US plan would reclaim TV airwaves for iPhone The US Federal Communications Commission is considering a plan that would reclaim some precious airwaves from the country's television broadcasters and reinvent them as wireless broadband. According to the Wall Street Journal, the FCC intends to release the plan in February as part of an effort to ensure that there's enough …
I guess the proof of the pudding ...
if the spectrum auction is more than FCC pays for reclaim, then happiness
if less, then despair. That is, we taxpayers foot the loss. So, FCC - make sure that taxpayers don't get stuck.
Oh. By the way - how much did the holders of the spectrum currently pay for that privilege?? I think that *that* should factor into your pricing model for the "reclaim"
If the FCC can eliminate all broadcast TV in dense areas (we're not talking about way rural areas here, there's PLEANTY of spectrum for those folks in the boonies to have their 2 or 3 channels and cell phones too), and if the auction of those frequencies generate enough money to give everyone a permanant discount on cable TV to the point where the cable company OR sattelite company is required by law to provide you your local stations completely free of charge (even if you DON'T subscribe), then I'm all for it...
Basically, I have 2 family members who do NOT currently get TV in any way that over the air. The simply refuse to pay for it otherwise. They get 7 channels locally, 5 in HD, all now digital. The have 4 TVs, and used the government's money to buy 2 set top boxes for the two that did not natively support digital signals. They spent $200 on a fany new HD anteanna on the roof. They're happy. Now if in a couple of years, the FCC takes away broadcast, all they'd ask is that the cable company swing by, hook up a line to their home's anteanna in port, and all 4 of their TVs would get the broadcast tier of cable TV with no further interaction. Since they're in a reasonable area, cable is already available. For some others a few miles away, the gov't would have to pay for a few sattelite boxes and a disk, and someone to set it up and maintain it;s direction to a valid sattelite, and the sattelite company would get a few dollars a month to have their account open and authorize the receivers to pick up only the local tier.
No cost to the household, profit for the government, no more bitching from the telcos, WAY less power used in signal tranmission, and less complication for the local folks broadcasing (and way lower power bills too, which actually would permit way more local TV station competition).
This is a win, win, win. Why fight it?
Yea, it might cost 20bn, but it will make 60. Given goverment numbers, it will un over budget by 2 fold, but taxpayers will still profit 20bn anyway, we'll roll out some additional cable line in the process too (or IPTV, which would be a MUCH better way to use that money).
Something fishy here.
The broadcasters never paid for the spectrum in the first place, they were just "borrowing" it.
Of course, none of it should ever have been sold, just leased, so that it could be reclaimed in the future when unforseen needs popped up.
Have Emergency Services Providers gotten any of the new spectrum they were promised yet?
Grenade, as this, too, will likely blow up in their faces down the road.
It was insane and illegal to lease it ad infinitum in the first place! The government should always attach terms to the lease of spectrum. The FCC is currently gloating about how much it made from its latest auctions... but at $/year where years=infinity they screwed us all.
Radio spectrum is a public resource. No one should have claim to it indefinitely.
The wasteful utilisation of spectrum to deliver what amounts to little more than video garbage via open spectrum is unsustainable.
Houses are fixed and like electricity, sewers, water, etc. services should be fixed - but in this case the cable fee should be free for all channels that can be received off-air at an address. Radio should remain on open spectrum.
The military spectrum should also be used: it can be peremptorily re-acquired in time of conflict in the specific areas it is fighting in.
ISP and telco monopolies are racketeering the public for trillions of dollars ever year. For them, buying tv spectrum for 62 billion is peanuts for them to just continue to milk the citizen.
Make the spectrum unlicenced but regulated, and let Google and others like FON provide us with unlimited free wireless broadband everywhere.
See my thread at http://boards.fon.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=6351
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