TV Airwaves To Deliver Internet?

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.

Article is a little light on details.

And there's not much to be found, but tv technology website has a little more info in this article [tvtechnology.com].

The article was a little light on details...

But choking on the unwieldy sentence in that write-up made up for it.

well

Id like to see more independent TV stations. Of course once there is enough bandwidth everyone can have their own TV station...

Re:well

You know, when I said I wanted lonelygirl15 in my living room, I didn't mean it that way.

Wow! The internet over TV

That might alleviate the forecast bandwidth shortage that is due to occur when TV over the internet is rolled out in force!

don't worry

It's just an infinite loop. It's not like they'll emulate the full experience of the internet by introducing blue screens to the telev--oh wait...

Is this like satellite internet?

Satellite bandwidth with only the lag of the distance to a local TV transmitter. Now that would be interesting. Even more so if they could get a two-way connection going over the air...

Re:

The impression I got was that it was a two-way link like WiMAX but using a different frequency. In fact what isn't clear to me is how it is different from WiMAX.

As hard a problem as in 1988

Rewind back to 1988 - I'm at a community radio station (mostly washed the dishes and played with whatever gear was lying around) and a bright electrical engineering graduate student there worked out how to easily and on a low budget get a fair bit of bandwidth out via the FM signal without disrupting the radio broadcast. The problem then as now is how do you know what data to send? You can't easily get the request packets if your bandwidth the other way is low even if dial-up has improved a lot. That is the main reason you didn't see this in 1988 or proir, and the main reason why people like the engineer mentioned above moved on to two way microwave links.

Even earlier

I recall a demo circa 1985 or 1986 at a Usenix of a scheme to send a continuous Usenet feed in the blanking interval of a TV signal. It certainly worked in pilot projects but I guess the broadcasters couldn't figure a way to make it worthwhile (ie profit

No way...

If over the air comes in like regular TV in my area, the internet will be fast and sexy with a Spanish accent.

First Mile vs. Last Mile

Here I was about to lambast the submitter for using "First Mile" instead of "Last Mile", only to discover after Googling that "First Mile" was coined [firstmilesolutions.com] in 1997:

The term "First Mile" was coined by Titus Moetsabi, a poet/ developmental communications specialist, at a Southern African Rural Connectivity Workshop in Harare in February, 1997. He was the first to turn the "last mile" concept on its head and help us think instead of rural communities from the user perspective -- the first mile, not the last. This term expresses a more equitable and far less top-down approach to the challenge of providing universal connectivity, regardless of location and income.

The UN [fao.org] has a more detailed account of the coining of the phrase.

Southern vs Northern Hemisphere

That,s the problem with you northern hemisphere folk... you're always looking at things from the wrong side.

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

The article is *extremely* light on details, but if they're talking about one way signals like current radio then you'd only be able to cache the internet on a set top box, for instance... say if it rebroadcast a set of sites every 24 hours in a continuous loop. Otherwise it would have to act similar to wifi... but those would be some high power transmitters in both directions it seems - to get the distance you would need for this to work as a conventional wifi sort of link.

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?

so

Why would the cable/phone companies be worried about television signals?

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

The path a TCP connection takes doesn't have to be the same going forward or backward. It doesn't even have to be the same path between multiple packets.

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.

Hello?

1999 called. They want their Geocast back... The idea of delivering internet via airwaves is so NOT new. It never got off the ground then, and it won't now. If you want wireless internet, get a $50 router or a $60/month Verizon aircard.

Done.

Not just no, but...

HELL NO!!!!

This opens the door for the FCC to regulate content on the Internet.

Aren't these already reserved?

Woah, waoh, woah, woah.... Woah... I thought this area of bandwidth was supposed to be reserved for emergency services, when the analog TV's are shut off in 2009?

Wait...wasn't there an RFC?

What a great idea. Maybe there should be a standards track RFC for this? Maybe from Microsoft?

Oh right, there was:

RFC 2728: The Transmission of IP Over the Vertical Blanking Interval of a Television Signal [faqs.org]

This RFC proposes several protocols to be used in the transmission of IP datagrams using the Vertical Blanking Interval (VBI) of a television signal. The VBI is a non-viewable portion of the television signal that can be used to provide point-to-multipoint IP data services which will relieve congestion and traffic in the traditional Internet access networks. Wherever possible these protocols make use of existing RFC standards and non-standards.

[...]

Today, IP is quickly becoming the preferred method of distributing one-to-many data on intranets and the Internet. The coming availability of low cost PC hardware for receiving television signals accompanied by broadcast data streams makes a defined standard for the transmission of data over traditional broadcast networks imperative. A lack of standards in this area as well as the expense of hardware has prevented traditional broadcast networks from becoming effective deliverers of data to the home and office.

Of course, back in 1999 we all knew what Zork and null modems were. Oh brave new Slashdot.

Not everywhere?

***Several analysts said a TV-spectrum system might make the most sense in rural areas, where high-speed Internet access via phone or cable lines is expensive to deploy. Small companies might build some towers, beam white-space spectrum to farm homes and cabins, and connect it to an Internet provider, they said.***

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.)

Re:What???

If net nutrality is dismantled, Microsoft has some problems. This is more likley a CYA deal.

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.

Re:What???

Yeah right Sherlock. They've been very successful in the game console market and may actually beat out

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.

Re:What???

AFAIK MS's games division was making money on PC games like Age of Empires before the creation of the Xbox. Also, when you have a monopoly, if you launch a product that helps to protect it could be considered a success even if it does not bring in a profit.

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.

Re:Can you say...

Right now each station has 2 channels (one analog and one digital) I believe the idea is to free up spectrum when the analog broadcast is shut off. I am not 100% sure though. It also appears to me that frequency has less to do with channel with DTV.

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.