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."
Hrm. Sounds evil. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Fucking finally (Score:2, Interesting)
Although many may consider over the air television & radio to be bloated, outdated and unnecessary. One should consider that they offer one advantage over IPTV, etc - there are no constraints upon the quality/availability of the service when there is significant demand. When a tornado is eminent, when a 9/11 happens or something along those lines - people will flock to them en masse. When you have gargantuan spikes in traffic, there can be problems. Meanwhile, over the air media works just fine, even when Cable TV, electricity fail, especially right after a tornado.
Hopefully there will be some means for broadcasters to identify any rogue "white space" networks and be able to easily identify them, if they cause problems.
Re:AV Companies (Score:2, Interesting)
Do you have a part 74, subpart H license? If not you don't get to register in the database. You were probably committing a crime prior to 2009 (better check that statue of limitations before admitting these things with a pseudo-anonymous handle) and are still committing a crime if your mics broadcast more than 50mW of power. You are lucky we don't throw you in prison.
The proper thing to do is stop using wasteful analog technology and get on the spread spectrum frequency hopping bandwagon like all the other unlicensed users out there.