NEWS: Tech Firms Push to Use TV Airwaves for Internet

News/Web Culture/Internet
Found on: washingtonpost.com

If the coalition made up of six of the biggest tech companies in the world (Microsoft, Google, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Intel and Philips) gets the green light from the FCC, we could start seeing unused television airwaves called "white space" being gobbled up to bring high-speed internet access to consumers as early as 2009.

Me in 2009; "Hey hun, come quick, look what's on TV -- it's the internet and it's fast!"

Washingtonpost.com post:

A coalition of big technology companies wants to bring high-speed Internet access to consumers in a new way: over television airwaves. Key to the project is whether a device scheduled to be delivered to federal labs today lives up to its promise.

The coalition, which includes Microsoft and Google, wants regulators to allow idle TV channels, known as white space, to be used to beam the Internet into homes and offices. But the Federal Communications Commission first must be convinced that such traffic would not bleed outside its designated channels and interfere with existing broadcasts.