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FCC Report Supports Use of White Spaces For Wireless

Posted by timothy on from the just-use-a-contrasting-radio-wave dept.

After the FCC's tests mentioned early last month, andy1307 submits word of the FCC's report (released Friday), writing that "the major telcos disagree with the FCC's report that concluded that using white spaces to provide free wireless internet 'would not cause major interference with other services. ... The FCC concluded that sufficient technical protections would prevent major problems.' FCC chairman Kevin Martin's proposal is to auction off the spectrum, with some rules attached. 'Some of the spectrum would be used for free Internet service, which would have content filters to block material considered inappropriate for children.'"

13 of 143 comments (clear)

  1. Re:It doesn't add up by Saroset · · Score: 2, Insightful

    There is quite a bit of money to be made off a free public service through advertising. That's why you sell it.

  2. US of China? by Saroset · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "Some of the spectrum would be used for free Internet service, which would have content filters to block material considered inappropriate for children"

    If kids want to find the content, they will find it with or without filters. I find that these filters are more often abused for control rather than used appropriately. Even when used in the intended manner, they are usually more annoying than helpful.

    1. Re:US of China? by sakdoctor · · Score: 3, Insightful

      And what are the appropriate uses of filters?
      I assert that there are none. For an adult, the filter is your decision to look or not look at particular resources, and to turn a blind eye when something offends.

      For children, the filters belong on the local computer administered by the parent if at all, according to the parents wishes.

      Oh, and what the hell does "US of China" mean? I think you were looking for "The democratic people's republic of America".

    2. Re:US of China? by lysergic.acid · · Score: 3, Insightful

      it's much easier, and more beneficial to the public, to have parents install content filters on their children's internet devices than to censor internet access.

      firstly, unlike TV/radio the government cannot regulate internet content. web sites don't have to register with the FCC or buy a broadcasting license. thousands of new pages and sites are added to the web each day. there's just no way for the FCC to keep track of all adult content. the only way to ensure children are completely cordoned off from such content is with a whitelist, and putting a whitelist on public internet access would destroy its usefulness and has great potential for abuse (see the AOL censorship controversy).

      with TV & Radio, there's no easy way for parents to install content filtering software on them (at least not until the V-Chip came out for TV), so it made some sense for the FCC to censor the airwaves. this is not the situation with internet content.

    3. Re:US of China? by ScrewMaster · · Score: 2, Insightful

      True, but then the FCC is not entirely rational on the subject of "decency" in the first place. I like watching TV shows produced in Canada and not edited to comply with American broadcast "standards". I was watching episodes of "Dead Like Me" a while ago: the originals were hilarious because the language wasn't cut out (like when the Ellen Muth's character says, "I could hear the Universe cocking the fuck-with-me gun.") You'd never hear that on American broadcast TV. Stargate as well ... the very first episode contained some full-frontal nudity that never made it down here.

      Apparently, the mere sight of woman's body, when combined with certain words, immediately corrodes a child's virgin mind into uselessness or permanent insanity. I'd like to know what bizarre thought processes lead to that conclusion on the part of our lawmakers.

      Now, maybe that's just me ... I had an ex-Marine for an uncle when I was growing up. Fuck if I know.

      --
      The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
  3. Re:FCC's job is to manage spectrum, not preach! by ObsessiveMathsFreak · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The FCC's job has, is and always will be to censor content that is broadcast in the US. It is the central and primary purpose of the organization.

    --
    May the Maths Be with you!
  4. No ulterior motives here, nosireee. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    The FCC is eager to sell the spectrum. If they had to give it away, they'd be less eager to discover that there isn't any problem.

    The telcos don't want the competition of free services. If they were bidding for spectrum to use however they please, they'd be less eager to think the FCC's test is flawed.

    Who's lyingest?

  5. Re:It doesn't add up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Companies aren't going to be interested in buying spectrum and giving it away for free. They ARE going to be interested in providing spectrum that will paid through with served adds, redirected web error pages, etc.

    So this so called "free" internet is going to be filtered by the ISP, ad-filled by the ISP, and generally abused by the ISP. I wouldn't be surprised if they force you to their own search page, replace other webpage ads with their own, and monitor all your traffic since they're going to be able to tie you to a mac address and IP address.

    Fuck the FCC. Show me where the constitution says the government has the right to censor our information.

