trust, think again. The airways are a public trust and as such each of us have a responsibility to use it wisely and efficiently.
I think a little clarification is in order. Do you want to know how television can be broadcast *using* WiFi? or do you want to know how regular television broadcast can *coexist* with WiFi? In both cases, it is a matter of how you use the spectrum. Concerning the first: HDTV is transmited as a digital signal - nothing more than a bitstream. WiFi is a communications protocol - nothing more than rules detailing how to get data from here to there. Unlike existing over-the-air broadcasting, WiFi is very much bi-directional, so having interactive TV over WiFi is no problem. Concerning the second: Digital TV signals does not necessarily need the 6 MHz allocated for each channel. In fact, broadcasters have the option of simultaneously broadcasting several analog NTSC quality signals that has been digitally compressed instead of a single full-blown HDTV channel with the high definition resolution. This is called multicasting. If a broadcaster decides to scale back the quality of a channel, enough bandwidth could be recovered for other uses - including uploads from a couch potato to where ever.
Stay sentient. Don't drink bad milk.