Putting the TV Broadcast Spectrum to Better Use? 772
KoshClassic asks: "Recently, on the NPR show All Things Considered, an interview was broadcast with Thomas Hazlett, formerly the chief economist of the FCC. Although short on details, Mr. Hazlett raises the point that, with the high penetration rate of cable / satellite TV into American homes, broadcasting television over the air has (or soon will) become superfulous and that this portion of the radio spectrum could be better utilized for other purposes. What do Slashdot readers think of this idea and, for those who agree, what alternative uses of the broadcast spectrum would you like to see?"
So my handheld TV is dead ? (Score:2, Insightful)
how about using the frequency for handheld TV or is this just killing a gadget that has been useful for fishermen,sportsfans,campers for 30years ?
Re:So my handheld TV is dead ? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:So my handheld TV is dead ? (Score:3, Interesting)
Congessional pages will be falling out of laps all over D.C.
Re:So my handheld TV is dead ? (Score:3, Interesting)
Rabbit Ears (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Rabbit Ears (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Rabbit Ears (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Rabbit Ears (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Rabbit Ears (Score:3)
Where does that money go? Crappy public outreach programs, etc. I'm all for targetted government programs, but this whole recursive reacharound BS is disgusting.
Re:Rabbit Ears (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Rabbit Ears (Score:3, Interesting)
The city of Tacoma, WA has done it. A few years ago they demonstrated that municipalities can enter into the media market by laying the fiber for their own Cable/Internet service, Click! Network, and go head to head with TCI/AT&T/Comcast. Click! was spawned after Tacoma citizens were so fed up with the lack of customer support by the private cable company and the city council got the approval to roll their own. And from what I understand, it has been quite successful. They did not even nee
Re:Rabbit Ears (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Rabbit Ears (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Rabbit Ears (Score:3, Interesting)
Stop using it altogether! (Score:4, Funny)
Obviously... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Obviously... (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe, but if the FCC dude is right about the future of TV program distribution, ClearChannel won't want it. It might be great if some goes to Hams and other bits to commercial radio and unlicensed (low-power) data transmission (upper UHF freqs).
There are a couple of problems with it his idea/prediction, the most important is the shear momentum of the number of TV broadcasters and receivers using this part of the spectrum. Sure, over time the broadcasters could stop transmitting and broadcast only via cable, but that will take some time... and leave rural viewers out in the cold.
Second, with today's technology and demands for data transmission, there are some limitations to this part of the RF spectrum that might make it unattractive. With the longer wavelength (especially VHF as compared to new cell/mobile phones, 802.11x, etc in the GHz range), efficient transmitter/receiver antennae would probably be too large for most modern applications. Granted, in the upper UHF region, it gets better, but modern, high bandwidth data transmit/receive devices aren't using 1GHz and up just because of frequency allocation... there's beau-coup bandwidth to be had up there, without a lot of the terrestrial source interference issues that bug over-the-air TV viewing.
Re:Obviously... (Score:4, Funny)
Too late. WAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYY too late.
--
The answer is obvious. (Score:5, Funny)
Give it back to the public for them to use as they see fit. I think The Goatse.cx Channel would get quite a following, at least it's not Trading Spaces.
Wait a minute (Score:4, Funny)
Who cares?!? (Score:5, Insightful)
What's the point? If anything useful attempts to use this spectrum, the FCC will simply sign it over to the corporations.
- Twilight1
Airwaves are still good for DTV (HD/SD/etc) conten (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Airwaves are still good for DTV (HD/SD/etc) con (Score:5, Informative)
It was decided years ago that digital TV broadcasts (whether HD or not; that hadn't been decided at that point) would occupy the same slices of spectrum we used for analog broadcasts: 6 MHz channels. So a single HD channel occupies the same amount of spectrum as a single analog channel. Which is why HD has to be so highly compressed for broadcast. (HD starts out at over 1.3 Gbps, and gets MPEGged down to 19 Mbps.)
