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Google Looks to "White Space" Spectrum

Posted by Zonk on Tue Mar 25, 2008 11:09 AM
from the making-the-most-of-what-you-have dept.
Communications Wireless Networking The Internet Hardware Technology
Nerdposeur writes "After maneuvering the major carriers into agreeing to open access rules via the recent spectrum auction, Google appears to be looking into a new area of spectrum that could provide internet connectivity. 'In comments filed with the Federal Communications Commission, the Internet leader outlined plans for low-power devices that use local wireless airwaves to access the 'white space' between television channels. A Google executive called the plan 'Wi-Fi 2.0 or Wi-Fi on steroids.' Interestingly, Google has Microsoft, Intel, and others on their side in this one. Was this spectrum their target all along?"
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Submission: Google Looks to "White Space" Spectrum by Nerdposeur (910128)
[+] Technology: Why We Need Unlicensed White-Space Broadband Spectrum 179 comments
pgoldtho writes "PC Mag has a story about why the 'white-space' spectrum that will be freed when TV broadcasts switch to digital should be available for unlicensed use. This would allow it to be used to deliver broadband connectivity in rural areas and create a 'third pipe' alternative to the cable/telco duopoly. The FCC is scheduled to vote on this November 4th. The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) has filed an emergency appeal to block this vote. If the NAB succeeds, the issue will be kicked into next year. Which would mean a new FCC, Congress, and Administration."
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  • Microsoft Device (Score:5, Informative)

    by Pointy McButterpants (1183327) on Tuesday March 25 2008, @11:11AM (#22858600) Homepage
    Is this the same technology that Microsoft has tried to demo (twice) with less-than-spectacular results?
    • Microsft with less-than-spectacular results? Say it isn't so.

      Look, no doubt MS screwed it up. But I suspect that Google will be working a few hardware companies who know what they are doing. Issue solved. Of course, getting the fcc to agree is still the real issue, and I am guessing that it will be fought by everybody else.
      • Woah.

        Woah.

        Woah. Stop. Is this so-called "between television channels" technology going to stop me from watching channel 5 in D.C.? (80 miles distant). I don't like the idea of some corporation or person deciding, "Well channel 5 is not used in southeast Pennsylvania, so I'll broadcast there," and wipe out my weak but still watchable television 5.

        • Re:Microsoft Device (Score:5, Informative)

          by Megane (129182) on Tuesday March 25 2008, @01:42PM (#22860918)

          Woah.

          Woah.

          Your "weak but still watchable televsion 5" will disappear in 11 months anyhow, [wikipedia.org] before any of this can get implemented. And since channels 2-5 are generally bad for DTV, they will probably keep their new channel, which is almost certainly UHF.

          And depending on lots of factors, including antenna direction and getting a relatively recent DTV tuner, your "weak but still watchable" signal might get replaced with a crystal-clear signal. (DTV actually has more problems within 10-20 miles of the transmitter than with distant reception.)

          • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

            by soupdevil (587476)
            Digital degrades poorly. I'm about 20 miles from most of the nearest transmitters. The analog signals are fuzzy, but quite watchable. The digital signals are completely useless, frequently going to blue screen. I have tried multiple indoor and outdoor antennas with the same result. When analog signals go away, I'll be watching torrents, I guess.
            • No, analog degradation is gradual but always present and increases with distance. Digital degradation does not even exist until a certain threshold of signal quality is passed, and then drops off steeply.

            • Re:Microsoft Device (Score:4, Informative)

              by Megane (129182) on Tuesday March 25 2008, @06:16PM (#22864154)

              If you're having trouble at 20 miles, then your problem is multipath interference. Basically, reflections of the signal off of various objects in an urban area are delayed copies of the original signal. With an analog tuner, this results in ghosting. With a digital tuner, this results in being unable to decode the digital signal. Older ATSC tuners in particular are very bad about rejecting multipath interference.

              Rotating your antenna will affect your signal quality. (I have to adjust my roof antenna every two or three months because winds knock it out of position and I lose CBS.) Installing an attenuator in the signal path may result in better reception. The worst thing you can do when you are that close to the transmitter is to use an amplified antenna. The amplifier may distort the signal in a way that reduces the signal quality.

              Also, your tuner should have a signal "strength" display. This is usually in fact a signal quality display. Often 75% is the threshold below which there is not enough good data for the error correction to work. If it has an audible signal meter, turn up the TV volume to where you can hear it outside while adjusting the antenna, and set it to the most finicky channel.

