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White Space Plan Would Reuse TV Spectrum
An anonymous reader writes "A collection of companies including Microsoft, Google and Motorola are teaming up for a new white space wireless network plan. The White Spaces Database Group, as it will be known, plans on formulating a plan to create, govern and maintain a wireless broadband network on abandoned analog television spectrum. When the spectrum is finally vacated in June, the group hopes that system in place which will allow for the creation of an open wireless broadband network which will be accessible by any device. The FCC officially approved keeping the spectrum open back in November, despite staunch opposition from telco firms."
Why you being racist like that? Do whites really need more space? Don't they have enough already?
What? you want any large corporation to just be able to take it all for themselves?
That's really the other choice. Govern it, or let the biggest bully take it.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
This is a very profound threat to lucrative mobile cartels. Yet it's absolutely necessary as a step on the way to opening the airwaves to serve a real global Internet. My prediction: the telcos will respond with patent litigation, and with "think of the children and *AA" legislative proposals to tie the new open networks up in monitoring, filtering, and other restrictions on use.
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Of the players listed in the summary, one has a history of impeding development in the marketplace to increase dependence on their own products.
This process will be open you say? So was MS XML standard ratification process.
905 of my income comes from working with MS products, but I don't want them anywhere near processes like this. Just my .02.
This could provide critically needed rural access to broadband. It would also create competition for local DSL and Cable Model monopolies. There is no downside here for consumers.
I wonder if their documentation will be written in whitespace.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
Health concerns have scientifically been oput to rest. There isn't really anything you can do about peple who just make shit up and ignore facts.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Should be expect yet another cellular radio network? Is that a good thing, given that health concerns have not been laid to rest completely?
Sine when have they not been put to rest? Just because a bunch of loonies disagree with the science that debunked their claims doesn't mean their concerns haven't been put to rest.
Are you qualified? being open doesn't mean any yahoo can run the thing.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
That you actually put effort into copying and pasting this product of an unhappy childish mind suggests that you should look for professional help and/or consider medication.
Some points of accuracy for your text. First, the attempt to dismiss African culture with insults does not work. There are many good ways to criticize Africa, but they do not rely on contempt for the amount of melanin in the skin. You need to find better metrics. There is, despite the attempts of thousands of people who share your medical condition, no correlation between skin color and level of "humanism".
Second, you attempt to associate free and open source software with "stealing". This is a self-defeating insult since it's so obviously the opposite of the truth. As sarcasm, it does not work. I'd suggest calling it "amateuristic", or "naive", or even "chaotic". But "stealing" does simply not hurt.
To help you, it's as if someone gave you a large chocolate cookie, and you threw it away, saying it was excrement. Basically, no-one would mind, and you would look like a fool, which you are.
Finally, you appear to evoke the Creationism vs. Evolution fights by referring copiously to monkeys. Again, if you want to insult humans, do so by pointing to aspects that are truly offensive, such as their ability to waste the bounty of cheap modern-day communications with drivel like your post. Referring to our evolutionary heritage - while perhaps the most accurate part of your text - is simply not hurtful. It's like pointing to a car and saying, in a sneering voice, "look, a mechanical horse!"
My advice would be to see, in order, a physician, a pharmacist, and an English teacher.
Thank you
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I don't like the sound of that.
Why not? All the companies listed have a vested interest in getting rid of the middle-man (telcos) in order to ensure maximum profit for their respective businesses. Google wants to make sure you can see their ads on any device anywhere. Motorola wants to make a lot of those devices. Microsoft wants to do both. The telcos have done nothing but limit all of these companies (and thus, us, the consumer) with their strangle-hold on the spectrum thus far.
Any time Microsoft and Google decide to partner on something, you know the rest of us are just going to get screwed.
Because why, exactly? And before you start, try going with a reasoned argument, rather than paranoid ramblings. I know that's asking a lot, but...
Your excellent critique almost makes it seem like a good idea to respond to trolls. Nice work!
Any time Microsoft and Google decide to partner on something, you know the rest of us are just going to get screwed.
Right now, with many of us having only one choice for the local loop (or is it only called the last mile these days? I'm showing my age), we're already screwed. This initiative is the very competition you seek.
"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something" - Plato
Is the root troll an auto text generating bot? Hmm... It might be an interesting project to write an auto troll feeding bot.
See friend, that's the difference between the human body, which is imperfectly understood, if at all, and say... RADIO WAVES, which we pretty much understand all significant issues of.
If you give me a pill and say "We don't think this will kill you.", I have a legitimate concern.
If you give me a cell phone and say "its impact on you is less than the impact of the background radiation you are exposed to daily 24/7, we know this via several methods, most significantly a through understanding of how radio waves propagate." I don't.
Are they talking white space or are they talking 700 MHz?