The 6X figure comes in when you start talking about subchannels. Inside a 6 MHz channel, you can broadcast as many subchannels as you want, dividing up the channel's bandwidth among them. A SD broadcast can be squeezed down to about 3 Mbps (1 MHz) and still look acceptable, so you can put 6 SD subchannels inside a single digital broadcast channel.
This is not HDTV, however. In order for a broadcast to be called HDTV, it has to have a vertical resolution of at least 1,000 lines. (That's the ATSC's definition.) Broadcasting SD digitially is not the same as HD.
Not everyone can afford cable.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Not everyone can afford cable.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Not everyone can afford cable.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Access to television programming is clearly not a requirement for any one person. But, at least in a democracy, if access to the broadcast channels is made available to any subset of the populace then access to it for the general populace becomes a necessity for the preservation of democratic principles.
No doubt the amount of good public discourse on the television today is minimal (and largely there only by FCC mandate). And you may never watch TV (I avoid it whenever I can) but there are large portions of our population who choose to receive all of their information about policy and issues through television programming. It's an important medium; one we can't afford to lose.
To cut them off merely adds more influence to the entrenched interests.
Re:Not everyone can afford cable.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Same issue also applies to people (ie, me) who don't want to pay for cable/satellite. Anybody else think that selling off the public TV spectrum would be a sneaky way for the govt. to create a nice big new revenue stream for the big media providers? Maybe i'm just having a glass-is-half-empty day today....
Re:Not everyone can afford cable.... (Score:5, Insightful)
What about the 80-year-old widows on fixed incomes whose meager lives revolve around TV?
Re:Not everyone can afford cable.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Equity (Score:5, Insightful)
The logical answer would be that we pass a point in society where it's so valuable to those among us (who, incidentally might not be me) who want to "move ahead" that they will pay to bring the others up to speed. People are so stingy, though, I don't see this ever happening.
For example, when I was a student in Boston years ago, I was told that the Boston subway system operated at a greater loss by paying state employees to collect tokens (at $0.25 back then) than it would if it were free (with no tolltakers to pay), but that taxpayers liked to see money coming out of the riders' pockets and that's why they continued to charge money. I never did find out if this assertion was so, but it had a ring of truth to it.
Perhaps it's just as well, though.
Personally, I have a little black & white TV that is battery powered and that I can turn on during power outages (e.g., due to hurricanes) to find out the weather. Is someone going to offer me a replacement--and better yet, buy it for me? Not only would a change be inconvenient for me, but I worry that it will make our society fragile against catastrophe.
Although we can make one big all-in-one digital information device, I'm not sure that it's wise to. I like the idea of separated systems so that if one breaks down, another might continue to work so I can find out what's going on...
Re:Not everyone can afford cable.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Not everyone can afford cable.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Ideas like this one and the recent vote on station ownership consolidation clearly shows that the FC
Re:Not everyone can afford cable.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not everyone can afford cable.... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Not everyone can afford cable.... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Not everyone can afford cable.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Commercial based programming is definitely a luxury, just as are 1-900 numbers and talk radio. However, ripping away one of the main sources of news that is available to everyone at any time should be approached with more consideration than saying if you can't afford satellite or cable that you don't deserve it.
Perhaps, as part of ripping away the last broadcast channels (which won't bother me too much), some of the money made by selling that spectrum (and face it, the FCC isn't going to give away the entire spectrum, though I hope some is made public) should be used to provide a free of cost cable infrastructure. Say, locals and/or emergency information only.
For those folks who can't get cable, the FCC should work with the satellite broadcasters to mirror the same program, allowing anyone with a dish to receive the local/emergency channels for free. The satellite providers can still make money on locals by rebroadcasting a high-end HDTV version (while downconverting the signal for the free locals) as DirecTV has already hinted that they are going to do.
Re:Not everyone can afford cable.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Unfortunately.
Well, it may be a pipe-dream... (Score:4, Interesting)
How about... (Score:5, Insightful)
Could be fun to open UHF to the public for amature low power broadcasts for a while, too.