  • when I was kid (Score:5, Funny)

    by JeanBaptiste (537955) on Tuesday March 25 2008, @11:16AM (#22858700)
    you could tune the satellite to be almost on a station, right on the 'edge' of the station, and get around the blocking method they used for PPV... you would get a blurry picture but good sound. Great way to watch porn when you're a 12 year old.

    Don't take that away google. Think of the children.

  • White Space? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Cesium12 (1065628) on Tuesday March 25 2008, @11:24AM (#22858824)
    Hm, all that Python must be having an effect on them.

  • If it is, then that's real strategic thinking (Score:5, Interesting)

    by MikeRT (947531) on Tuesday March 25 2008, @11:27AM (#22858876) Homepage
    Get your biggest competitor for bandwidth to spend all of their money on the spectrum you don't want by executing a feint in that direction, and then taking over the spectrum you really wanted.

    It's almost like someone who reads those business books that are based on military strategy actually figured out how to apply the military concepts to competition...

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Hadlock (143607)
      I was under the impression that the recent auction was for this exact spectrum that was being freed up. If this spectrum isn't forecast to be used with anything new, why are we turning off analog transmission again?

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Hadlock (143607)
          Ah-ha. Surely there is a graphical representation to explain this. Google image search to the rescue!

          So are the digital channels being moved from the gaps between the current analog stations to other frequencies? Or are these "micro frequencies" inbetween everything, and if so, why weren't they included in the original auction? The way the article paints it, it sounds like there's Very Large Swaths to be siezed still, and that google is So Clever for noticing these before everyone else. I feel like

    • Get your biggest competitor for bandwidth to spend all of their money on the spectrum you don't want by executing a feint in that direction, and then taking over the spectrum you really wanted.

      It's almost like someone who reads those business books that are based on military strategy actually figured out how to apply the military concepts to competition...

      Or maybe they read one of those "you can do it! Just visualize!" books and then visualized a kick-ass business tactic...

    • Get your biggest competitor for bandwidth to spend all of their money on the spectrum you don't want by executing a feint in that direction, and then taking over the spectrum you really wanted.
      No, I think this is a fallback. Google would have preferred to have outright purchased spectrum for cheap with open access requirements, but since that didn't work out, this is a close second (and it's an old idea, which the FCC has has yet been unwilling to move on).

    • (i'm one of those who read Sun Tzu, but i read it around 1989 or 1990, not in the late 90's with all the Johnny-come-latelies...)

      But, this White Space spectrum thing reminds me of when advertisers tried to take the "microsoft" desktop in the fringe areas of the screen display. Then, microsoft went ape-shit and made the usual threats, rants, and eternal damnation speeches and got the competitors to relent.

      On my old Gateway 2000 CrystalScan display here at work there is STILL a black border around the windoze
      • On my old Gateway 2000 CrystalScan display
         
        I have one of those! Great, compact monitors with good color that lasts forever.
        • Well, it screws up my Feng Shui, this big honkin' monster thing.

          But, i'd rather have a 19" or 20+" flatscreen to get that cyclotron or magnet off my desk. 20" behind and 20" to the left of my partition sits the president, and if i fire up the monitor, it disrupts his LCD. He jokes, "Oh, my pace maker", sometimes. At least i keep it on energy save to shut off after 30 minutes of inactivity.

      • You can't pull off MIMO in the 700 MHz spectrum

        I am not particularly fond of MIMO but what precludes its use at 700 MHz? The 1/4 wave distance is about 4.2 inches so it would be inconvenient for most mobile devices but not for fixed installations.
          • I took "Higher frequencies allow for MIMO communications . . . You can't pull off MIMO in the 700 MHz spectrum . . ." in your original post to mean that there was some technical reason MIMO would not work in the 700 MHz band. I was thinking that something changes enough in the multipath characteristics to preclude MIMO.

            My own experiences with multipath and fading (I used to do a lot of VHF and UHF transmitter hunting with my own equipment) lead me to believe operation down to almost 6 meters would be possi
  • Just like MuniWiFi did. Google, where are your commitments to that??

    Just like WiMAX works so well .

    Just like Earthlink, master of all that's good, wireless, and now nearly bankrupt might think.

