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FCC Unanimously Approves White Space Wi-Fi
Smelly Jeffrey writes "With the release of this whitepaper, the FCC unanimously approved plans for a new technology with strong supporters and even stronger detractors. White Space Wi-Fi effectively allows manufacturers of wireless devices to incorporate transceivers that operate on unused DTV channels. Although the deregulation is new, the idea seems to have caught Google's interest recently as well. It seems that this has been rather rushed through the normally stagnant channels at the FCC. While some view it as interference in the already crowded spectrum, it seems the FCC Chairman really likes the idea of re-purposing dark parts of the newly allocated DTV bands once more." Update: 11/06 18:15 GMT by T : You may want to look at Tuesday's mention of the decision as well, but the additional links here are interesting.
They'll deregulate use of the spectrum, but if you say "blow job" on television, they'll fine you into oblivion. Sounds like they've got their priorities straight.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
I was watching the behind the scenes of "Family Guy" and they were talking about making up swear words. Seth said that when a made up swear word that was OK to say on TV becomes part of the language, the FCC will then consider it off-limits to say on TV.
People can be so weird about words.
Then you have the cry babies who have to bitch to the FCC over every little thing. But if you actually mention that there's an off switch, somehow, you're the moron.
Well, for those of us who use wireless microphones (like you see at concerts, conventions, sports stadiums, or churches), we are the ones who might get screwed. They FCC says they are putting measures in place to prevent this, but we'll have to see what happens. There will be another ruling to finalize all this. Here's a decent summary from Shure[PDF] (they make wireless mics).
Finally!
Rural areas with rolling hills and trees have really limited options with regard to high-speed Internet access. Line of sight just wasn't one of nature's design goals. It's really difficult to have a cottage high-tech industry without the infrastructure to support it and the population density simply isn't there for the telcos to have any incentive to build it out.
Your best bet is Wildblue with 750-1500ms latency and 256kbps upload speed. You get used to it but forget sharing say a vmware image or uploading anything of substantial size. If you spend the time to do it, you also face rate-limiting from WildBlue once you pass a bandwidth threshold. Let us not forget wiping the snow off the dish, throwing a trash bag over the lnb when it rains, and wiggling the dish when you lose signal.
Sure, rural users can try to order a T1 but since the wired infrastructure isn't built out (else the telco would be offering high-speed services), you can bet on "special construction charges" of at least $4k on top of the $500/month service charge. ISDN? Same issue.
What about getting a ham radio license? That's fine and all, provided you don't ever use encryption, don't mind people intercepting your data, and remember to identify your station periodically.
The truth is that more than half of the country simply cannot acquire high-speed Internet access for a reasonable rate.
This is rather offtopic, but I'd like to say it anyways...
It used to be that the Slashdot frontpage was riddled with dupes. We complained every time that the editors were idiots, that they should have a system in place to recognize dupes. Many people even said that they emailed regarding the dupes while they were in the mysterious future, and yet the still hit the front page. Thus was born the Slashdot meme about every story being eventually duped.
But, I have to say that over the last while, the number of dupes is way, way down. The firehose and tagging seem to have alot to do with it--dupes are flagged earlier in the process, giving the editors the feedback they need.
Dupes are not entirely eliminated, but the frequency is down. So I'd like to say: thanks to the Slashdot staff for fixing the issue that we complained about. We are a whiny bunch, and it's too easy for us to complain but then forget to appreciate the things that are fixed (or have always been good). So, again, good work on the dupe reduction.