Wifi on channel 8: Microsoft wants your television frequency

Once upon a time, back in the dark ages of the 1990's, we were shackled to the bonds of our telephone wires to reach our internet server. Now, connections are coming at us like cobras toward Indiana Jones.

Among the cutting-edge ideas drawing the interest of giants including Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) and Google (NASDAQ:GOOG), is the potential to tap the unused part of the television analog bands (54 Mhz to 698 Mhz) to carry wireless internet. This range of frequencies carries much further without the disruption common to shorter frequencies, such as those used for cellular signals. This allows more widely dispersed send/receive sites, so development costs would be considerably lower. When the switch to digital signals comes in 2009, these bands should be even clearer of rogue signals.

The FCC was initially hesitant to consider the idea because they feared wireless internet signals might bleed and disrupt our sacred television transmissions. Finally last fall they unveiled a blueprint for how they might allocate rights to these "white space" frequencies. And last week, to prod the commission into a quicker decision, Rep. Jay Inslee of Washington introduced the Wireless Innovation Act of 2007.

Microsoft, partnering with Google (imagine that!), Intel and others in pushing this initiative, has built a test device for the FCC, with hopes they will complete testing by this summer. If so, final regulations for adoption could come before the end of the year followed, I would guess, by a big honking band-use auction that should yield the government huge bucks. The frequencies could come into use as soon as 2009.

I wish I had a crystal ball to see who will win the battle to hook you up. Your cable provider? Satellite TV? Cellular services? Local WiMax provider? An all-volunteer wiki-type network? (Props to Cory Doctorow of Boing Boing for that notion.) A worldwide, publicly funded satellite network?

Or, perhaps, the owners of these big, fat television frequencies.