We'll come right out and say it, we like Julius Genachowski. Whether you agree with
the dude's policies or not, you can't deny he's pursuing them
with gusto. Having already noted the
insufficient carrying capacity of current mobile broadband airways to deal with incoming 4G connections, the FCC chairman is now reported to be moving ahead with plans to provide
greater spectrum allocation for those purposes. Currently in the draft stage, the latest Commission proposals include a plan to reclaim airwaves from digital broadcasters (and pay them appropriately for it), which are to then be sold off to the highest bidder from among the wireless service providers. Executing the most extreme version of this plan could generate around $62 billion in auction revenues, though it would require transitioning digital TV viewers over to cable or subscription services and is therefore unlikely. Jules and his crew are still "looking at everything" and ruling out nothing, but we can probably expect to see a moderate shift of TV spectrum rights over to wireless carriers in the final plans when they're revealed in February.
[Via
Phone Scoop]
posted Oct 28th 2009 7:12AM
I'm as pro-wireless as the next guy but this is unexcusable! First they make everybody switch to a TV system that is inferior in coverage and usability. Then, they reduce the usable TV channels from 67 down to 49 (and from those, channels 2 to 6 are now almost useless)... What do they want? They are not going to be satisfied until they shrink the TV airwaves to only one or two channels (left there for the sake of emergencies) and force everybody to pay for satellite or cable TV.
If I can get all the content that I currently get over the air online instead, then I guess it's not a big deal. Currently, though, I get some pretty high quality HD, and plenty of channels, all over the air. Hulu / MSN TV have a long way to go if they're going to completely replace that.
I'll hopefully never pay for cable tv, though.
Is the "Commander Keen" allusion intentional?