  6. Re:FCC's job is to manage spectrum, not preach! by mysidia · · Score: 2, Insightful

    This is example of how the FCC sometimes starts to follow a good idea, but then screws it up in an absurd way.

    I see absolutely no good reason for certain frequencies to have content filters for children against the user's wishes

    Internet access is an individual / personal use service, not a broadcast service, and other users of the wireless service are not exposed to content viewed or accessed by one user.

    Whether or not content filters are applied should be entirely up to the user.

    I predict this "filtering" will only encourage closing the media/protocols required to use this wireless service, or to prevent third party software development by users of the service.

    Otherwise, end-users may find methods of bypassing filtering by carrying their traffic over IPsec ESP exchanges and use custom software to tunnel their traffic in a manner that evades filters.

  7. Re:FCC's job is to manage spectrum, not preach! by mysidia · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If it was the government responsibility to provide internet and free internet was a right of yours

    The government is not providing the internet. And ultimately this service might replace your typical home internet connection, for most people.

    They are doing the equivalent of a city/state government allowing cable companies to run cables through public property.

    And requiring the land owners (rightholders according to the deeds that the government has issued), to allow cable lines to cross their property.

    In the same manner the FCC may be requiring wireless spectrum owners to allow third-party internet service to be served using frequencies they are not actually using.

    This type of concession required by deeded rightsholders doesn't mean it's appropriate for the government to start saying what kind of traffic can and can't be carried across the wire.

    This is like your city saying that if your cable wire crosses city property, and you get Cable internet service from your provider, then the provider must filter all porn.

    Fundamentally, this is a service the government is not providing over the connection, but they're trying to limit free speech over the connection anyways.

  8. What content? Whose children? by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Quote: "... content filters to block material considered inappropriate for children."

    Which content? Whose children? The government thinks it has the right, or the knowledge, to decide for ME what MY children should be able to access?

    I have said this before, but I think it's all just a scam to get people used to censorship.

    Government needs to keep its goddamned hands off of the censorship button. The 'censored net' is a concept proposed by fools. For fools.

    1. Re:What content? Whose children? by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 2, Insightful

      "Wow! You sound like you work for tha ACLU."

      No.

      "Do you like the rating system for movies in the US and a lot of the world?"

      No, I did not and I do not. After many years of nonsense ratings with no discernible rationale behind them, now they have more "fine-grained" ratings for things like "sexual dialogue" and the depiction of people smoking cigarettes. So... it has gone from a coarse system with no rationale to a fine-grained system that rates based on things that are just plain stupid. I am not impressed, and so I will continue to make my own decisions regarding my children.

      "Are you glad there are now billboards of naked women up and down the public highways in the US...especially those showing violent sex against women?"

      I have driven across this entire nation, from coast to coast, and I have never seen such. Anywhere. Where do you live, anyway? If you don't like it, maybe you should move, considering that there are LOTS of places where such things do not exist.

      "Are you glad that when your little children turns on the TV to watch cartoons that they're not showing commercials with people being killed right in front of your eyes?"

      Yes, but so what? I have never seen anything like that anyway. The crudest and most violent commercials I see today are by the anti-smoking and anti-abortion crowds. And believe me, I find some of those to be extremely offensive.

      "Be real."

      I am.

      "There is a lot of consorship that help to provide a SAFER SOCIETY FOR US TO LIVE IN."

      Bullshit! First off, the absence of naked billboards and the lack of murders on TV commercials is NOT "censorship"!!! Those are the result of community standards, which are completely different. Nobody would buy from a company that showed murders in its commercials, and not many folks would put up with naked billboards on their streets. But once again: community standards are NOT the same thing as censorship. Real censorship NEVER makes anybody safer.

      "Have you lived in a society with no laws of censorship whatsoever. Not pretty! Brings up callosed children that have little respect for life and certainly don't care about themselves. I've seen it in Africa when I lived there for a while."

      That's nice. But you are confused. Here in America, we generally consider censorship by Government to be unconstitutional. There is a hell of a lot less of it here than you think, and some of what you do see is not strictly legal.

  9. Re:FCC's job is to manage spectrum, not preach! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Your local library likely does not have content filters installed, but they are paid for with public tax payer money.

    I don't think the government, especially the FCC, should be acting as our moral enforcer. There is a solution out there to block access to 'inappropriate material' for kids while allowing it for adults, they just need to think it over better.