Re:How about... (Score:2)
VOD (Score:2, Interesting)
Bad idea (Score:5, Insightful)
What they might want to do is to reduce the bandwidth dedicate to TV by reducing the number of UHF channels. Outside the larger markets, they could probably eliminate UHF altogether.
Of course, that would limit the potential growth of broadcast TV, further supporting the existing large players by making new competition more difficult.
If they want to eliminate broadcast TV altogether, then they need to work out a deal where cable and sattelite companies give free access to a dozen or so local channels.
IIRC, europe did the opposite (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Bad idea (Score:5, Interesting)
As for the uneducated lazy asses on welfare who watch 500 or so hours of TV a month...they have cable. I suspect that the group that is least likely to have cable is the young professional working 80 hours a week, or students struggling to pay tuition, and who watch only a few hours a month.
Go down to the local trail park...yep...most have a satellite dish pointed to the great teet in the sky.
We don't have to give it all up. (Score:5, Insightful)
We can keep all the channels we've got, reserve some for future growth, and STILL reclaim 30 TV channels worth of bandwidth to use for anything from wireless internet to community radio, or whatever else you can think of.
Wouldn't it be better to do SOMETHING with all that bandwidth (and it *is* a ton) than just let dozens of TV channel-sized chunks of our airwaves sit unused? The guy's point is that we're just not using much of it, and that people who want more channels aren't clamoring for more OTA channels, they're getting cable. So why not use the unused chunk for something else?
Eliminate the TV band, or just rearange it? (Score:2)
I agree with those of you who think eliminating it is a bad idea for now. Uses of broadcast TV are still around (portable devices, local stations, pbs/etc). Broadcast TV could also come in handy in the case of an emergency...
"Basic Cable" (Score:5, Insightful)
Good luck watching TV portably too... No more sports+BBQ in the back yard.
We need TV! (Score:3, Insightful)
-Matt
Free is good, but who's gonna pay for it? (Score:4, Insightful)
If, whenever somebody builds a house (perhaps a long way away from any existing cable), the cable company has to run new cable lines out to them for free, the money to pay for that is going to have to come from SOMEWHERE. The cable companies aren't just going to say "oh, darn. more costs" and do it themselves. They're going to lobby for government subsidies.
And the government isn't just going to print more money to pay for it, they're going to raise taxes or cut programs.
On the other hand, if they can be convinced to cut something that never should have been funded anyway, cutting programs wouldn't be so bad (except that they'd just be cutting one bad program to fund another one). But that's a moot point, because the cuts would come from things that are already underfunded like education.
In short, I think the broadcast spectrum should be left alone.
Re:"Basic Cable" (Score:3, Insightful)
A valid point. However, if a rural area does receive television signals, the government does not force ABC to take that away. I think that's what the original poster was getting at: if current stations are forced to shut down their broadcast, they should still be able to receive the programming that was once available to them.
uhhhmmm (Score:2)
I still use an antenna (Score:5, Insightful)
Just some food for thought.
Another ISM chunk (Score:3, Insightful)
Make the entire band license free (Score:2, Interesting)
Regardless of the penetration of cable... (Score:2)
I ended up watching far more tv shows per week when I had cable, just because I paid for it and felt I had to get my money's worth.
Low Power broadcasting (Score:2)
How expensive would it be to setup a TV station that can be viewed at 5 miles?
What about rural users? (Score:5, Insightful)
I get the feeling that they should leave the spectrum in place for many years to come so that these people will always have access to the major stations. In Australia (I'm not sure if it's the same in the US), they forced the telephone company to service rural areas, because otherwise they simply aren't profitable.
As always, don't forget to remember the little guy.
Sure.....How 'bout community radio (Score:2)
Let's establish a new broadcast band where low power non-profit FM community stations are allowed to broadcast.
Return radio to the people.
Ultimate NPR (Score:2, Interesting)
Order of consideration (Score:2)
If we decide to make it an open communication services with only power restrictions, then it would be much like the current open bands and give more opurtunity for different products to be created. If we were to license certain corporations or individuals to have exclusive use of the bands they should provide a unique service such as unviversal data communications at a
Negroponte at Media Lab (Score:2)
Using airwaves for somethng that is stationary seems to be a waste and an annomaly.