    Sure, software-defined radios might be nice. But let's put in real freaking fibre instead of still another plan to screw telcos/cellular carriers. If Google needs more bandwidth for YouTube, let them finally invest in the infrastructure to deliver it, not 'convenient' short-term wireless ploys. Egads.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by abertoll (460221)
      Wireless Internet is desperately necessary. WiMAX and 3G are well on their way. And once you have reliable wireless Internet access, suddenly your costs are going to go down. It's just like what happened with cable and satellite TV. Before satellite, cable companies used to make you wait home all day for their technician to decide to show up or not. Now they've got it down to about an hour.

      And anyway it makes sense: the Internet is a shared resource, and there are a lot more opportunities for competi
      • We disagree. There is no wireless transmission media that can support the bidirectional broadband speeds necessary to fulfill burgeoning bandwidth needs. Such speeds aren't even on the horizon for wireless. In a single fibre, I can get transmission speeds far beyond what the backhaul is possibly able to deliver. If you invested in fiber 25 years ago, you can still use it today. The same cannot be said for wireless.

        Worse, there are no usable models for MAN distribution of wireless that make economic sense

  • It's a simple enough idea (Score:5, Informative)

    by zappepcs (820751) on Tuesday March 25 2008, @11:35AM (#22859008) Journal
    and with digital television on the way, much easier to implement without interference. The UHF channels used on your television (most households in the USA have some cable or Satellite feed so don't use broadcast television really) have a small amount of bandwidth between each. If you combined that bandwidth with multiple radio links or some transmission technique, you could use it for WiFi like services locally in the home. The strength of signal could be such that it wouldn't interfere with neighbors reception ( as most aren't using broadcast television anyway) and it gives out more spectrum for home use.

    Additionally, there are methods to use a small footprint in the WiFi band to herd the small signals between tv channels. It would look like frequency hopping, require much smaller signal strength, and would cause negligible interference to broadcast television. Simpler still is to allow the user to input the television channels they do watch so that interference is even more remote. If you can steal (locally only) use of channels that are not used at all in the area (how many stations are on channel 63 or 42?), there is literally TONS of bandwidth to use, and all of it at a better frequency range for non-line-of-sight transmissions. That is to say; better signal quality at lower signal strengths.

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Uh, that word, "literally", I don't think it means what you think it means. (Unless you are planning on adding up the weights of all the electrons used in the transmission perhaps?)

    • The UHF channels used on your television (most households in the USA have some cable or Satellite feed so don't use broadcast television really) have a small amount of bandwidth between each. If you combined that bandwidth with multiple radio links or some transmission technique, you could use it for WiFi like services locally in the home. The strength of signal could be such that it wouldn't interfere with neighbors reception ( as most aren't using broadcast television anyway) and it gives out more spectru

  • http://code.google.com/p/spacesharp/

    I used to have a native x86 whitespace compiler, but I never could read my code.
  • This fragments the spectrum leaving you with a lot of fragments of two exact sizes perfectly interspersed. Down the road there you would have to take spectrum from both the "channel" and "space" allocations to make any block bigger then a single channel and dropping either spectrum would only give you back a sequence of broken spectrum. If some of this spectrum really should be re-allocated to something else surely it would make a lot more sense to take one or more channels from either or both ends? Wh

  • This just might be a great idea (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Whuffo (1043790) on Tuesday March 25 2008, @12:15PM (#22859700) Journal
    I suspect that it won't be long before "internet" will be a basic service like "electricity" or "telephone".

    The only big problem left to solve before true high speed access would be available to nearly everyone is the method of distribution. Using existing service wiring is problematic. Telephone wires aren't adequate due to bandwidth and signal / noise problems. Running networking over power wiring is not workable; it has all the problems of using the phone wiring but much, much worse. Running networking over the cable TV systems is the most functional - but cable doesn't go to every town and house and not all cable systems are compatible.

    There's been a push to "wire" the country with glass fiber. They've even got it all the way to the house in some areas. As they build out the fiber networks they'll gradually reach more and more customers. But there's a BIG problem here: there's a huge number of houses and apartments to cover. The phone and electric systems grew up with the country, as each new home / subdivision was created these services were connected; essentially, the phone company took 100 years to get wiring to every residence.

    To start out now and try to connect every residence - the magnitude of this problem is staggering. Assuming 100 million residences, if the army of installers could run fiber to and connect 10,000 residences every day - it'd take over 27 years. And that assumes the installers would be working 7 days per week. I'm not even going to try to estimate the cost of doing this.

    If workable and reliable long-range wireless networking is developed / proven - and there's RF bandwidth that it can use - this could connect large number of residences inexpensively and quickly. Just plug your network cable into the "network radio" and you'd be online; no army of installers required. This would make it possible to make high speed access available to almost everyone in much, much less than 27 years.

