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from the we'll-all-watch-your-latest-YouTube-video dept.
UHF takes up the space between 400 and 700 megahertz on the wireless spectrum [Ed: Technically, it's defined as being from 300Mhz to 3Ghz]. [At these frequencies] its signals can carry for miles and more easily penetrate walls and trees than the higher frequencies used for most wireless routers. Despite this and the growing demand for wireless data, TV broadcasters continue to maintain preferential access to the UHF spectrum, even as the percentage of Americans relying on over-the-air signals for TV programming has begun to dip into the single digits in recent years.
The Federal Communications Commission allows for data to be transmitted over open UHF channels not claimed by a TV broadcaster, but urban areas where the need for more Wi-Fi options is greatest are also the least likely to have unclaimed UHF frequencies.
Knightly and Rice graduate student Xu Zhang designed a new solution to allow for transmitting wireless data over UHF channels during TV broadcasts over those same channels called WATCH (for "Wi-Fi in Active TV Channels") and were granted permission from the FCC to test it on the Rice campus last year. The basic idea behind the system is to actively monitor nearby TVs that are tuned into a local UHF video signal and to use advanced and efficient signal-canceling technology to send wireless data over the same channel without interference between the data and video transmissions.
Perhaps this is a candidate for open access to the Internet that this and other forums have been kicking around the past few years.
Original Submission
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 17 2015, @02:40AM
Fuckerberg can choke on a bucket of dicks.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by NCommander on Friday July 17 2015, @02:47AM
Use of radio frequencies has long been regulated by the FCC, and a license is necessary to use devices over a specific wattage with good reason. Assuming for a moment you made a generally available UHF wifi gizmo broadcasting with enough power, the signal *will* interfere with anything else on that band. Unless you moved everything off, and treated it like the 2.4Ghz band is today, you're trusted that no one would relocate one of these transmitters to an area that would cause issues.
For people living that far in the sticks that have no other option for connectivity, perhaps time would be better invested in subsidersizing classes to get FCC Amatuer Radio Technician, or creating a new lower level license that allows the use of packet internet radio, while limiting rights to certified radios and antennas. licenses, and let them work in the amatur bands using AMPRNet [wikipedia.org]. I'm in the process of getting my technician license, and while the material is ... daunting for anyone who doesn't have an EE background, I suspect anyone who put their mind to it could get it; there are children as young as 6 who have technician licenses.
Still always moving
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 17 2015, @02:51AM
Fuckerberg can choke on a bucket of dicks.
(Score: 1) by pyg on Friday July 17 2015, @02:03PM
I would have to say that most of the SN audience could pass the Tech without much study at all except for the FCC part 97 regs and I'm a bit surprised more of this crowd doesn't also overlap with amateur radio as the orientation seems philosophically similar but the demographics are quite different. I'm currently prepping for my Extra.
73s,
KE0FAI
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Friday July 17 2015, @02:53PM
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 17 2015, @03:08AM
My limited knowledge of data transmission over radio prevents me from knowing if this is a problem, but...
What is the capacity of these frequencies compared to higher frequencies? My crude understanding is that data density increases with frequency, so low frequency means low data transmission rates. Is it linear? Does 600 MHz have one quarter the bandwidth of 2.4 GHz? Would the equivalent of WiFi g drop from 54 Mbps to 13.5 Mbps? Wouldn't these frequencies cause a lot of nerds to whine?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 17 2015, @04:56AM
What matters is the width of the channel, not so much where the channel sits. Higher channels more naturally lend themselves to wider spacing though.
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Friday July 17 2015, @06:06AM
Plus isn't this basically encryption over airwaves? How is this different from what we discussed a couple of days ago: https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=15/07/13/2210241 [soylentnews.org]
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts"- --Daniel Patrick Moynihan--
(Score: 1) by pyg on Friday July 17 2015, @03:21PM
IIRC FCC part 97 (amateur radio/ham) requires data transmissions to be limited to 100 KHz wide and 56 Kbps on frequencies below 928.0 MHz. So yes. Also below 28 MHz, limited to 300 bps, 28-54 MHz 1200 bps, 144-148 MHz 19.6 Kbps.
This of course is not what is technically possible with spread spectrum and ultra wide band but current FCC limits on amateur radio.
Re: Amateur Radio. Honestly I'm not sure what limits bandwidth except for at lower frequencies there is just less of it. In the 2 meter band (popular VHF band 144-148 MHz) there is 1.9 MHz of bandwith for data/voice. At 80 meters there is only 100 KHz for data and 400 KHz for voice. When you get into microwave frequencies there are literally GHz of bandwidth available. Some of the most interesting stuff right now, IMO, is happening in microwave transmissions.
Also I've seen some "nerds" with a great fist top digital for throughput with CW on lower HF and they where smiling, but my first networked computer was with a 300 Kbps dialup modem so I guess I still have low standards.
