Stephen Withers
Wednesday, 05 November 2008 07:14
IT Policy -
Government Tech Policy
Page 2 of 3
The approval process will include laboratory and real world testing, and the FCC will remove from the market any devices subsequently found to cause harmful interference. The geolocation system will provide a way of automatically disabling specific models found to be faulty, presumably be making the whole country a 'no go' zone for them.
And that reminds us of the otherwise unrelated "kill switch" for software in Apple's iPhone and the Google-backed Android handsets. It sounds like a good idea, but what if a miscreant finds a way of abusing the facility?
The spectrum being released allows transmitters to cover a wide area and provide high data rates. Furthermore, the signals readily penetrate buildings, giving the tin foil hat brigade yet another wireless signal to be worried about, while keeping the rest of the wireless broadband hungry population happy.
Microsoft's chief research and strategy officer Craig Mundie welcomed the decision, saying "it will allow every American to realise the enormous potential of white spaces" and that it "ushers in a new era of wireless broadband innovation".
Larry Page, co-founder of archrival Google described the FCC's decision as "a clear victory for Internet users and anyone who wants good wireless communications."
"I've always thought that there are a lot of really incredible things that engineers and entrepreneurs can do with this spectrum. We will soon have 'Wi-Fi on steroids,' since these spectrum signals have much longer range than today's Wi-Fi technology and broadband access can be spread using fewer base stations resulting in better coverage at lower cost," he added.
Not all the commissioners were 100 percent behind the proposal - see
page 3.
