FCC Rejects Cheap/Fast Internet Device

Tech.Luver writes "ABC News reports that a group of technology companies including Google, Microsoft, and Dell, have failed to convince the Federal Communications Commission of the utility of high-speed internet access via television airwaves. The FCC concluded the potential to disrupt consumer image quality was too high, in a statement released Wednesday. 'The technology companies say the unlicensed and unused TV airwaves, also known as "white spaces," would make Internet service accessible and affordable, especially in rural areas and also spur innovation. However, TV broadcasters oppose usage of white spaces because they fear the device will cause interference with television programming and could cause problems with a federally mandated transition from analog to digital signals in February 2009.'"

air waves? who uses??

[b100dian]

But aren't TV broadcasters mostly on cable now??
Oh, and sattelites, of course!

Re:YAFWS - Yet Another Fscking Wireless Standard

[morgan_greywolf]

Why can't these bozos come up with One Good Standard (tm), implement it and go with it?

Because as technology advances, we come up with better and better ways to do stuff. Each standard gets faster and faster, and cheaper and cheaper. You might as well ask 'why can't these bozos come up with One Good CPU design, implement it and go with it?', it's about the same thing.

Re:Interference Prevention

[gEvil (beta)]

Anyway, I say the whole broadcast TV thing needs to just die anyway. Seriously, how many people do you know personally who don't have satellite or cable? I know of one person, but that's it.

I think this is the first time I've seen someone on slashdot advocating the elimination of the FREE option and requiring people to pay money for something.

Need to protect the incumbent telco's

[Anonymous Coward]

-- This is just like broadband over powerline (BPL). The FCC makes sure the requirements are inadequate, such that there is guaranteed interference with somebody (with Congressional influence). The FCC then quashes it, in order to help it's telco friends.
-- BPL still exists for the moment, as, there is not enough influential pain being relayed to Congress yet. Don't worry, BPL will be quashed.
-- Gotta protect the telco's, so that the commissioners have lucrative future position and employment.

Re:no problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah yes, let's put it in the public safety usage bands. What a wonderful idea.

Not a good time to have a device in for testing

[phreaki]

It's true, TV spectrum is afforded more protection than in areas right now that are being bombarded with unintended RF from the BPL trials. BPL is given almost a 'do what you want' license right now for testing, when the FCC knows it's causing problems.

AT&T, Sprint or whomever wins the auction will provide some form of high speed Internet on that 700mhz pie they won. There's already speeds of greater than 1gbps on the gigaherz spectrum, and claims of 54mbps on around 20mhz of 900mhz.

I'm not going to speculate too much, but I'd garner that with the 700mhz auction coming up, the FCC isn't likely to go 'easy' on any device that uses TV spectrum, lest they scare away record numbers for that auction.

In any case, this partnership helps one key thing: smart radios that pickup and re-use spectrum not being used. There's too much waste, even the cellular companies are guilty of this, and it's the next generation to detect and re-use.

It's time the radios get smarter, and start talking to one another.... coordination by the radios themselves is the only way to assure the spectrum is used all the time.

Rain/snow/brimstone may affect your reception so why can't that be exploited?

Re:Interference Prevention

[Valdrax]

I don't have satellite nor cable, and I don't see why I should lose them just so some geeks can have better Internet access.

You're using the TV version of free dial-up access if you're relying on terrestrial TV signals for entertainment. If you had access to wireless, high-speed internet, you could watch streaming video instead. I should even have to into the difference in choices of entertainment available between the two. Plus, most UHF stations in the upper numbers are really low-quality programming.

By the way, it's not just geeks that use the internet anymore, just so you know. They're replacing the generation that uses UHF anyway.

Or maybe you have a vested interest in everyone being subject to cable/satellite corporate monopolies...

I dunno. Sounds to me like maybe you have a vested interest in everyone being subject to cable/phone corporate monopolies. <g>

Opening up wireless spectrum to high-speed, two-way internet access might provide us with at least as much competition as there is in the cell phone market right now. At least, we'd no longer be dependent on whichever two companies run two types of wire to our houses.

There were even proposals on the table from a group that wanted to do free, ad-supported access, so if their long-shot proposal wins you'd get much of the same experience of free TV you have now if price is your concern. Even Google is making rumbles of ad-supported devices.

Still it's a shame their device wasn't properly engineered.

White Space

[Darth Cider]

Check out how much TV spectrum goes unused across the U.S. [freepress.net], and not just in rural areas. Unbelievable waste. Does this look like a free-market allocation of resources? Does the FCC realize it is making earnest citizens literally sick with disappointment? How many people would welcome a movement to just seize the airwaves, creating wireless ISPs that don't ask for permission to broadcast? Bring on the interference?

