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Google Looks to "White Space" Spectrum
Nerdposeur writes "After maneuvering the major carriers into agreeing to open access rules via the recent spectrum auction, Google appears to be looking into a new area of spectrum that could provide internet connectivity. 'In comments filed with the Federal Communications Commission, the Internet leader outlined plans for low-power devices that use local wireless airwaves to access the 'white space' between television channels. A Google executive called the plan 'Wi-Fi 2.0 or Wi-Fi on steroids.' Interestingly, Google has Microsoft, Intel, and others on their side in this one. Was this spectrum their target all along?"
Is this the same technology that Microsoft has tried to demo (twice) with less-than-spectacular results?
Maybe it's just me, but Google seems to be this huge juggernaut of mediocrity and rehashed advertising. That's not to say they were always that way. They were all about great search engines, mapping software, and other web stuff. But now they are all about advertising channels.
They are proposing that they can "provide huge economic and social gains", but they are only searching for new and better ways of shoving advertising down our throats. At least the advertising is targetted...
But at some point, the revulsion we had at web banner ads will manifest itself towards Google ads as well. I just can't see "new paradigm" advertising is going to continue to be as profitable as old media advertising was.
you could tune the satellite to be almost on a station, right on the 'edge' of the station, and get around the blocking method they used for PPV... you would get a blurry picture but good sound. Great way to watch porn when you're a 12 year old.
Don't take that away google. Think of the children.
I seem to remember this a while back on the PBS stations in my area. They would push this content across the space between the channels. The only issue at that time, I thought, was that you were only allowed to receive what they gave you and not have a two way street... I don't think this is a particularly new idea. Oh yeah - I didn't read the article... so if I am off the mark, oh well.
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Get your biggest competitor for bandwidth to spend all of their money on the spectrum you don't want by executing a feint in that direction, and then taking over the spectrum you really wanted.
It's almost like someone who reads those business books that are based on military strategy actually figured out how to apply the military concepts to competition...
Just like MuniWiFi did. Google, where are your commitments to that??
Just like WiMAX works so well .
Just like Earthlink, master of all that's good, wireless, and now nearly bankrupt might think.
Sure, software-defined radios might be nice. But let's put in real freaking fibre instead of still another plan to screw telcos/cellular carriers. If Google needs more bandwidth for YouTube, let them finally invest in the infrastructure to deliver it, not 'convenient' short-term wireless ploys. Egads.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
and with digital television on the way, much easier to implement without interference. The UHF channels used on your television (most households in the USA have some cable or Satellite feed so don't use broadcast television really) have a small amount of bandwidth between each. If you combined that bandwidth with multiple radio links or some transmission technique, you could use it for WiFi like services locally in the home. The strength of signal could be such that it wouldn't interfere with neighbors reception ( as most aren't using broadcast television anyway) and it gives out more spectrum for home use.
Additionally, there are methods to use a small footprint in the WiFi band to herd the small signals between tv channels. It would look like frequency hopping, require much smaller signal strength, and would cause negligible interference to broadcast television. Simpler still is to allow the user to input the television channels they do watch so that interference is even more remote. If you can steal (locally only) use of channels that are not used at all in the area (how many stations are on channel 63 or 42?), there is literally TONS of bandwidth to use, and all of it at a better frequency range for non-line-of-sight transmissions. That is to say; better signal quality at lower signal strengths.
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
http://code.google.com/p/spacesharp/
I used to have a native x86 whitespace compiler, but I never could read my code.
The Kai's Semi-Updated Website Thingy
This fragments the spectrum leaving you with a lot of fragments of two exact sizes perfectly interspersed. Down the road there you would have to take spectrum from both the "channel" and "space" allocations to make any block bigger then a single channel and dropping either spectrum would only give you back a sequence of broken spectrum. If some of this spectrum really should be re-allocated to something else surely it would make a lot more sense to take one or more channels from either or both ends? While trying to claim the "white space" seems like an effort to be efficient, it's making a mess of the most well known high bandwidth broadcast spectrum we have leading to an eventual mess further down the road.
Never underestimate the dark side of the Source
Those frequencies are called GUARD BANDS , they are seperation to prevent signal bleed-over.
Perhaps Google has no real engineers working for them after all.
Serving text ads is passé.
Steering searches to ad partners is abusive^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hevil.
