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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.
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..
To E-mail me, replace the first period in my domain with an @
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.
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.