HA! (Score:2)
I found out from Tv Radio World .com [tvradioworld.com] that there really isn't any part of UHF in my area that's underused. Every other channel is a fox, tbn, 3abn, abc, cbs, nbc, upn, wb channel. Granted some don't come in crystal clear, but there are quite a few channels (at least 9) that come in better than some crap ca
Goes along with mandatory HDTV support? (Score:2)
I'm sure (rant) (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm also sure that there will be bad consequences from the fact that using exclusively satellite/cable means that in many area, cable would be *it*. There would be a couple people willing to go with satellite, but satellite has some inherent problems in it and these would likely continue, as they have been, to be a minority.
These are privately held and privately controlled networks. I don't exactly trust or like the FCC, but at least they have SOME accountability to the public. AOLTW has none.
Realize that *MANY* areas have a literal monopoly, locally, on cable. Realize that this means we'd be removing the monopoly on who determines who gets a television license out of the hands of the FCC and putting it in the hands of an unaccountable, private, local monopoly. Don't like the fact that AOLTW Cable doesn't carry X Channel You Like? Want to start a public access public service station that at one time the FCC would have greenlighted, but AOLTW cable isn't interested in handing bandwidth to because it's not a money maker and they'd rather go with Animal Planet 2? Get reeeal used to it. And once everyone else gets "used to" this, get very used to any and all complaints being met with "hey, you have choice. if you don't like it you can always move".
Welcome to the new global Feudalism.
Electronics Manufacturers (Score:5, Insightful)
The "I-hate-SCO" channel (Score:5, Funny)
Hourly updates about the zillion lawsuits spreading throughout the world claiming ownership of linux. The Iraq InfoMinister could interview SCO Veeps and they could all deny or assert whatever seems appropriate. Sundays would have Linus leading us all in prayer that SCO dries up and disappers. Oh, and NO M$ or MSN commercials! I hate rainbow-colored moths!!
Not so bad idea... (Score:3, Interesting)
Truly the slicing and dicing of this spectrum is antiquated. We should be like the British and cut our ties with backwards compatability, like when they moved from B&W to Color.
What about heavy usage of UWB in that spectrum. I am not sure how far our TV signals travel in a low wattage scenario, but I am sure you could cram a lot into UWB that included this spectrum.
What about truly interative TV and or features? Maybe high grade digital audio?
There are 3 spectrums out there, and UHF is way underused. Lets get some more bang for the buck!
Frequency use by who? (Score:5, Insightful)
We have all sorts of TV, but all of it is controlled by large corporations, and all of it is funded by large corporations. It stands to reason that we're going to get biases from those controlling powers in our media.
The FCC is looking at the picture all wrong. They assume that there's something to watch on TV and that people are satisfied with it.
I, and most of my friends, are in now way satisfied with TV. I'm in the process of moving and my semi-new (only several-months old) 27" TV won't make the move -- I'm dumping it.
If the FCC wants to do something, why not open things up for hobbyists, citizen groups, NGOs, and non-multi-national corporations?
When my local high school and college both have AV departments, it amazes me that I cannot watch their sports games or cultural events on my TV. Instead, I get homogenized crap fed to me by large, out-of-touch media monopolies.
Am I the only one that feels this way?
Whoa (Score:5, Insightful)
For a very long time the FCC was criticized that it was unresponsive, too deliberative, and an example of a staid, entrenched beauacracy that did very little good for the people. Somewhere that was turned around and now they are overboard in almost exactly the opposite direction! Frankly, I'd prefeer an FCC that took lonmger to deliberate.
The airwaves require regulation, they are an extremely valuable, very public resource. They are crowded and need to be managed in the public's best interest. The FCC does not exist to make mega-media companies rich, it exists to protect a resource - in much the same way that the National Park Service exists to protect our national parks!
Unfortunately, somewhere along the line, the mega-media has gained an inordinate amount of influence over their regulators. Somewhere along the line, the FCC started to manage markets more than resources. We the little people are shut out of the process and even when we complain loud and long, we are ignored.