White space means unused TV channels, which means 470-700 MHz after the transition.
What it sounds like, however, is that they're referring to the rules that will govern the new 700 MHz allocations that were auctioned last year.
There is no "abandoned" analog bandwidth. The top 100 MHz of the UHF TV band were reallocated to other services and the TV broadcasters were "packed in" closer together thanks to ATSC's less stringent adjacent channel spacing requirements.
As both a sound engineer at a theater and an amateur radio operator, I fear that these devices will not be made to the standards required for such...versatile transmitters and that they will not properly 'check' for signal presence. It's not too much of a problem for ham stuff (stay out of my 440MHz, I'm happy)--but UHF wireless microphones in theaters utilize unused UHF television channels. I don't want to come in one day, turn on all of my Shure receivers, and have to rechannelize all of my microphones which I already set carefully. I don't know if my wariness is justified, however.
I don't know, the last time a chunk of spectrum was posted with "here there be dragons!" and otherwise left alone, we got Bluetooth and wireless networking.
Sure, there are some basic rules which keep the different devices from trampling each other, and there are licenses within that spectrum which are allowed to dominate anyone else and may not be interfered with. So, imagine what such a useful chunk of spectrum, without any licenses encumbering it, and left as a playground for anyone to use could result in.
On the whole, I'd love to see the vacated spectrum kept as a public resource with anyone allowed to put anything into it which they wish. The understanding would simply be that others will operate in that space as well so any device needs to be fault tolerant, and ideally, play nice with others.
Of course, the Federal Censorship Commission (FCC) being what it is, I imagine that we'd quickly see rules slapped onto it about "indecent" content.
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Laziness is the father.
They are unlicensed, however when one has twenty-five or so multi-hundred-dollar pack systems that our school theater purchased only about a year ago. And no, to the other replier--they are in no way breaking the law, for they are in the milliwatt range and in proper allocation by the FCC and USDOC. There are very few 'digital' models for spread spectrum, and the analog packs have no reception issues (although they need companding to squeeze enough dynamic range in.) It would be different if this equipment was legacy...but it's brand new. Yes, there is no "right" to not receive interference (although I do not believe they are precisely part 15) as with licensed spectrum, like the ham bands I and many others use--however I myself have adored the persistence of analog radios to allow the odd excitement of scanning.
you've just disproved your own point. we're Not 100% sure how the human body works, and so we're not 100% sure how radio waves affect it. Just because we understand how to send and recieve radio waves, doesn't mean we always know what happens when we bounce a lot of them off of cells in the human body. Hopefully not much (I carry a cell phone all day), but I try to minimise my exposure if I don't need to have it on me. If we're not sure if something is extremely, moderately or mildly dangerous, or even innocuous, being careful with it until we're sure is perhaps a better plan than simply saying "we're pretty sure this is A-OK, so go wild." We've had problems with technology before, DDT, X-Rays (Marie Curie died from studying them), asbestos, all had/have their uses, but need to be treated with appropriate respect.
...but if your wireless mics really are in the TV bands, and really aren't Part 15 devices, then they're Part 74, Subpart H devices, which do require a license. There are no other options. You're one of many who've been sold a bill of goods by unscrupulous manufacturers of these microphones which, by law, can only be licensed to television stations, broadcast networks, cable television systems, motion picture producers, television program producers, and Multipoint Multichannel Distribution System (MMDS) licensees (Title 47 USC, 74.832). See this for a pretty good, if slightly dated, FAQ on what's required to license a wireless microphone in the US.
These microphones typically will be offered no protection against interference from whitespace protocols like the IEEE 802.22 standard. Note that the IEEE 802.22 group is also in the final stages of standardizing a beacon protocol, IEEE 802.22.1 [pdf]. This beacon is to be present whenever the (licensed) wireless microphone is in operation, and produces a signal easier to detect (at a greater range) than the microphone itself, so that cognitive white space secondary users can more reliably determine that that television channel is occupied and move elsewhere. This system avoids interference to the wireless microphone by the secondary user.
First off, ATSC channels are the same 6MHz as NTSC channels.
Secondly, if you take a peek at a spectrum analyzer, you'll see a big, fat, non-peaky pedestal of signal for digital TV. It's about as immune to low-level interference as I am to ebola.
Thirdly, radio astromony is given a "big" empty space (channel 37).
Fourthly, the day that we call 100mW "low-level interference" is the day that we all, women included, have seven testicles.
Fifthly, these devices are so overpowered that they knock out cable TV.
Sixthly, there are ways (other frequencies, spread spectrum, burst transmission) to control high-bandwidth wireless devices wirelessly.
Seventhly, I had to go up to "sixthly." If you're really in the broadcast and communication "world" (do you mean industry?), you should consider boning up or getting out.