Here I go geeking out a bit again… and giving props to Google as usual, but this is pretty interesting…
For as long we’ve known it the basic analog TV channels have come over 700 MHz…. You know, the one you were trying to fetch a signal from back in the dorms with a hanger sticking out the damn TV…
It has been declared that the spectrum will be shut off for TV in 2009 and it will be expected that all networks will broadcast digitally by then. This frees up 700 MHz which as you know is a very powerful one, it can easily go through walls… shit, it even reaches the boonies of Kingston, RI.
So now there will be the great auction we’ve been waiting for…. (right? haven’t you been waiting for this??) where the top wireless providers battle it out auction style, and a very anxious Google to bid against..
Google says it’s ready to throw down 4.6 billion dollars…. it wouldn’t surprise me if they went to 10….. the FCC refers to the 700 MHz spectrum as “beach-front property” and will be less expensive to build than an existing wireless network, especially with estimates that a single tower can cover 20 miles.
so Google blankets the country with wireless Internet.. cornering one more market…. and of course the next question is which company are they teaming up with for hardware… could it be Apple? Imagine, a 4th generation iPhone on a 4G network provided by Google along with all their Internet applications, which by then should be plentiful…. What?? talk about Jetson’s…..
on another note, have I told you how much I love my iPhone?