Scientists urge governments to turn old TV frequencies into free “super WiFi”

[grahamhgreen]

Governments should sack plans to auction off old television frequencies to the highest bidder and instead use the bandwidth for free super-frequency WiFi if they want to boost the economy, scientists have said.

Old television frequencies are becoming available for other uses around the world, thanks to a switch from analogue to digital transmission. However, while governments are for the most part auctioning these off to whoever is prepared to pay the most – usually mobile phone networks – they should instead be using the frequencies to create free-to-use, wide-range WiFi, scientists from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) in Germany have said.
...............

WiFi transmitted over old TV frequencies could be transmitted at lower frequencies than traditional WiFi, resulting in a far wider area covered. This super WiFi’s coverage area could even be as big as several kilometres in radius, a massive improvement on existing networks.

This would mean that pricey mobile services such as 4G were no longer required, which the scientists believe would lead to more mobile internet use, and a wealth of economic benefits.

http://www.factor-tech.com/connected-world/9769-scientists-urge-governments-to-turn-old-tv-frequencies-into-free-super-wifi/

[Politicalboi]

1. GOP response

"Were not scientist, and corporations are people my friends"

[lordsummerisle]

2. As good an idea as this seems

if it's not immediately profitable it will never be implemented...

[gollygee]

3. +1

[peabody]

5. The internet was

originally not profitable but look how that took off. Sometimes you have to first invest and develop before people can see the benefits.

[eggplant]

7. You could have said the same thing about touch-tone dialing, color tv, flat panel displays, HDTV, ..

[grahamhgreen]

8. The whole point is for it not to be profitable.. meaning, WE profit!

[FiveGoodMen]

17. Even the Democrats we vote for can't get behind that!

EVERYONE has bought into the new feudalism.

[Exultant Democracy]

15. It's not how much money it will make that matters, it is how much money rich people will lose.

[Eleanors38]

4. That may go the way of "free wi-fi," courtesy of whatever

city/county promised such. Years ago. Still waiting. But I hear some corporate interests hussled their nuts, belched, and shook their... heads.

[jeff47]

6. Not gonna work. Speed.

Roughly speaking, the lower the frequency, the slower the data transmission rate. These lower frequencies would cover a larger area, but have slow data service.

Theoretically, you could take a few pages from WiFi and use channel bonding to try and get some more speed out of it, but it would take a lot of channels to get it to reach most people's definition of "fast".

[groundloop]

10. I think it would probably work ok..... it's mostly UHF

I just did a search to see which frequencies are available and mostly it's from about 700 to 800 MHz. We should be able to use that satisfactorily.

edit to add: HOWEVER - If corporations can make a profit with these frequencies I just don't see this happening, no matter how good of an idea it is.

[PumpkinAle]

13. Better than non-existent

which applies to wide areas in the USA and vast areas in the world.

[jeff47]

14. Those same wide areas weren't served by TV.

There's no reason to believe they'd be served by WiFi using TV spectrum.

[PumpkinAle]

18. So don't try?

We should give it a go.

[jeff47]

19. Don't try because nobody's going to pay.

The areas not served by existing options are very spread out, and have few people in them. As a result, it would cost multiple hundreds per month for service, because you're spreading the cost out over a small number of people.

You can't even re-use any of the old transmitter infrastructure, because they were not built to serve these areas.

[Overseas]

9. K&R. Yes please!

[certainot]

11. another good reason to vote against these damned republicans

cause it won't happen with them running things

thanks again all you non-voters!

[niyad]

12. very interesting idea

[Enthusiast]

16. I no longer expect the government to do anything on behalf of "The People".

Unless that anything is an unnecessary war or corporate subsidy.