FCC White Space Rules Favor Tech Industry 135
holy_calamity writes "The FCC has come to a decision on the rules governing devices that make use of the unlicensed wireless spectrum between TV stations, with commissioner Genachowski trumpeting a new era of 'super Wi-Fi.' Most crucially, the FCC dropped the requirement that devices sense TV and wireless microphone signals. Instead, they can geolocate and use an online database to learn which white spaces are available in their area. That makes tech firms happy because it provides a software-centric alternative to developing complex new sensing hardware."
unfortunetly its not all that good (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.martinsuter.net/blog/2009/02/white-spaces-wifi-on-drugs.html [martinsuter.net]
Re:Hell must be freezing over... (Score:3, Informative)
No one sensible favors complete non-regulation as the left claims the right wants and no one sensible favors regulation for regulation's own sake as the tea party/right claim the left wants.
Basic regulation is a requirement of our society in order for there to be a free market in the first place and for laws to be enforced. Basic regulation and oversight provide the structure for the market to exist in.
I happen to be left leaning and do think that the Tea Party in general, especially the higher echelons of the Tea Party, are far too generalized and radical in their positions against regulation. Yes reducing regulations in general for a simpler law-code, just like refactoring a program for leaner code, in general is a good thing but you have to look at WHY those regulations are there in the first place, not just who put them there, and what the effect will be if they are simply repealed.
Like program code the various codes of law do often grow outdated and experience things like mission creep and over time can do more harm than good, BUT that doesn't mean that regulations and laws (after all all laws are regulations in one form or another) in GENERAL are bad.
I believe that more things need to be regulated, but they need to be regulated well, and those regulations need to be enforced.
One thing I hear from the right and especially the Tea Party is the sentiment that all government workers, all government, is incompetent and corrupt merely by virtue of working in government. I come from a family with quite a few government employees, mostly scientists and professors, and I take offence to such a notion.
Re:Geo-locate??? (Score:3, Informative)
No, it's actually very good news.
With the use of sensors, you have the "ABC problem". You have three collinear stations, A, B, and C. Station A is a licensed FCC broadcasting station. Station B is a receiver for that station. Station C is a frequency-hopping device that looks for an empty channel. Because station C is too far away, it cannot "hear" station A, but it is still close enough to station B to cause interference. Now granted, this is less likely when you're talking about multiple orders of magnitude difference in transmission power, but it is still possible, particularly when the transmitter might be inside a concrete structure with semi-directional leaks. This is a technologically unsolvable problem as long as you are depending on station C being able to somehow sense station A.
With geolocation, since all broadcast TV and radio stations are required by law to register with the FCC, including tower location, HAAT, a detailed map of estimated signal strengths based on topographical features, etc., you can come up with a much better idea of what frequencies are safe.