The FCC has finally become what everyone said it was - an example of a staid, entrenched beauacracy that does very little good for the people.
Terrestrial broadcasting is a local affair (Score:5, Informative)
The larger point, however, is that networks of terrestrial broadcast stations are already obsolete. Back before widespread adoption of cable, it was the only option. But now, having NBC programming come out of a few hundred transmitters scattered across the US is wasteful, given that just about everyone gets TV programming from a satellite (directly or indirectly from their cable company). NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox and PBS should each have a single channel on that satellite, just like Comedy Central, and the local broadcasters should use their bandwidth to serve local needs. It's just common sense.
Ham radio (Score:3, Insightful)
73 DE KE6ISF
Use it to replace Cable/Satellite w/Interactive TV (Score:3, Insightful)
Seriously, using MPEG-2 and compressed HDTV, the bandwidth currently used by one analog channel can support 24 standard definition or 6 high definition broadcasts.
Leaving out a few of the extra compressed channels and you have a nice data stream for interactive content.
Consider a sporting event broadcast this way:
This is currently possible with the bandwidth available for one broadcast channel and would be a very good use of the spectrum.
One other thought: consolidating on sats/cable could have the nasty side effect of eliminating local programming altogether.
-Chris
Quality (Score:3, Informative)
This is such a bad idea..... (Score:3, Insightful)
How the hell is this a GOOD thing? In ANY way???
Ludicrous? (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't believe for a second that every home in America has a cable line, and I don't believe that 30 years from now 'wireless' TV will have been phased out. Not only do some people like 'free' TV, but I can't tell you how valuable our small battery-operated TVs have been in horrible weather. Trees have taken down all the wires -- we have no power or phone, and turning on an emergency generator proved that cable TV went down, too. But with a small TV, we were able to get live information on the storm. Will this ever be replaced?
I agree -- the TV Broadcast Spectrum can be put to better use. But by that, I mean a more spectrum-efficient way. I see no benefit in phasing out broadcast TV, but there are plenty of reasons not to. Plus, as we continue to move toward more spectum-efficient technologies (2-way radios are starting to move to 12.5 kHz bandwidth; spread spectrum use is ever-growing...), I find it difficult to believe that we're ever going to run out of spectrum for radio. I hope that 20 years from now I'll be watching 'spread spectrum' TV or whatnot, but I sincerly hope that I'm not tied to a wire for my TV.
It's really ironic, too -- everything is moving toward wireless. Need a network? Why not go wireless? Want a new phone? Why not just get a cell phone, or at least a cordless phone? It won't be long before the Internet is as ubiquitous wirelessly as cell phone service. But when it comes to TV, why would people want to move _away_ from the wireless trend?
Yes, cable TV is hugely popular, and I certainly prefer my cable TV. But the concept of replacing it entirely with cable is about as ingenious as noting that everyone has a cell phone now, and shutting off residential phone lines to all homes, because the wires can be used for something else. Sure, some people might never notice. But there will always be people who still depend on their regular phone.
Clear the airwaves! (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, I'm talking to you...
Let the market decide...while making it a commons (Score:5, Interesting)
Let's be honest, neither you nor I can figure out the all of the wonderful ways that this spectrum might be used and then decide among them what is the best way it should be used.
Rather than setup a command economy for spectrum, let's put it out there as a common that people can use for various ideas with relatively low barriers to entry. For example, we have for the last several years been discussing how intelligent tuning, spreadspectrum, etc., make a myth of spectrum shortages. If this is the case, then let's put it to the test.
I propose that we let any "service provider" use this spectrum for a small registration fee and a small monthly rental payment (say on the order of 5% of revenues, which could be used for a number of purposes, including giving poor people cable if we decided that is the best way to spend it) for use of the spectrum, as long as they use a technology that 1) doesn't interfer with any other use of the spectrum using "intelligent tuning" technologies and 2) that doesn't demand exclusive use of the specturm in question.
