First Public White-Space Network Is Alive

An anonymous reader writes "The first public white space network officially launched on Wednesday in Claudville, Virginia. It uses sensing technology from Spectrum Bridge with software and Web cams supplied by Microsoft and PCs from by Dell. The project was funded the TDF Foundation. White space networks use unlicensed television spectrum and have been called 'WiFi on steroids.' They offer more bandwidth, over larger areas, than does WiFi. IT companies duked it out with broadcasters for years to get white spaces approved by the FCC. They finally got the FCC's nod in November, 2008."

Comments

Re:Good thing

[icebike]

A foot long? Oh come on!!!

We are talking about "700-megahertz" band, covering TV channels 52 to 69 (698 to 806 MHz).

The upper end of this is only marginally longer wavelength than the 850MHz band used for 850-GSM cellular today.

This bandwidth could easily be merged into the cellular spectrum with virtually no change in antenna length required, or at best a marginal increase in length that would easily fit in the modern smart phone package format.

A quarter wave antenna for 850MHz is 3.3 inches.
for 800MHz a length of 3.50 inches is optimal.
for 700MHz 4.01 inches, etc.

The iPhone is 4.25 inches tall. Similar phones have similar sizes, all of which would accommodate a quarter wave for these frequencies.

Re:Is this statement misleading?

[evilviper]

As far as the range? You can make a microwave signal go light years and a HAM signal go a few feet (although, there will be some distortion for transmitting a signal over a distance shorter than the wavelength). The range is more of a function of signal power.

You're horribly wrong.

Distance has everything to do with frequency. You aren't going to have shortwave/ham radio skipping around the world with a 2.4GHz transmitter no matter how much power you put into it. Similarly, there's a reason WiFi is popular at 2.4Ghz but the higher 5Ghz band used with the now-forgotten 802.11a standard has been vastly less utilized.

Frequency determines how well a signal will disperse around obstacles, and therefore, whether it will work AT ALL if you don't have 100% line-of-sight between transmitter and receiver.