News Analysis: The FCC’s move is only the first step in making broadband wireless generally available on unused former television buffer frequencies.
When the Federal Communications Commission issued its press release about the approval of additional unlicensed spectrum in what are called “white spaces,” it referred to the coming technologies as “Super WiFi.”
In reality, it’s not clear that this previously unavailable set of unused frequencies will necessarily become anything that resembles WiFi. As the FCC points out in its statement, this is spectrum space that’s going to be available to a wide range of technologies, of which wireless broadband is only one. Even if this turns out to be a significant use of these white space frequencies, it’s not clear whether WiFi (or something like it) will be related in any way.
The white space decision allows the use for a variety of unlicensed services of the former guard bands between television channels. These guard bands were there to protect the signals from one station against being interfered with by an adjacent station. Because analog television signals were a combination of an AM signal and an FM signal, the required bandwidth could be slightly unpredictable. In addition, the technology at the time, especially in the old analog television sets, really didn’t have the ability to zero in on one channel and block out transmissions that were close to the same frequency.
via FCC Approves White-Space Use for Unlicensed ‘Super WiFi’ – IT Infrastructure from eWeek.