What would this achieve? Well, it would give us a commons (where multiple service providers might exist) for creative us of this spectrum at the same that the people get to share in the benefits. By running multiple different applications of the spectrum, we would be able to determine what is the best use - in terms of demand - without looking out other miniority uses of the spectrum. Another cool thing about this plan, is that it could be rolled out over time. We could start by taking channels 3 and 4 off the air across the country (moving existing broadcasters to open holes that are no longer needed due to the improvments in transmission equipment since the advent of TV), see how it works. If over-the-air TV continues to be less and less important, then we could roll up more and more of the spectrum available for the "spectrum commons".
Transition period will take time (Score:3, Interesting)
To free up the broadcast TV spectrum (as we know it -- there may still be a market for a spectrum using a different technology) will take a long time, too. First, the FCC will have to go through a lengthy hearings process to decide whether or not to do it. If they do, expect a process something like this:
FCC opens up a new broadcast spectrum (maybe); sales of new-spectrum TV receivers begin
FCC stops issuing new licenses for the old spectrum
FCC bans sale of current old-spectrum licenses to other parties
Sales of old-spectrum TV sets are stopped
FCC sets date when all old-spectrum licenses expire
EPA goes into crisis mode when all of a sudden millions of TV's end up in landfills, setting off an ecological disaster
Government bans the disposal of old TV's ("You must keep them in your attic forever")
Wally Shumacher, janitor and garage tinkerer, invents new use for old TV's, saving the planet from destruction and making a few bucks in the process (before getting bought out by Microsoft)
Oops, got a little sidetracked there. Anyway, expect it to be a LOOOOOOOONG time before the broadcast spectrum as-we-know-it goes away.
Keep broadcast TV, but reslice the pie (Score:5, Interesting)
Either chop up and sell the licences in smaller pieces for shorter terms, or sell them to broadcast "utilities" that themselves sell the ability to broadcast, but can not create or edit programming. (I'm sure such utilities would quickly discover how many channels they can slice their limited frequencies into!)
Toss in some regulations about not owning too many channels in one spot, and some about providing free air to public-interest programming, political candidates, private citizens, etc. and you've created a more diverse, more accessible, free version of cable.
Why would this matter to politics? Well, this could be a great chance to reform the rules as a whole new game is created. Maybe you could ban selling political ads, and give politicians free air time instead. Maybe you could even give parties their own little channels. Maybe, if you dealt with the ownership/licensing rules correctly, there would be a natural diversity and competition of ideas and viewpoints, and less political influence wielded by any particular media company.
Hazlett is a moron (Score:3, Insightful)
http://randyrathbun.org/archives/000539.html#0005
We all know democracy lost the other day when the FCC gave Rupert Murdoch the go ahead to own every media outlet in the country.
Common Cause has a "write your congressperson" thingy up that you should sign. Not that the Republicans you write will do anything about it.
Also yesterday on NPR's 'All Things Considered', Thomas Hazlett, a former economist at the FCC, and, I might add, a total nutcase, said that free televison should be banished. What was even stranger is he sounded serious. I don't have a lot of time to write this story and try to explain on how many levels just how wrong and stupid this man is, but I owe it to you, the reader, to try.
First, the airwaves are public. I don't care how much 'campaign contributions' to the Republicans and Democrats say otherwise, the radio spectrum belongs to the public.
His entire argument centered around "well, 90% of the population gets their TV from cable or satellite." So what? Last time I checked you could not drive down the street with a cable or satellite dish strapped to the top of your car. I am not saying you should do this, but there are too many situations where receiving TV signals are a matter of life and death. A case in point are the recent tornadoes that ripped through this area. The local TV coverage has been credited with saving many lives during the May 4th storm. I do storm spotting when I can, and have a small portable TV that I carry with me so I can see either the TV station's weather maps. Without information such as this, Mr. Hazlett's plan would be putting too many citizens at risk. Ten percent does not sound like much, but in this past storm it meant that only one person died here in the KC area from the tornadoes vs a number I don't even want to begin to think about had free TV not been available.
The reasons behind free TV go way beyond just warning people about storms.