Re:Interference Prevention

[ubermiester]

I think this is the first time I've seen someone on slashdot advocating the elimination of the FREE option and requiring people to pay money for something.

The deluge of advertising we are subjected to on a daily basis costs us much more than anyone can calculate. Think of how much time and energy we all spend cleansing our minds of all the subtle tweaks to our world view made by the advertising we encounter. Will I really have women following me if I use that body spray? Do I really need that 4x4 to commute to my job in the city? Is that politician really who she says she is? And these are just the most egregious examples of what we face in the struggle against advertising. Most people don't even know they are being manipulated.

The media culture is now the biggest challenge to democracy since it's inception. We are both better informed and more easily brainwashed.

Now this is not to say that pay tv is any better for such things. Cable stations advertise just as much as over-the-air stations (with the obvious exception of premium channels), but saying that over-the-air tv is "free" is like saying that gasoline used to cheap. We are now all paying a steep price for that delusion (and I don't mean at the pump). How long before we realize that advertising will do us in faster than global warming and jihad combined?

The Real Problem with Whitespace Devices

[TheSync]

The real problem with "whitespace" devices is intermodulation interference. Just because there isn't a signal in a "whitespace" doesn't mean that if you transmit there that your signal won't mix with other signals in receivers to create intermodulation noise.

Unlicensed signals on first adjacent channels next to DTV signals may generate third-order intermodulation product noise in DTV receivers.

There is nothing wrong with trying to set up "intelligent radio" unlicensed systems in their own band, but putting them adjacent to DTV channels is not a good idea.

More info:
http://www.tvtechnology.com/pages/s.0072/t.1598.ht ml [tvtechnology.com]
http://www.tvtechnology.com/pages/s.0072/t.2005.ht ml [tvtechnology.com]

Re:Interference Prevention

[Puff of Logic]

Here's an idea for the cable broadcasters ... drop the rates or give me the option to select only the channels (a per-channel fee, if you will) I want to watch instead of lumping me into a "plan" that gives me a massive subset of them.

I've been campaigning for this for years. Ideally, I'd like to see a true a la carte system that let me pick as many or as few channels as I liked, but I'd accept a 5, 10 or 15 channel plan too. Some have argued that indie or less well-known channels would suffer, but I don't see it as my responsibility to subsidise them. Alternatively, I'd even go for a "geek" channel package (that would obviously need a more marketable name) that contained the usual suspects beloved by the tech/history/science/history watchers. Until this happens, however, I refuse to pay a hefty cable bill for a channel line-up that consists of 90% channels that I have no interest in and are stuffed with commercials.

In a perfect world, there'd be pure digital distribution of television series and movies. All content would be streamed on-demand in a high-quality format, with a basic fee covering access to the network and perhaps a low-cost fee per hour of watching (like $.25 per hour) with no interstitial commercial "messages". I'd be very happy with that.

Re:Interference Prevention

[porcupine8]

Me. I don't have $50/month lying around to pay for 8 channels I'd watch and 100+ I wouldn't. I'll get cable as soon as they offer an a la carte version for under $25/month. Until then, Netflix meets my non-broadcast needs. Sure, I can get "basic cable" for $25, but it includes nothing that's not broadcast, news, or shopping - so I'd be paying for about twenty channels I wouldn't watch, and a dozen I can get with my antenna. Woo!!

Kill TV - Wireless Everywhere - TV on Wireless

[eyebits]

In the long run it would be better to kill TV altogether, use the spectrum to provide wireless Internet everywhere and then provide "TV" over the wireless Internet connections.

Re:Of course it'll cause interference!

[Bluesman]

"Scrap the FCC. Use frequency hopping spread-spectrum devices to avoid interference."

You do realize that this would have a snowball's chance in hell of actually working, right?

If there are no restrictions on who can transmit what, whoever transmits the strongest signal wins. It's not going to be you.

Re:Interference Prevention

[Courageous]

The a la carte system will eventually happen, just not yet. Once all the broadband connections going into enough homes are sufficient to handle the bandwidth (and likewise the core infrastructure along with it), what you'll see is middlemen (like cable companies) getting eliminated. End users will buy their products directly from the manufacturer, so to speak. I'm just waiting for the day where I can buy CNN, the History Channel, SCI-FI, and, um, the Hustler Channel or something. And that's all. Won't be long now. Any delays will be associated with the broadband itself. That's all that's in the way.

C//