(Score: 1) by pyg on Friday July 17 2015, @03:41PM
For reference 802.11a-n channels are 20-40 MHz wide so if you took 400-700 MHz and used it like 802.11n you could fit 7-14 channels... also you would have a lot of pissed off hams who just lost their precious 30 MHz of 70 cm band.
(Score: 2) by Fnord666 on Friday July 17 2015, @04:19AM
or basic channel hopping?
I suspect that the latter is how the system actually works with existing UHF channels.
(Score: 2) by q.kontinuum on Friday July 17 2015, @04:48AM
Since the lower frequencies are not as easily blocked as the common WiFi frequencies, I'd expect it is more difficult to avoid interference between neighbouring hot-spots. Together with the lower frequency (lower bandwidth), this sounds like an option only for very sparsely populated areas...
Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
(Score: 2) by linuxrocks123 on Friday July 17 2015, @07:12AM
I would strenuously object to OTA TV being labeled "dying". As more people ditch cable TV, more people will -- and already are -- relying on broadcast TV for part of their news and entertainment. It's often as a complement to something like Netflix, so maybe that's how the statistics are being cooked so these people can make the case for stealing TV spectrum, but it's still a use of OTA TV.
Even in urban areas, it's not like every single channel 2-58 is being used by a TV broadcaster. There's still white space in the spectrum available for new technologies without stomping over some broadcaster's signal and hoping not to cause too much trouble.
OTA TV's picture quality is the best thing out there short of Blu-Ray. If we hadn't transitioned from analog to digital, I'd agree the spectrum was being misused. But we did, and it's not.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 17 2015, @01:58PM
Those broadcasts could be over the internet on demand instead instead of hogging an entire wavelength that is ignored by 99% of the people in its reach. With the increased bandwidth you could increase the available bandwidth to those same affected people. Then not only can they stream from the networks feed if they like over that same spectrum, but it could also be used it for everything else, which would far better serve the 99% than keeping a huge chunk of spectrum locked down for legacy corporations old pre internet distribution technology. TV was huge to this planet in its day but it's time to move forward and keeping bandwidth tied up for something most people don't want just because we were still doing it yesterday is so shortsighted.
(Score: 2) by linuxrocks123 on Saturday July 18 2015, @04:53AM
Internet on-demand makes less sense than you might think, because a multicast model dramatically decreases the required bandwidth for a TV-like communication. Look at how much trouble Netflix is having with its on-demand distribution, and then consider that the bandwidth required for broadcast television would be an order of magnitude more at least for a lower-quality stream. Oh yeah, you also have to get very high-speed Internet access to everyone everywhere for that plan to have a chance of working.
Most TV stations are for-profit. They pay for the spectrum and the transmitters. If they think OTA broadcasts still make sense, then they make sense. If they thought Internet-only distribution made more sense, they'd abandon their stations and do that instead.
(Score: 2) by mr_mischief on Friday July 17 2015, @04:05PM
The UHF TV channels are not the entire UHF band. That's the discrepancy. No, editor, this isn't talking about taking up all the UHF HAM channels or kicking 2.4 Ghz Wi-Fi out of the way to make room for Wi-Fi.
This is discussing using the UHF portion of the TV spectrum (as opposed to the VHF portion, apparently, which also isn't all of the VHF band). That's why it's only talking about the UHF frequencies that have to do with TV.
In case anyone missed it, removing Wi-Fi from 2.4 Ghz to make room for Wi-Fi is pretty absurd.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Friday July 17 2015, @06:12PM
I disagree - the statement quoted is wrong. He could have written UHF TV takes up that portion of the UHF band - but he didn't. And even then that would only be true in the US. Other countries have slightly different use of the frequency spectrum although there is, of course, significant overlap. UHF is 300Mhz to 3Ghz. I merely indicated the correct definition of UHF to make it factual. I know he is talking about TV usage of the spectrum, but on a site that is supposed to have a bias to science and technology we ought to be able to get our facts straight.
(Score: 2) by mr_mischief on Friday July 17 2015, @09:37PM
Your editorial correction though makes it look more like you think he's talking about the whole band and correcting the size. It would be much clearer if you instead pointed out the article is about a portion of the band used for TV channels in the US.
"[Ed: Actually, the UHF band is larger but the 400 Mhz to 700 Mhz range is the portion of it used for TV in the US.]" or something like that would make the whole summary, including the editorial snippet, clearer. Thanks for actually responding in any case. I would probably never have this two-way conversation on the green site.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Saturday July 18 2015, @02:48AM
Well, OK, but you are the only one (so far) that seems to have been confused by this. I certainly wasn't. And as this happens to coincide with an area in which I have some expertise I do like to correct any errors that I find. However, you will be welcome on the Editorial Team if you have some time to spare.
We like to think that we are different, and your userid suggests that you have been with us for a while so you will know that we value feedback and try to explain our actions. I'll just have to improve for next time.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 17 2015, @04:35PM
You get to drink from the FIREHOSE !!!