    I'm glad to see that Google is putting their resources behind making this a reality. It's not going to be easy to make this kind of technology work reliably but there's some very bright people at Google and if anyone can find a solution they can.

  • OK, here's an issue that I never see discussed when White Space devices come up. If I live in a fringe TV reception area and need an aerial 10m above the ground to get an adequate signal, a White Space transmitter at ground level next door isn't going to be able to see the TV signal. But when it assumes the spectrum is free and starts transmitting, boy is it going to knock out my TV reception!

    • It is a lot easier (especially with the new digital ATSC) to detect the presence of a carrier than to get a usable signal from the carrier. The white space devices will be able to detect a carrier at least as faint as -114dBm, which is very fringe indeed. It is also likely that your deep fringe antenna will be sufficiently directional so as to avoid the low-power signal, and that ATSC reception would not be affected by interference from a non-ATSC signal.

      I would also expect that there would be a way to con

  • There is an interesting online video lecture at Videolectures.net that is also talking about Whitespace Devices and discussing the battle between FCC and Broadcasters against the Whitespace Device movement. It is interesting that Microsoft appears to be a good-guy in this area.
    It is the big $$ broadcasting companies and the regulators that are opposing the WSD because they fear any competition.

    Check out the lecture at http://videolectures.net/kiblix07_meinrath_wtrr/ [videolectures.net] (the WSD part starts at around 42:00)

  • Dangerous for PAs (Score:3, Interesting)

    by aitikin (909209) on Tuesday March 25 2008, @02:34PM (#22861608)
    This idea is horribly dangerous for anyone running a PA. That "whitespace" is where wireless mics run. They use UHF/VHF frequencies to communicate between the receiver and the mic itself. I recently toured the Shure Plant in Niles IL and they pointed out that these whitespace devices are causing an extremely large amount of harm to something that's already standardized to run in the whitespace. I don't know, it really kind of worries me that my wireless mic systems won't work anymore, or that, when I go to a concert, the artists will be limited to cable length.
    • Follow your heart == tell them what they want to hear

    • Maybe it's just me, but Google seems to be this huge juggernaut of mediocrity and rehashed advertising. That's not to say they were always that way. They were all about great search engines, mapping software, and other web stuff. But now they are all about advertising channels.

      I guess I would have put it less bluntly, but no, it's not just you. It's now 11 years since Google was established and in that time they have done the usual corporate consolidation and synergy technologies thing. Their core busine

      • Re:GOOG is OOLD news (Score:4, Interesting)

        by rucs_hack (784150) on Tuesday March 25 2008, @12:28PM (#22859890)
        In fact, as people have become more skilled at gaming Google, and Google is the only show of note in town, search has actually got worse.

        Oh I don't know about that. They went through a stage search returns being buried in junk pages. That's gone now, or substantially so. Certainly I no longer have the problems I used to.

        You're sort of making the assumption that the internet is static, so google aren't moving.

        What's really happening is the internet is a constantly seething morass of junk, exploits, and bot created pages who's sole intent is to gain control of your machine. In the face of that I'm surprised google still manage to sift through the shart and produce useful results.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by tonyreadsnews (1134939)
        This article http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2007/04/what-has-google-done-in-search-lately.html [blogspot.com] disagrees with you. It may be from last year, but I've seen other search related features show up on that blog.

        In fact, that blog is on my list and it seems like they are always coming up with extras to add into their search. Little extra things you can click on when the search results in a stock symbol or dated item.

        Also, have you taken a look at Google labs experimental search?

        I'm not saying some comp
      • Going along with what the previous poster said about junk pages (I rarely have those problems anymore), I have to say something: Google's search results have declined in recent years.
        • When I search for something, I expect my search terms to be honored. If I search for a few words, I expect all of those words (or reasonable variants of them) to appear in each item returned in the search results. I realize sites update their material frequently, but I'm talking about the summaries in the results page. So

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by ajs (35943)

      Maybe it's just me, but Google seems to be this huge juggernaut of mediocrity and rehashed advertising.

      And a provider of search.

      And a provider of email services.

      And a provider of chat services.

      And a provider of shared calendaring services.

      And a provider of domain-wide hosting of the above.

      And a provider of web-based mapping tools.

      And a supporter of numerous Open Source software projects.

      And one of the movers and shakers in the press for green technology.

      And the only search giant to refuse a federal request for all search records.

      And ... is any of this sinking in?