Oh, and according to Hazlett's web page, he is using a free email account at Yahoo. What a dumbass.
After writing that I got to thinking about some things in addition to my storm spotting scenario. Here in my area it used to be that every time it rained the cable went out because the cable company was beaming the signal over microwave from the receiving station to the head end that served our area. So, no matter what it was doing here at my house, if there was a storm anywhere along that path you got zilch from the cable. The same is true of what happens to satellite during a big storm - I loose sat reception for a while if there is any sort of big cloud between the dish and the sat. My only method of getting a signal from the locals is rabbit ears. If there is any sort of an emergency going on, such as a tornado, I would be left with only one recourse - my local NPR station. For now, that is. Chances are, if Hazlett gets his way that will go away too to turn all the TV and radio channels over to Clear Channel so they can broadcast sports talk and other drivel 24-7.
Hazlett is typical "big business rules" scum.
My thoughts (Score:3, Interesting)
Now, what about idle TV spectrum? Metro and/or Suburban Area Networking. Meshed, fast(?) bla bla bla. I'm no technical genius, and I'm sure that a good protocol for this doesn't even exist, but remember, 802.11x didn't exist several years ago. At any rate, Make it commercial. Make it public/free. Do both. Do whatever is needed to make it happen. It'll never be a replacement for fiber to the home, but maybe it'll allow for the holy grail of telecom competition... wireless VoIP. Even better, maybe it'll allow everyone to have a small chunk of bandwidth out in BFE rural areas. Who knows. At any rate, something is better than nothing, which is what is going on with the majority of TV spectrum.
Finally - "3G" radio. Satellite radio isn't local which IMHO is its only drawback. Current regulations and standards for AM/FM need to be updated for more efficient use of spectrum. But fuck it. Lets just go all out and make an FM2 or something. Yes, I know there is a technology in the works to "digitize" local radio, but they're going about it in a legacy-supporting way. By going about an upgrade in this manner, the FCC is preventing smaller players from going live. UHF was over-allotted sand box, and FM is an overcrowded ClearChannel clusterfuck... and the FCC needs to fix it... starting over from scratch. Hell, let ClearChannel keep FM... but give us another way to broadcast and receive local content... digitally. "FM2" should have about 100 medium-power channels for everyone to use... requiring an FCC permit, but unlike AM/FM, it should have very low or nonexistent broadcaster fees. It should be what LPFM strived to do, only much better.
Of course, if we had a good Continental Area Network (ho ho!!) we could just use that to power 3G radio. But I think I've already shot at the stars at it is.
Re:wireless internet (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, I mean what use is there for free television? Poor people are so last year.
I all seriousness, are you guys that excited to buy more gadgets that you would deny the public access to free public television?? This idea is disgusting.
Re:wireless internet (Score:2)
half n half (Score:3, Insightful)
-OR
Loose all of the TV spectrum and require Cable providers to give a "basic" or "public intrest
Since when.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Since when.. (Score:4, Informative)
Nobody is claiming TV is a right, just that the use of the spectrum should be in the public interest, since it is a shared resource, and as such, really needs to be regulated, or it won't work.
Same as the water we drink and the air we breathe, and the food we eat.
They did this a generation ago w. channel 1 (there is no lnger any channel 1, because that's been given over to other services). UHF was supposed to supplant VHF, but it didn't because the higher frequencies required only allowed for line-of-sight transmission, whereas the lower-frequency VHF signal can be bounced off the ionosphere, giving a greater coverage area. Superstations then boosted their signal output to get more viewers, higher revenue. This doesn't work w. UHF, b/c of the aformentioned relative transparency of the ionosphere to UHF signals.
Besides, let's not forget that most of the excuses/uses for grabbing the VHF channels will be just more of the same old shit, anyway.
Re:Since when.. (Score:3, Troll)
If you live in prison or public housing in the US, not only is TV a right, *CABLE TV* is a right.
Re:Since when.. (Score:3, Insightful)
It's penal televison. It's not HBO.
