White Space Debate Intensifies As Vote Approaches 94
Ars Technica reports that the debate between broadcasters and white space supporters has intensified after each side recently made inflammatory comments and suggested that science would vindicate their position. Several organizations are pushing to delay the upcoming white space vote, in part because it takes place on the same day as the US presidential election. We recently discussed Google's claim that a test of this system was rigged to fail. From Ars:
"The broadcasters contend that adjacent channel interference would be significant even at the 40 mW level proposed by Kevin Martin. In fact, they claim that such a device would interfere with digital television signals when the viewer is 25 miles from the television tower and the whitespace device is 10m or less from the TV set. At 50 miles from the television tower, a whitespace device within 50m from a set could allegedly cause interference. The broadcasters also want several safeguard requirements put on the technology that go beyond the new, lower-power transmission levels."
Imperial or metric? (Score:3, Interesting)
What's with the mixing of units? Use either 50 miles and 50 yards, or 80 km and 50 m. Mixing imperial and metric units like this, will probably cause http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/10/25/1449212#the [slashdot.org] test devices to explode.
There's an old saying... (Score:5, Interesting)
Now, it is politically popular to think about that statement only in the context of bloated, black, cadillac-driving, welfare queens and their giant broods of fatherless criminal children; but such a type, if it exists at all, is chickenshit in terms of real subsidies. Consider rather the broadcasters who have made huge amounts of money, and acquired a great deal of influence, thanks to a government granted monopoly over big chunks of our spectrum.
Re:There's an old saying... (Score:3, Interesting)
Informed, unbias opinion? (Score:3, Interesting)
Why not read a op-ed piece from someone who both knows about electrical engineering and doesn't have a vested (i.e. profit) interest in the outcome one way or the other?
EDN editor Paul Rako [edn.com] wrote this edotiral recently, "White spaces and black hearts" [edn.com].
Re:Umm... (Score:3, Interesting)
>>>they do not license adjacent channels in the same geographic market.
That is true, however the FCC guarantees to broadcasters the use of their designated channel *to be free from interference* of neighboring channels. That is why there is a two channel minimum gap on TV, on FM, and on AM. If stations co-existed side-by-side within the same market, they would interfere with one another. Likewise if a Whitespace Device Broadcast exists side-by-side with a TV broadcast, then the WSD's signal will "spillover" onto the existing local station, and violate that station's exclusive right to that channel.
IMHO if the FCC would not allow a TV station 16 or 18 to exist adjacent to WPHL-17, then they should not allow a WSD to be there either. The WSD should be blocked from using that entire range: 16, 17, and 18 when in the presence of WPHL. ----- And once you make that assumption, and you examine my local market near Philly, you discover there are only 4 channels that fit the criteria as open (2,3,4,25).
Re:Umm... (Score:2, Interesting)
That is true, however the FCC guarantees to broadcasters the use of their designated channel *to be free from interference* of neighboring channels. That is why there is a two channel minimum gap on TV, on FM, and on AM. If stations co-existed side-by-side within the same market, they would interfere with one another. Likewise if a Whitespace Device Broadcast exists side-by-side with a TV broadcast, then the WSD's signal will "spillover" onto the existing local station, and violate that station's exclusive right to that channel.
IMHO if the FCC would not allow a TV station 16 or 18 to exist adjacent to WPHL-17, then they should not allow a WSD to be there either. The WSD should be blocked from using that entire range: 16, 17, and 18 when in the presence of WPHL. ----- And once you make that assumption, and you examine my local market near Philly, you discover there are only 4 channels that fit the criteria as open (2,3,4,25).
That is certainly a defensible position on this topic.
I don't want to get into a debate over language. I will say, however, that I think your original characterization of the situation (i.e., "there are NO unused television frequencies") is, at best, pretty misleading.
I understand that you want to define the buffer zones as "in use as buffer zones" and I want to define them as "not in use." I think there is room for debate on that topic. But, in a thread where many readers may not be as familiar with this topic as the two of us seem to be, it seems likely that your declaration of there being no open channels is somewhat disingenuous. Contrast that with my prior explanation which, for all of its flaws, at least addressed the fact that the channels are used as buffers to prevent interference even while declaring them "unused."
Re:Umm... (Score:3, Interesting)
As I stated: "The only region of the United States that is truly "open" is west of the Mississippi River & east of the California border. There are lots of empty non-assigned channels (mostly 21-51)..." Using your location of 12+ receivable channels, which also includes 24 guard channels to prevent interference, that still leaves only 15 open channels for internet whitespace devices (approximately 300 Mbit/s total space).
Of course that does absolutely nothing to help those of us on the populous east coast, where the average number of open channels (that are Not next to an existing television signal) is only 6 or 7. About 150 Mbit/s.
It doesn't seem worth the effort for just a few megabits, subdivided amongst ~1 million local residents, or about 0.3 kbit/s each. Ooo. I'd rather use a 50k phone line.