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The 700MHz Question

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the just-give-it-to-me-for-pirate-radio-stations dept.

mstrchf07 writes "The FCC will soon be auctioning off the rights to use the 700MHz spectrum for wireless communications, with the winner being able to choose the direction of wireless services development in the US. With stakes this high, is the playing field fair, and are business needs trumping consumer and technological interests?"

1 of 148 comments (clear)

  1. Total bandwidth? by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 5, Informative

    If I understand the article correctly, it would seem that 700 Mhz spectrum would only give you 15 MB/s of available bandwidth if it used similar compression techniques to 802.11g. If, as the article suggests, this spectrum were to be used for some big WISP, maybe Google, it wouldn't seem to me to be very viable as the available bandwidth would be split amongst LOTS of users in order to keep it cheap. Now, UMPCs and mobile devices conceivably need less bandwidth, but then, isn't that what we have wireless phone service for?

    It seems to be like this article is a bunch of meaningless speculation about Google's plans for being a ubiquitous WISP.

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