Obama To Nearly Double the Available Broadband Wireless Spectrum

suraj.sun tips news that the Obama administration announced today plans to free up roughly 500MHz of the wireless spectrum for commercial broadband. From the Washington Post: "The commitment backs a proposal by the Federal Communications Commission to auction off broadcasters' and government spectrum to commercial carriers that envision their networks running home appliances, automobile applications, tablet computers and other wireless devices. White House economic adviser Lawrence Summers said in a speech outlining the president's plan that freeing up more spectrum will spur economic growth through auctions of the airwaves and investment in wireless networks and technology. ... The FCC has proposed that 280 megahertz of spectrum come from broadcasters and other sources, 120 of which would come from broadcasters. The other 220 megahertz would come from the federal government's holdings managed by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration."

Comments

Oh that's nice

[shoehornjob]

And how much are they going to charge us for that? I'm paying too much already for my internet, cable and phone. Thanks but no thanks. I assume this is for the people in rural area's that don't have any internet to speak of. I'm sure the company they sell it to will continue the status quo and provide bare minimum to rural area's. No news here move along.

Re:Oh that's nice

[icebike]

These used to be TV channels. This is why we all switched to digital TV, to free up this spectrum. That process had always anticipated the spectrum would be used for wireless, cellular or broadband uses.

The process was started a good ten years ago, and signed into law in prior administrations, (yet in this all things to Chairman Mao world, Obama gets credit).

These frequencies are generally in the 700mhz band, below the 800 band used by some cell phones. These freqs have better building penetration and range than do the higher bands in the 2100mhz block often uses by cell carriers. Fewer towers cover larger areas, with better penetration. Its all good.

Especially in rural areas, the greater range makes sense.

But yes, you will pay for this spectrum AGAIN, after TV stations vacated it (did they get any money back?) the carriers will purchase the licenses, and eventually (don't hold your breath) put broadband and or cellular devices in this space, and charge you for the privileged of using it.

TINSTAAFL

Re:Oh that's nice

[mjwx]

The process was started a good ten years ago, and signed into law in prior administrations, (yet in this all things to Chairman Mao world, Obama gets credit).

To be fair, all the bad policies started in the Bush era, Obama now gets the blame for. Render unto Caesar what is Caesars.

Wow... what a worthless article

[ka9dgx]

It doesn't give any specifications about what frequency ranges. 500 Mhz is a lot, if it starts at 0Hz, it's pretty much priceless... if it starts at 60Ghz... not worth very much at all.

As far as freeing it up.... if it's for commercial use, instead of for networking peer to peer, what good is it for any of us? The monopolies will buy it up, and fight over it, and bill us with a profit margin along the way, while we get crap.

Free up what used to be the UHF TV spectrum for peer to peer use, and we can do a lot to fix the last mile problem.

That's my 2 copper cents worth.

Useless, just like 1700 MHz AWS

[LittlePud]

Unless they somehow allow the 900/1800/2100 MHz bands to be used with the existing international standards, new frequencies will just lead to more market/tech fragmentation.

Auction $$$: All they care about

[ScottFree2600]

I guess that TV broadcasters didn't give the government enough money. I have a better idea! How about if a good sized chunk of that spectrum was made license free, like 2.4 and 5.8 ghz? Why should we give up "public airwaves" to the Verizons of the world to sell back to us by the kilobyte at high prices with data caps, etc. Look what's been done with the crumbs that the FCC has allowed us already!

Re:amateur license vs unlicensed power output

[Gazoogleheimer]

No, digitalsushi was correct. There are additional privileges with 802.11.

Re:Charge YOU?

[catmistake]

Also, kind of annoyed me Slashdot reported so well right up to the auction, then gave the results... then not one word about the billions of dollars in revenue the US collected from the auction, which was the whole reason I was following the story in the first place. Where the hell did the money go? Why isn't anyone following it??

Drak. There goes my TV

[commodore64_love]

They are taking 120 megahertz from broadcasters, which is equivalent to subtracting 20 slots on the DTV spectrum (where each slot can hold 3-5 channels each). What a crock. I don't want to subscribe to Comcast. They charge $60 a month, plus $5 for each extra TV, plus 6% tax on top of that. AND their prices keep going up and up. (Basically 2.5 times more than what I paid in 2000.)

And the government used taxpayer money - spending almost 1 billion to hand-out subsidzed converter boxes and eduation programs for the June 2009 DTV transition. So what? That money just goes to waste now???

Look at all these channels I get. FREE. I don't understand why they want to take it away. What's next? We lose our Shortwave, AM, and FM Radio too?
ABC
CBS
FOX
NBC
CW
PBS
PBSarts
PBSworld
PBSkids
MyNetTV
Univision
Telefutura
TBN
ION
Wellness Channel
thisTV movie channel
Retro Network
Global (foreign language shows/movies)
Link (foreign news)
MiND (mostly educational)
JCTV
Smile-of-a-Child Network
Qubo
IONlife

plus 9 independents showing syndicated (Rome, Star Trek, Deadliest Catch, etc) and movies

Re:Charge YOU?

[Anpheus]

What do you mean "where are they now?" In all likelihood, it got booked as revenue. If 30% of revenues went to the DoD, then 30% of the $19.6 billion went to the DoD.

Next question?