Science Addiction

A dormant blog by Devanshu Mehta

Tag: spectrum

White Spaces Update

Media and internet legal scholar Susan Crawford has an update on white spaces on her blog:

Today, with Congress in recess, leaving less room for last-minute-Lucy-with-the-football lobbying gambits, the FCC appears to be poised to release a report saying the white spaces can be used without necessarily causing interference to existing broadcasts.

Lucy pulls back the football

If you’re unfamiliar with the issue, she has a brief introduction to white spaces in the article. A few weeks ago, we also had a video from the People’s Production House that described the issue in non-technical terms. In short- there are a lot of frequencies that will become available when the digital television transition occurs next year and there is a lot of interest from certain entities with deep pockets in keeping them locked away. This report from the FCC is potentially a step in the right direction.

What are the “White Spaces”?

There is a lot of talk recently how the FCC should free the “white spaces”. Google’s Larry Page recently alleged that TV broadcasters and wireless companies have injected politics in to the FCC testing process. But what are the white spaces? The People’s Production House put together a video for the non-techies:

[via the Google Public Policy Blog]