[627] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: Perhaps dismissal of packet radio in the classroom is unwarranted
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Lyle Seaman)
Wed Apr 24 19:56:13 1991
From: lws@capybara.comm.wang.com (Lyle Seaman)
To: lws@capybara.comm.wang.com, schoff@psi.com
Cc: bill@tuatara.uofs.edu, brian@napa.telebit.com, com-priv@psi.com
Date: Wed, 24 Apr 91 18:31:07 EDT
Sure, the broadcasting lobby is strong, but all those UHF slots
can't be worth so much that they can't be sold, can they? Are
they all owned by TV stations, or are there some remaining to
be allocated by the FCC? I can't see why one couldn't just buy
a frequency range from an existing TV station... We're not
talking about using the same frequencies nationwide, so I don't
see any reason why any of the spectrum needs to be reallocated
accross the board. It seems to me that the FCC should allow
any transmission mechanism (NTSC, PAL, Aloha, whatever) of a
frequency range so long as the bandwidth/power restrictions
are met. After all, they transmit all kinds of stuff along
with the conventional signal as it is... (stereo, CC, foreign
language audio, financial data...)
At any rate, if cable is used, then what are the regulatory
issues?
Here's another idea, not as useful, but cheaper and easier to
start up. Lots of TV stations go off the air for several hours
early in the morning. What about buying that time from a station
for data transmission? That corresponds nicely with peak hours
for news transmission. It wouldn't solve the network access
problem, but it would provide additional bandwidth. In most if
not all of New York State, PBS uses UHF channels, and goes off-air
from midnight to 6:00 (maybe less now). I think that the PBS people
that I used to know in Northern New York would be very keen on
something like this. Many areas (well, most of them are cities)
have a community access cable channel, which might well be unused
for a considerable amount of time in the early morning, and the
use of *that* for our purposes is almost exactly what community
access cable is all about.
Lyle Wang lws@wang.com
508 967 2322 Lowell, MA, USA
--------------------
Martin wrote:
Time for some market/political reality.
Brian is absolutely correct about there being lots of unused broadcast
TV bandwidth out there. In fact between every channel there is an
unused channel hearkening back to worst case equipment tranmission scenarios
mapped out in the 50's (using 50's equipment). It doesn't matter.
One of the most successful lobbying groups in the US today is the broadcasting
lobby. The last successful campaign (that my poor memory remembers) that
carved some of this 50's era broadcasting "entitlement" was the carving
out for the cellular industry. That took the titans of the telephony
industry to win. There was a lot of blood on the floor for that one.
I (probably with Brian, and a lot of other people) really do hope that the
computer industry can wrestle the broadcasters into submission in this
area, but it is going to be a long hard struggle, and a matter or serious
public policy politics. In some sense the FCC has actually muddied the
water on all of this by introducing the concept of "innovative applications"
licensing which I predict will only lengthen the time.
Again from my frail memory, I believe there has been more historic success
in getting military frequency used for good things, then from the broadcasting
industry...
And finally, a personal note, I remember dealing with some GE engineers
about 7 years ago who wanted me to work with them on running ethernet
through a tv channel that GE owned (GE was a big TV researcher/supplier
once upon
a time, including pre WWII, so it appears to have some grandfather'ed
spectrum in the upstate NY area). As I remember, this all died on the
vine due to the FCC feeling that it would disrupt TV (a free good)
signals, the fact that some local broadcasters got wind of this didn't
help at all....
Of course this was 1985, the stoneage of networking.... :-)
Marty
