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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: 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.