White Space Plan Would Reuse TV Spectrum 150
An anonymous reader writes "A collection of companies including Microsoft, Google and Motorola are teaming up for a new white space wireless network plan. The White Spaces Database Group, as it will be known, plans on formulating a plan to create, govern and maintain a wireless broadband network on abandoned analog television spectrum. When the spectrum is finally vacated in June, the group hopes that system in place which will allow for the creation of an open wireless broadband network which will be accessible by any device. The FCC officially approved keeping the spectrum open back in November, despite staunch opposition from telco firms."
Whitespace?? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Return Path? (Score:5, Informative)
Health concerns have scientifically been oput to rest. There isn't really anything you can do about peple who just make shit up and ignore facts.
Re:Well then (Score:3, Informative)
Are you qualified? being open doesn't mean any yahoo can run the thing.
Re:Automatically say no. (Score:2, Informative)
Any time Microsoft and Google decide to partner on something, you know the rest of us are just going to get screwed.
Right now, with many of us having only one choice for the local loop (or is it only called the last mile these days? I'm showing my age), we're already screwed. This initiative is the very competition you seek.
Summary doesn't make sense (Score:3, Informative)
Are they talking white space or are they talking 700 MHz?
White space means unused TV channels, which means 470-700 MHz after the transition.
What it sounds like, however, is that they're referring to the rules that will govern the new 700 MHz allocations that were auctioned last year.
There is no "abandoned" analog bandwidth. The top 100 MHz of the UHF TV band were reallocated to other services and the TV broadcasters were "packed in" closer together thanks to ATSC's less stringent adjacent channel spacing requirements.
Re:How the telcos will respond (Score:5, Informative)
I'm not happy about it.
I live in Lancaster PA. The TV Band (whitespace) Devices will broadcast over top of, and block my Baltimore/Philly stations. No more 2,3,6,10,11,12,13,17,35,45,57,61,65 - no more Orioles, Raven, Phillies, or Eagles games. Less variety & loss of free television is not something I'm looking forward to.
Re:How the telcos will respond (Score:5, Informative)
>>> Hey you, wake up! Your (analog) stations are going away in June, whether this wireless broadband network gets off the ground or not.
Hey you, wake up!
The digital stations will still be there you dope. On channels 2 to 51. Duh.
Re:This is social justice (Score:2, Informative)
Actually there's one very major downside: A rural viewer might be watching channel 10 to catch-up on the news, and suddenly the kid next door turns-on his TV Ban/whitespace Device and starts broadcasting over the same channel 10.
Except that the T signal is broadcast on a different part of the radio spectrum, not the one the whitespace device will be on. In addition, the whitespace devices use only UNUSED spectrum, following methods already shown to be effective. Enough astroturfing already.
Re:How the telcos will respond (Score:3, Informative)
The TV Band (whitespace) Devices will broadcast over top of, and block my Baltimore/Philly stations.
Prove it. Oh, wait... you can't, as there currenlty are no licensed whitespace devices out in the market.
The FCC is requiring that whitespace devices not interfere with DTV and wireless mic signals. I bet that you would get a rapid and effective response from the FCC if you *really* did have a whitespace device that was fucking up your TV signal.
Re:How the telcos will respond (Score:4, Informative)
Non-relevant. The TV Band (whitespace) Devices will broadcast over top of my Baltimore/Philly stations, since they are considered "out of market" for my town.
Re:How the telcos will respond (Score:4, Informative)
>>>The FCC is requiring that whitespace devices not interfere with DTV
You mean *in-market* DTV. Out-of-market DTV is not protected, which is why I will lose the Baltimore-Philadelphia stations.
Sorry to break this to you... (Score:5, Informative)
...but if your wireless mics really are in the TV bands, and really aren't Part 15 devices, then they're Part 74, Subpart H devices [gpoaccess.gov], which do require a license. There are no other options. You're one of many who've been sold a bill of goods by unscrupulous manufacturers of these microphones which, by law, can only be licensed to television stations, broadcast networks, cable television systems, motion picture producers, television program producers, and Multipoint Multichannel Distribution System (MMDS) licensees (Title 47 USC, 74.832 [gpoaccess.gov]). See this [rdrop.com] for a pretty good, if slightly dated, FAQ on what's required to license a wireless microphone in the US.
These microphones typically will be offered no protection against interference from whitespace protocols like the IEEE 802.22 standard [wikipedia.org]. Note that the IEEE 802.22 group [ieee802.org] is also in the final stages of standardizing a beacon protocol, IEEE 802.22.1 [pdf] [ieee.org]. This beacon is to be present whenever the (licensed) wireless microphone is in operation, and produces a signal easier to detect (at a greater range) than the microphone itself, so that cognitive white space secondary users can more reliably determine that that television channel is occupied and move elsewhere. This system avoids interference to the wireless microphone by the secondary user.
Only you need to wake up... (Score:5, Informative)
First off, ATSC channels are the same 6MHz as NTSC channels.
Secondly, if you take a peek at a spectrum analyzer, you'll see a big, fat, non-peaky pedestal of signal for digital TV. It's about as immune to low-level interference as I am to ebola.
Thirdly, radio astromony is given a "big" empty space (channel 37).
Fourthly, the day that we call 100mW "low-level interference" is the day that we all, women included, have seven testicles.
Fifthly, these devices are so overpowered that they knock out cable [washingtonpost.com] TV.
Sixthly, there are ways (other frequencies, spread spectrum, burst transmission) to control high-bandwidth wireless devices wirelessly.
Seventhly, I had to go up to "sixthly." If you're really in the broadcast and communication "world" (do you mean industry?), you should consider boning up or getting out.