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TV Airwaves To Deliver Internet?
Posted by
kdawson
on Mon Mar 12, 2007 11:11 PM
from the net-neutrality-counterstrike dept.
from the net-neutrality-counterstrike dept.
roscoetoon directs our attention to a proposal from an odd assortment of tech companies — Google, Microsoft, H-P, Intel, and others — to reuse TV wavelengths to deliver first-mile connectivity. The Washington Post article is subtitled "Cable, Phone Companies Watch Warily." As well they might. One of the big content companies that the incumbent duopolists propose to soak by dismantling network neutrality, in company with some powerful allies, is striking back at the heart of their business.
Related Stories
[+]
News: FCC Will Test Internet Over TV Airwaves, Again 86 comments
Weather Storm writes "According to MSNBC.com, the FCC will try again to test prototypes on Jan. 24 for transmitting high-speed Internet service over unused television airwaves. The devices were developed by Microsoft and Motorola, among other corporate partners, and will be tested in laboratory and real-world conditions for three months. 'Last year, a high-technology coalition — which included Microsoft, Google Inc., Dell Inc., Hewlett-Packard Co., Intel Corp. among others — submitted prototypes they said could transmit broadband Internet service over unlicensed and unused TV spectrum, known as "white spaces." Television broadcasters and the wireless microphone industry say such devices could interfere with programming. The Initial prototype testing failed last July because the devices did not reliably detect and avoid TV programming signals and could have caused interference. If the tests are successful this time and the devices are approved, the coalition plans to introduce commercial devices for sale after the digital television transition in February 2009.'"
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Can you say... (Score:2)
Re:Can you say... (Score:5, Informative)
For example a line from antennaweb.org (my notes in parens)
* yellow - uhf WPSG-DT 57.1(channel) CW PHILADELPHIA PA 263° 2.7 32 (frequency)
Though I guess the station would need something in the proper frequency slot to tell the TV where to look.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Though I guess the station would need something in the proper frequency slot to tell the TV where to look.
Nope. You can't do the whole terrestrial DTV thing without an "auto scan" sort of deallie. Your tuner scans through the frequencies, checks for signal power, and figures out whether it sees something that looks like ATSC. If it doesn't, it moves on; if it does, it starts demodulating, and listens for a little table that says "MPEG streams 1003 and 1004 are channel 57.1; streams 1009 and 1010 are 57.2" etc. and it stores that information away, then later when you tune to channel 57(.1), it goes ahead and tu
Article is a little light on details. (Score:5, Interesting)
The article was a little light on details... (Score:3, Funny)
well (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:well (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Wow! The internet over TV (Score:5, Funny)
don't worry (Score:3, Funny)
Is this like satellite internet? (Score:3, Interesting)
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As hard a problem as in 1988 (Score:5, Interesting)
Even earlier (Score:3)
Of course the required bandwith for "a continuous Usenet feed" was orders of magnitude lower in those days.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
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No way... (Score:5, Funny)
First Mile vs. Last Mile (Score:5, Interesting)
Southern vs Northern Hemisphere (Score:3, Funny)
Still WTF is a Zimbabwean poet doing coining Geeky Computer terms? Fuck off buster! I don't try making clever terminology about poetry.
Light on details (Score:3, Informative)
I'm not an engineer or anything, just basing the power off the amount/size tower they need to cover an area. One possibility could be to use regular radio towers to broadcast on their end, and small directional dishes to send user requests?
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One of the details the article is light on is the organization of the system. It might not be using high powered transmission at all, but serve a much smaller area similar to cellular. Just because it uses the same frequency as TV doesn't mean they have to build their towers the same way. By virtue of the signal being digital, there is a bit
so (Score:4, Interesting)
Last i checked, TCP was a 2 way communication for every message. Every packet is sent and gets an acknowledgment or some message if not received (like only go 13 out of 15 packets). Also, last i checked, my computer doesn't currently have the equipment to transmit television signal over a mile. So, how are those packets going to be sent back? Cable? Phone line? Unless google finds a way to deliver the internet via a non tcp/ip format or puts a 1.21 gigawatt antenna in every home, the whole error checking feature of tcp/ip is going to keep a bit of fat for the phone/cable companies.
Re:so (Score:5, Insightful)
Since most people don't use nearly as much upload bandwidth as download, a dial-up upload with a very fast over the air download would be sufficient for the vast majority of users.
Many people in the U.S. are still on dial-up. If Google offered them a way to dramatically increase the speed of web page loads for an extra $2 a month, they'd probably take that option over the much more expensive DSL or Cable services.
Pretty smart move.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Many people in the U.S. are still on dial-up. If Google offered them a way to dramatically increase the speed of web page loads for an extra $2 a month, they'd probably take that option over the much more expensive DSL or Cable services.
