guest

Tue, 24 Jul 2007 12:02:06 -0800

700MHz is a slice of the electromagnetic spectrum. TV, Radio and WiFi (to name a few) all operate at specific frequencies and power levels mandated by the FCC. It's hard to put a price on owning a piece of the airwaves, but given that they belong to us (you, me, the public in general) I hope they fetch a decent price and the public realizes the benefit of the sale. A couple links w/ more background info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_spectrum http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070719-charting-the-480-billion-us-spectrum-giveaway.html On a related note back in '96 big media decided they wanted a vast swath of the spectrum and didn't want to pay for it. They pushed through legislation and gave virtually no airtime to the giveaway. Consequently there are very few aware it even took place: http://www.fair.org/articles/info-bandits.html

bdferris

Tue, 24 Jul 2007 11:39:17 -0800

With the forced migration of everyone to digital TV by the FCC in ~ 2009, all the old-school analog TV spectrum is now up for grabs. That'd be the 700 Mhz. The nice thing about 700 Mhz is that it's relatively low frequency (compare to 2.4 Ghz of Wifi) so it penetrates walls and structures with relative ease. This was good for your rabbit-ear TV reception back in the day and potentially good for future wireless devices ("can you hear me now?") In a bold move, the FCC is selling off the 700 Mhz spectrum in a grand auction (literally, they are selling thin air) to the highest bidder. We're talking billions of dollars here, so you can imagine why various interested parties are getting their panties in a bunch. Cellular networks want the spectrum so they can expand their network coverage. But for some of us, that means even more cell phone shenanigans... two year contracts and devices that only work if you're carrier blesses them and you pay through the nose. It's much like the old days of AT&T and the plain old telephone, where you were only allowed approved AT&T equipment on the network, and innovation and competition suffered as result. While our friends in Japan and Europe taunt us with the latest shiny phone gadgets and flit from network to network as competitive pricing warrants, here in America we rot in cell phone hell. Google has proposed a few rules that would require whoever buys the new 700 Mhz spectrum to allow ANY device use the network. Since Google is all about selling Internet services and cellular networks are all about selling you the network, it's not hard to see why Google has a vested interested in making the network as cheap and free as possible. However, in this case, what's good for Google is good for us (my humble opinion). See http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/21/technology/21google.html for more info.

Seattlest: Steve Largent, the Ultimate Underdog, Facing His Toughest Test Yet

guest

bdferris