Re:wireless internet (Score:4, Insightful)
I also have DirecTV, but I refuse to pay $5 a month for local channels. This is actually because taping programs is really kludgy using their system. Yes, I could get TiVo, but it seems like paying yet another subscription fee just so that I can pay the "local channel" subscription fee is a bit backwards.
This might be slightly off-topic, but I think we (the American people) are being robbed when FCC sells frequencies to corporations. The airwaves belong to all of us, and they don't have that right. They should licence them for an annual fee.
Re:wireless internet (Score:3, Insightful)
If those FCC biatches sell me out so that some yuppie asshat can have extra bandwidth for his doodads I will seriously consider moving to another friggin country.
Cutting off the poor from TV? (Score:3, Insightful)
Last time I checked, over the air use of TV was between 10-15%, with cable penetration being close to 90%. It appears that folks highly value clear TV signals. The folks I know that don't have cable are folks that could afford it, but don't choose to have it.
That said, if we are truly worried about folks having TV access, it might be better to charge a monthly rental fee for the use of this spectrum and then use a portion of this rental income to fund "lifeline" access to cable and/or satellite TV. Thi
Re:Value Clear Signals? (Score:3, Insightful)
Then your broadcaster and your cable system have agreed to disagree, and its time to start lobbying both to rectify that.
First, let me state that I'm a semi-retired C.E. of a small market tv station, with 40 years in broadcastings technical back rooms, so at least you'll know my credentials to speak to the issue at hand.
Back when even the big time cable ops had to pickup an off-air signal from someplace, and often microwave it to their headend for final mixing, the 'local'
Re:wireless internet (Score:3, Interesting)
While I agree with what you're saying, American tv is considered by lots of non-americans to be just a proganda machine. While there are channels with some actual useful content, like perhaps PBS, the majority of american tv is controlled by, and used for the benefit of,
The poor man's entertainment. (Score:3, Interesting)
Show me a poor person and I will show you somebody who watches a lot of cable.
This is absolutely true. I lived in a ghetto in Chile for a while, and people spent all of their discretionary money on alcohol, marijuana, or subscription television services. Dishes littered roofs that could barely support them.
Re:wireless internet (Score:4, Informative)
An ISP can provide wireless internet in a radius of 20 miles with the technology... they can set up a whole ISP in a day in India for under $2000... can't do that in North America, of course.
Re:History Teaches Us (Score:3)
I'll try:
Lisa: "Fox turned into a hard-core porn network so gradually, I didn't even notice!"
Re:Who are these clowns working for? (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe Joe Soldering-Iron will get worked up in a tizzy, but I doubt it lasts, he will probably get tired from all the fresh air...
Re:Nice. (Score:3, Interesting)
and on ebay, it's not much. No static or ghosts and I
don't have to pay $50 a month to DirecTV.
It's not a firehose of content, but it's enough.
Re:UHF has great ability to travel long distances (Score:4, Informative)
Off-hand I know that UHF TV (approx. 440MHz I believe) is usually city wide in coverage, but remember analog TV is far more accepting of data errors (no error correction, no retransmissions) than digital data needs to be.
Also UHF TV still follows the 1-directional broadcast methology. That means, one powerful transmitter (~10-100kW I think) and an antenna at one high location, e.g. hilltop.
For wireless networking, you need bidirectional transmission, longer antennas (17cm versus 3mm if I have my math right), and because the signals transmit further you need frequency coorditation (i.e. licensing) from the FCC to prevent interference if you also want higher power station, over 100 milliwatts.
Re:UHF has great ability to travel long distances (Score:3, Informative)
TV in North America uses 54 to 88 MHz for channels 2 to 6, 174 to 216 MHz for 7 to 13, and 470 to 806 MHz for channels 14 to 68. Much of the UHF spectrum is now shared with radio services in big cities. Several European countries have no VHF television at all now.
At one time UHF TV went from 470 to 890 MHz for channels 14 to 83, but the top end was changed to various radio services (including cellphones) some years ago.
Wavelengths:just under 6 meters at the bottom of VHF to about 130 cm at the top. Abou