It appears that Dell, EarthLink, Google, HP, Intel, Microsoft, and Philips Electronics have formed a gang. It’s called the Whitespace Coalition, and they aren’t the least bit racially oriented. It seems they are fighting for your right to get broadband in the leftover bandwidth when digital television is mandated in 2009.
Philips seems to be the hardware end of it, with ‘tuners’ already working that show proof of design. The others are there as content providers only.
Apparently in these ‘whitespaces’ leftover when the band from 54 to 698 Mhz goes digital, there will be the ability to shoot stuff through the ether at speeds of up to 80 Mbps! As you might imagine, this has the cable companies, and telcos (Can you hear this, Verizon?) a bit rattled. They were each unhappy that the other was going to be able to compete, and now a possible third entity will be competing.
The reason that this space is being hotly contested is that the ability of signals to penetrate walls, and buildings is high, and so less powerful transmitters would be needed, also external antennas might not be necessary in many instances. The television networks are claiming that interference will occur and degrade quality of television (there’s an oxymoron).
The debate goes on for a while longer, and will be decided at some point in October of this year, although the actual ability to use the space will not come for almost another two years. If this sounds like something you’d like to see, I’d suggest calling, writing, or e-mailing your state and national representatives as it has been proven more than once that the FCC, under the Bush administration, is only looking for the dollars brought in and not what the nation wants.
[tags]Philips, Verizon FIOS, Whitespace Coalition, Digital television, FCC, 2009[/tags]