FCC Rejects Cheap/Fast Internet Device

Tech.Luver writes "ABC News reports that a group of technology companies including Google, Microsoft, and Dell, have failed to convince the Federal Communications Commission of the utility of high-speed internet access via television airwaves. The FCC concluded the potential to disrupt consumer image quality was too high, in a statement released Wednesday. 'The technology companies say the unlicensed and unused TV airwaves, also known as "white spaces," would make Internet service accessible and affordable, especially in rural areas and also spur innovation. However, TV broadcasters oppose usage of white spaces because they fear the device will cause interference with television programming and could cause problems with a federally mandated transition from analog to digital signals in February 2009.'"

Comments

Re:YAFWS - Yet Another Fscking Wireless Standard

[morgan_greywolf]

Why can't these bozos come up with One Good Standard (tm), implement it and go with it? Because as technology advances, we come up with better and better ways to do stuff. Each standard gets faster and faster, and cheaper and cheaper. You might as well ask 'why can't these bozos come up with One Good CPU design, implement it and go with it?', it's about the same thing.

Re:Interference Prevention

[gEvil (beta)]

Anyway, I say the whole broadcast TV thing needs to just die anyway. Seriously, how many people do you know personally who don't have satellite or cable? I know of one person, but that's it.

I think this is the first time I've seen someone on slashdot advocating the elimination of the FREE option and requiring people to pay money for something.

Need to protect the incumbent telco's

[Anonymous Coward]

-- This is just like broadband over powerline (BPL). The FCC makes sure the requirements are inadequate, such that there is guaranteed interference with somebody (with Congressional influence). The FCC then quashes it, in order to help it's telco friends.
-- BPL still exists for the moment, as, there is not enough influential pain being relayed to Congress yet. Don't worry, BPL will be quashed.
-- Gotta protect the telco's, so that the commissioners have lucrative future position and employment.

White Space

[Darth Cider]

Check out how much TV spectrum goes unused across the U.S., and not just in rural areas. Unbelievable waste. Does this look like a free-market allocation of resources? Does the FCC realize it is making earnest citizens literally sick with disappointment? How many people would welcome a movement to just seize the airwaves, creating wireless ISPs that don't ask for permission to broadcast? Bring on the interference?

Re:Interference Prevention

[Puff of Logic]

Here's an idea for the cable broadcasters ... drop the rates or give me the option to select only the channels (a per-channel fee, if you will) I want to watch instead of lumping me into a "plan" that gives me a massive subset of them. I've been campaigning for this for years. Ideally, I'd like to see a true a la carte system that let me pick as many or as few channels as I liked, but I'd accept a 5, 10 or 15 channel plan too. Some have argued that indie or less well-known channels would suffer, but I don't see it as my responsibility to subsidise them. Alternatively, I'd even go for a "geek" channel package (that would obviously need a more marketable name) that contained the usual suspects beloved by the tech/history/science/history watchers. Until this happens, however, I refuse to pay a hefty cable bill for a channel line-up that consists of 90% channels that I have no interest in and are stuffed with commercials.

In a perfect world, there'd be pure digital distribution of television series and movies. All content would be streamed on-demand in a high-quality format, with a basic fee covering access to the network and perhaps a low-cost fee per hour of watching (like $.25 per hour) with no interstitial commercial "messages". I'd be very happy with that.