It is only a matter of time before something like MySpace or YouTube can directly monetize their offering, and Google shares drop another increment.
Google and the like should invest in wireless Internet that really works in the real world. By real world, I mean such interesting topologies as Philadelphia, Dalls, Portland Me, Tempe, and Seattle. Oh, and the other 25-30% of Americans that don't live in an easily-servied area. When the current evil ISPs figure out how to shape traffic without easy detection, they will steer search to *other* providers. Woops, they're already doing it, aren't they? Google et al will need their own access to you.
Because, the Commercialized Internet is not so much about your access to it, but 'its' access to YOU. Sort of like going to the supermarket. Store brands are well-placed. Everyone else pays for the spot on the shelf. Miraculously, around Thanksgiving you can't find those favorite-brand fried onion rings you love to drizzle on top of your green bean casserole. Plenty of store-brand avaialble though. You have been steered. Google does this all the time, and we consider it a service. We are being used, of course.
The dystopian Blade Runner-esque world is closer and closer. It doesn't look very pretty to me, just fascinating, until it becomes reality.
If Google actually 'did no evil', they wouldn't do some of the things they make money on now. Too late, GOOG. You are already evil. Darn.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
The only big problem left to solve before true high speed access would be available to nearly everyone is the method of distribution. Using existing service wiring is problematic. Telephone wires aren't adequate due to bandwidth and signal / noise problems. Running networking over power wiring is not workable; it has all the problems of using the phone wiring but much, much worse. Running networking over the cable TV systems is the most functional - but cable doesn't go to every town and house and not all cable systems are compatible.
There's been a push to "wire" the country with glass fiber. They've even got it all the way to the house in some areas. As they build out the fiber networks they'll gradually reach more and more customers. But there's a BIG problem here: there's a huge number of houses and apartments to cover. The phone and electric systems grew up with the country, as each new home / subdivision was created these services were connected; essentially, the phone company took 100 years to get wiring to every residence.
To start out now and try to connect every residence - the magnitude of this problem is staggering. Assuming 100 million residences, if the army of installers could run fiber to and connect 10,000 residences every day - it'd take over 27 years. And that assumes the installers would be working 7 days per week. I'm not even going to try to estimate the cost of doing this.
If workable and reliable long-range wireless networking is developed / proven - and there's RF bandwidth that it can use - this could connect large number of residences inexpensively and quickly. Just plug your network cable into the "network radio" and you'd be online; no army of installers required. This would make it possible to make high speed access available to almost everyone in much, much less than 27 years.
I'm glad to see that Google is putting their resources behind making this a reality. It's not going to be easy to make this kind of technology work reliably but there's some very bright people at Google and if anyone can find a solution they can.
OK, here's an issue that I never see discussed when White Space devices come up. If I live in a fringe TV reception area and need an aerial 10m above the ground to get an adequate signal, a White Space transmitter at ground level next door isn't going to be able to see the TV signal. But when it assumes the spectrum is free and starts transmitting, boy is it going to knock out my TV reception!
It is the big $$ broadcasting companies and the regulators that are opposing the WSD because they fear any competition.
Check out the lecture at http://videolectures.net/kiblix07_meinrath_wtrr/ (the WSD part starts at around 42:00)
Those kinds of books have lots to say about life in general.
More of this kind of thing can be found in the writings of Macheavelli, Clauswitz and Herman Kahn.
'Macheavellian' is a compliment, and cool clear thinking even about the horrible is the best way to mitigate it.
...
www.xgtechnology.com seems similar tech.
This idea is horribly dangerous for anyone running a PA. That "whitespace" is where wireless mics run. They use UHF/VHF frequencies to communicate between the receiver and the mic itself. I recently toured the Shure Plant in Niles IL and they pointed out that these whitespace devices are causing an extremely large amount of harm to something that's already standardized to run in the whitespace. I don't know, it really kind of worries me that my wireless mic systems won't work anymore, or that, when I go to a concert, the artists will be limited to cable length.
"Don't meddle in the affairs of a patent dragon, for thou art tasty and good with ketchup." ~ohcrapitssteve
So, are you saying they'll migrate their codebase to Whitespace ?
Way to watch TV and get someone's Goatse or Meatspin search in on the screen
It has nothing to do with fidelity, it's just wireless internet.
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