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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."

5 of 150 comments (clear)

  1. White space? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Why you being racist like that? Do whites really need more space? Don't they have enough already?

  2. Re:Welcome to Niggerbuntu by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    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
    -- Slashdot

  3. Re:This is social justice by nine-times · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Oh, it's terrible for consumers. First, not auctioning off this spectrum deprives tax payers of money. When you think about it, it's really criminal that the government doesn't auction off all of our services and rights to private enterprise. We could make SO MUCH money!

    Also, by providing "free" things, you're depriving companies of revenue, which will damage the economy. They'll have to charge more for other services, and probably cut jobs too. We want the telecoms to make as much money as possible, because then the economy will thrive.

    (Of course I'm not serious, but apparently some people think like this.)

  4. UHF Wireless Microphones & Ham Radio by Gazoogleheimer · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  5. Sorry to break this to you... by dtmos · · Score: 5, Informative

    ...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.