Your comments and this plan would have made more sense about 5 years ago. DSL is widely available now and it's not that expensive. Now that the telcos have rolled out the DSL infrastructure and bandwidth prices have fallen, the costs of operating a DSL ISP are pretty much the same as dial up. Eager to grab the dial up users, DSL providers have thus dropped the price on low-end DSL considerably. For example, AT&T/SBC offers 768Kbps DSL for $14.99 a month, which was the price point for dial up for a long
Not exactly a new issue (Score:2)
I suspect there's more to the story than a bunch of tech firms saying, "me too!", but the article doesn't cover what that might be.
Hello? (Score:3, Insightful)
Done.
Not just no, but... (Score:4, Insightful)
This opens the door for the FCC to regulate content on the Internet.
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Aren't these already reserved? (Score:3, Informative)
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So did I, until I noticed that the new digital television channels are using the same VHF and UHF frequencies that analog television does now.
I'm guessing that the non-revenue generating character of emergency services radio has a lot to do with this. There's no money with which to buy congresscritters.
Re: (Score:2)
Emergency services don't need several hundred MHz of bandwidth, and couldn't use all of it if they tried.
They'll be given a small chunk of it, but the vast majority of the lower TV frequencies will still be empty.
Article down. Similar link (Score:2)
interwebs (Score:2, Funny)
Wait...wasn't there an RFC? (Score:3, Funny)
Oh right, there was:
RFC 2728: The Transmission of IP Over the Vertical Blanking Interval of a Television Signal [faqs.org]
Of course, back in 1999 we all knew what Zork and null modems were. Oh brave new Slashdot.
Interesting (Score:2)
I used Direcway satellite for a couple of years, and it was good, but pricey and high latency, due to the trip to
Internet Cache? (Score:2)
Not everywhere? (Score:3)
A few years ago when we were looking at ways to bring broadband to a rural school in Vermont, I trecked up to the highest point we could reasonably put an antenna. What I saw was trees -- hundreds of trees. Maybe thousands of trees. It was pretty clearly going to take us several intermediate relays to get to a place where we could connect to existing broadband. And each intermediate was going to need power and access and probably a tower to get above the trees. Scratch that idea.
I think that using TV frequencies for broadband wireless may be a workable idea in the plains and Great Basin. I've managed to raise a cell phone signal in some pretty unlikely places out in the west. But I don't think it is going to work very well in areas East of the Mississippi since most of the potential users are going to be in valleys and surrounded by trees. And no, cell phones didn't work at the school although there was a spot out at the end of the driveway and a couple of hundred yards down the road where one could raise a couple of bars if you held the phone just right.
(Thanks to a peculiarity in the local regulatory structure, we were finally able to get a T1 at reasonable rates.)
Wow! (Score:2)
Now if only they could develop an optimized protocol for this.
Re: (Score:2)
Digital TV (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:What??? (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft has live and everything comming from there. PLus they have service packs and the such. Most people are satisfied with them on providing updates and service packs from the web. But if net nutrality goes out the door, they will be in a situation were they will have to pay for this too or suffer an angry mob of customers wanting to kow why they patch to fix the whole left in windows that jst caused the last virus infection they had to pay someone else to get rid of is taking as long as it would on dial up.
It just makes sence for them to make sure there is a way around it.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
I was reading recently about Microsoft SPOT; essentially, what microsoft has been doing since around 2002 has been rolling out these cool watches that get news & weather from FM subcarrier data transmissions; they have made available a 3rd-party SPOT development kit, which contains "the Ollie SoC, the ".netcpu CPU Module" integrates 4MB of nonvolatile Flash memory, and a number of I/O ports".
What I'm thinking that THEY might be thinking, is to embed these device
Re: (Score:2)
I'm Curious: was that a joke, or do you actually think (from what I posted) that I'm paranoid & delusional? I'm not saying that I'm not or anything, it's just that my sarcasm detection unit and my troll-o-meter seem to be on the fritz.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
All this is, is just another method of data transmission. Satellite (SKY) has been broadcasting data down to customers for years. A digital terrestial broadcast is no different, there isn't really that much difference between packets of video data, and data.
I believe upstream is provided by a phoneline. Interestingly and perh
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MS's core business is undergoing a process of commoditization & attacks from all directions. In case you haven't noticed, they're wildly flailing about in all directions (MSN, xbox, phones, etc) trying to find new markets to expand into.
Unfortunately for them, (but fortunately for consumer choice), everything they've tried that they can't leverage their monopoly in productivity software & operating systems to expand into has been a financial fail
Re:What??? (Score:4, Insightful)
Please reread my comment. I said financial failure. Maybe the xbox360 will beat out the PS3, but MS's games division hasn't made any money yet.
Parent
Re:What??? (Score:4, Insightful)
This is the reason WindowsCE is a success, it places a road block in the way of anyone wanting to assault the desktop by expanding from PDA to Laptop etc.
Nobody is going to write 30 million lines of code over night to compete with Windows, they have to find a niche like Cell phones, PDA's, and game consoles and try to leverage it. Xbox and WindowsCE are about taking the fight to them, if competition means the markets has lower or no profit margins, that could also be a good thing.
Parent
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