TV Airwaves To Deliver Internet?

roscoetoon directs our attention to a proposal from an odd assortment of tech companies — Google, Microsoft, H-P, Intel, and others — to reuse TV wavelengths to deliver first-mile connectivity. The Washington Post article is subtitled "Cable, Phone Companies Watch Warily." As well they might. One of the big content companies that the incumbent duopolists propose to soak by dismantling network neutrality, in company with some powerful allies, is striking back at the heart of their business.

Comments

Article is a little light on details.

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

And there's not much to be found, but tv technology website has a little more info in this article.

The article was a little light on details...

[Anonymous Coward]

But choking on the unwieldy sentence in that write-up made up for it.

well

[mastershake_phd]

Id like to see more independent TV stations. Of course once there is enough bandwidth everyone can have their own TV station...

Re:well

[Petey_Alchemist]

You know, when I said I wanted lonelygirl15 in my living room, I didn't mean it that way.

Re:What???

[sumdumass]

If net nutrality is dismantled, Microsoft has some problems. This is more likley a CYA deal.

Microsoft has live and everything comming from there. PLus they have service packs and the such. Most people are satisfied with them on providing updates and service packs from the web. But if net nutrality goes out the door, they will be in a situation were they will have to pay for this too or suffer an angry mob of customers wanting to kow why they patch to fix the whole left in windows that jst caused the last virus infection they had to pay someone else to get rid of is taking as long as it would on dial up.

It just makes sence for them to make sure there is a way around it.

Wow! The internet over TV

[suckmysav]

That might alleviate the forecast bandwidth shortage that is due to occur when TV over the internet is rolled out in force!

As hard a problem as in 1988

[dbIII]

Rewind back to 1988 - I'm at a community radio station (mostly washed the dishes and played with whatever gear was lying around) and a bright electrical engineering graduate student there worked out how to easily and on a low budget get a fair bit of bandwidth out via the FM signal without disrupting the radio broadcast. The problem then as now is how do you know what data to send? You can't easily get the request packets if your bandwidth the other way is low even if dial-up has improved a lot. That is the main reason you didn't see this in 1988 or proir, and the main reason why people like the engineer mentioned above moved on to two way microwave links.

No way...

[__aaclcg7560]

If over the air comes in like regular TV in my area, the internet will be fast and sexy with a Spanish accent.

First Mile vs. Last Mile

[michaelmalak]

Here I was about to lambast the submitter for using "First Mile" instead of "Last Mile", only to discover after Googling that "First Mile" was coined in 1997:

The term "First Mile" was coined by Titus Moetsabi, a poet/ developmental communications specialist, at a Southern African Rural Connectivity Workshop in Harare in February, 1997. He was the first to turn the "last mile" concept on its head and help us think instead of rural communities from the user perspective -- the first mile, not the last. This term expresses a more equitable and far less top-down approach to the challenge of providing universal connectivity, regardless of location and income.

The UN has a more detailed account of the coining of the phrase.

so

[TinBromide]

Why would the cable/phone companies be worried about television signals?

Last i checked, TCP was a 2 way communication for every message. Every packet is sent and gets an acknowledgment or some message if not received (like only go 13 out of 15 packets). Also, last i checked, my computer doesn't currently have the equipment to transmit television signal over a mile. So, how are those packets going to be sent back? Cable? Phone line? Unless google finds a way to deliver the internet via a non tcp/ip format or puts a 1.21 gigawatt antenna in every home, the whole error checking feature of tcp/ip is going to keep a bit of fat for the phone/cable companies.

Re:so

[Bluesman]

The path a TCP connection takes doesn't have to be the same going forward or backward. It doesn't even have to be the same path between multiple packets.

Since most people don't use nearly as much upload bandwidth as download, a dial-up upload with a very fast over the air download would be sufficient for the vast majority of users.

Many people in the U.S. are still on dial-up. If Google offered them a way to dramatically increase the speed of web page loads for an extra $2 a month, they'd probably take that option over the much more expensive DSL or Cable services.

Pretty smart move.

Re:What???

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

Yeah right Sherlock. They've been very successful in the game console market and may actually beat out

Please reread my comment. I said financial failure. Maybe the xbox360 will beat out the PS3, but MS's games division hasn't made any money yet.

Hello?

[no1nose]

1999 called. They want their Geocast back... The idea of delivering internet via airwaves is so NOT new. It never got off the ground then, and it won't now. If you want wireless internet, get a $50 router or a $60/month Verizon aircard.

Done.

Not just no, but...

[sconeu]

HELL NO!!!!

This opens the door for the FCC to regulate content on the Internet.

Aren't these already reserved?

[drkfce]

Woah, waoh, woah, woah.... Woah... I thought this area of bandwidth was supposed to be reserved for emergency services, when the analog TV's are shut off in 2009?

Re:Can you say...

[AvitarX]

Right now each station has 2 channels (one analog and one digital) I believe the idea is to free up spectrum when the analog broadcast is shut off. I am not 100% sure though. It also appears to me that frequency has less to do with channel with DTV.

For example a line from antennaweb.org (my notes in parens)

* yellow - uhf WPSG-DT 57.1(channel) CW PHILADELPHIA PA 263° 2.7 32 (frequency)

Though I guess the station would need something in the proper frequency slot to tell the TV where to look.

Re:What???

[JPriest]

AFAIK MS's games division was making money on PC games like Age of Empires before the creation of the Xbox. Also, when you have a monopoly, if you launch a product that helps to protect it could be considered a success even if it does not bring in a profit.

This is the reason WindowsCE is a success, it places a road block in the way of anyone wanting to assault the desktop by expanding from PDA to Laptop etc.

Nobody is going to write 30 million lines of code over night to compete with Windows, they have to find a niche like Cell phones, PDA's, and game consoles and try to leverage it. Xbox and WindowsCE are about taking the fight to them, if competition means the markets has lower or no profit margins, that could also be a good thing.