      When people say, "Google just does advertisin

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by nicklott (533496)

        When people say, "Google just does advertising," what they're really saying is, "what has Google done for me this week that I didn't know about last week."

        No, what they're saying is that the only way Google makes hard cash is by selling advertising space. Nothing on your list makes them any money.

        Of course making money isn't the most important thing in life. Unless you're a publicly listed company with shareholders to please. Which they are.

        Now they're public it's inevitable that Sergei and Larry's little projects are going to become vehicles to sell more ad space. The fact that they make life slightly more interesting to the rest of us is irrelevant to (mo

      • Which is 100% better than untargeted advertising. Some of it I don't even mind. If google gets to the point where it is offering suggestions as well as people I know, they'll strike gold.

        I'm looking to buy a new computer, right now there are 4 forms of marketing that can 'get' to me.
        Radio: COME TO LOW BOBS CAR EMPORIUM. Not looking for cars.
        TV: Tampax, for those times you need to be dry. Not looking (or ever looking) for Tampax
        Internet: PUNCH THE MONKEY WIN A FREE CREDIT REPORT. I don't care about my credit
        • There's a downside for some of us as well when it comes to targeted advertising. I don't know how many times I get hit with advertising for things that I've just gone and ranted about them. Some stupid bot parsed out a couple keywords then slammed me with a bunch of ads for the same stuff that I just ranted on about.

          I like untargeted advertising. There's a much greater chance that at random, I'd click a link for something interesting (well, I don't, but other folks apparently do) than I would for somethi

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by qbzzt (11136)
      You're talking about teletext [wikipedia.org]. It used extra space in the TV channel for text broadcast. With today's technology, the same bandwidth can be used for decent bandwidth communication instead. The two are not really related except for using the same frequencies.

      • Re:Already been done? (Score:4, Informative)

        by TheRaven64 (641858) on Tuesday March 25 2008, @12:44PM (#22860136) Homepage Journal
        Teletext doesn't use space between channels, it uses space between frames. Analogue TV is a modulated version of the signal that is sent directly into the CRT. For each line, there is a series of peaks and troughs setting the intensity along the scan line[1]. TV resolutions are defined in terms of a number of lines and an aspect ration, rather than a number of columns, for exactly this reason, since signal along a line is analogue (you can squeeze in more, smaller, pixels if you have a good enough signal to noise ratio). At the end of each line, the electron gun is turned off and moved to the start of the next one (you could scan alternate lines right-to-left, but I don't think anyone does. I could be wrong though). At the end of each frame (technically, each field, since TV is interlaced), the gun is turned off again and repositioned pointing at the top-left of the next field.

        Each of these repositioning takes time and the signal transmitted in this period is ignored by the TV (since the gun is turned off). Teletext works by encoding digital data in the signal during this period. You can only transmit a small amount of data in this period, but you can do it every frame and it will be buffered inside the receiver.

        [1] Colour TV is slightly more complicated.

    • Re:Google is already Old Media (Score:4, Informative)

      by Bryansix (761547) on Tuesday March 25 2008, @12:28PM (#22859898) Homepage
      You do know that Google owns You Tube right?
      • Precisely. You get it, right?

        Another Old media trick. Buy your competitors. Make them look like another entity.

        Well, actually that's pretty much business as war theory. But you will soon be seeing YouTube looking less like Google, I suspect, when in fact it *is* more like Google.

        It's not just consolidation. Deeper than that.

        • It is only a matter of time before something like MySpace or YouTube can directly monetize their offering, and Google shares drop another increment.

          ...

          Another Old media trick. Buy your competitors. Make them look like another entity.

          But, they don't, as far as ownership and stock shares go. Both are under google now.

          So, when youtube can directly monetize their offering, how will google shares drop instead of rise?

          When google makes more money, stock goes up. So when google (youtube) makes more money, stocks should still go up.

          Am I right? I fear im missing something obvious here...

    • Re:White Noise? (Score:4, Informative)

      by RenderSeven (938535) on Tuesday March 25 2008, @12:42PM (#22860098)
      Well, yessss, but guard bands (in lower case) are necessary for TV stations and such not to bleed into each other. That doesnt mean an entirely different modulation scheme wouldnt be able to utilize the bandwidth without interfering with the broadcasts. The newer software radios can operate below the noise threshold, and I can't see how more traditional broadcast methods would be interfered with. Older analog broadcasts are hugely wasteful of the RF spectrum.

      Perhaps Google engineers are just smarter than you are :-)

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