Free internet utilising old analogue TV frequencies proposed by scientists, governemnts silent on th

mrk

mrk

mrk

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I was reading this and thought it be an interesting topic to discuss.

The benefits are obvious, while only a couple of mobile networks still fight to dominate with "4G" this kind of system would provide broadband over the air in places that can't even get 3G, disaster areas would benefit as would areas that have no internet infrastructure in place.

As some comments has suggested already elsewhere it is something that really only benefits citizens so why would a government want to give away the opportunity to make money? Mobile networks would lobby the hell out of it too.

I heard there's a Person of Interest episode where this tech is used also, looking forward to watching that when it comes round on the playlist :cool:
 
They make a point about the low frequency congestion issues though. Not sure how you'd get around that with everyone within a mile using the network.
 
This isn't going to be quick at all though is it?

Not a bad idea, but the government is never going to pay for it.
 
The "unused" TV frequencies wouldn't provide much space for point to point data as it would be have to be shared amongst all the users (which is a large part of the reason even voice calls suffer on mobile networks in buys areas, as the data required even for something as simple as a voice call gets too much and thus the handsets drop down to a lower bit rate codec).

Also you have the minor issue that the "free" internet would require a lot of investment in hardware, and that you run the very serious risk of interfering in TV broadcasts (one of the reasons there are "gaps" in the frequencies in use is specifically to prevent interferences, and something that mobile phone operator have already caused problems with when they got issued some of the frequencies).

From memory each of the "TV channel" frequencies from analogue and now digital muxes is about 40mbit, which is not much, unless you have very very localised base stations (home networks with their strictly imposed power limits run into problems despite quite short ranges in many streets due to the number of users vying for the same frequency spaces).
 
Ahem... :D

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But on a serious note, I can't see this ever working. I mean the expense to do so, along with the base stations would be crazy I think.
 
I can understand how you receive it, but how do you transmit upstream?

Surely it would have to be like the old satellite broadband, where the satellite dish received the downstream and your 56k dial up did the upstream, enabling mega fast (for the time) downloads but gaming MS wasn't a patch on ADSL.
 
This new “super WiFi” would have a far wider range than existing WiFi networks, which are mostly transmitted over wireless local area networks (WLAN) at frequencies of 2GHz or above.
Click to expand...
then they can censor it as needed, slowly purge regular isps and take full control
 
Werewolf said:
The "unused" TV frequencies wouldn't provide much space for point to point data as it would be have to be shared amongst all the users (which is a large part of the reason even voice calls suffer on mobile networks in buys areas, as the data required even for something as simple as a voice call gets too much and thus the handsets drop down to a lower bit rate codec).

Also you have the minor issue that the "free" internet would require a lot of investment in hardware, and that you run the very serious risk of interfering in TV broadcasts (one of the reasons there are "gaps" in the frequencies in use is specifically to prevent interferences, and something that mobile phone operator have already caused problems with when they got issued some of the frequencies).

From memory each of the "TV channel" frequencies from analogue and now digital muxes is about 40mbit, which is not much, unless you have very very localised base stations (home networks with their strictly imposed power limits run into problems despite quite short ranges in many streets due to the number of users vying for the same frequency spaces).
Click to expand...

Hmm perhaps Google should play a hand in this then because if anyone can they can, or Mr Musk.
 
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