By Jennifer Hooker, IEN Staff
March 25, 2008--Though Verizon Wireless and AT&T ended up being the big winners in the 700MHz spectrum auction, Google has outlined a plan to roll out what Google’s telecommunications counsel, Richard Whitt, called “WiFi 2.0 or WiFi on steroids.”
The search engine giant recently filed a proposal with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to use the unlicensed and unused airwaves, known as “white space,” for wireless Internet. The white space exists between channels 2-51 on televisions that aren’t yet connected to cable or satellite, and will be available after the analog to digital broadcast switchover in 2009, according to an AP report.
This new class of WiFi is meant to be used with low-power devices, and Whitt noted that it could provide data transmission rates of billions of bits per second, compared to the millions of bits per second currently offered on most broadband networks. This will bring some competition to broadband Internet providers, and will allow people to do more online when they are out and about, including downloading movies and other time consuming activities. According to The New York Times, Google is looking toward WiFi 2.0 for mobile phones and other devices that will run on its Android software platform.
The concept of white space use has faced some opposition from TV broadcasters who are concerned that WiFi 2.0 would interfere with their programming and with the 2009 switchover. However, the Times also reported that Google proposed a “safe harbor” on channels 36-39 of the analog spectrum for use only by wireless microphones, medical telemetry, radio astronomy devices. The Internet powerhouse also suggested using “spectrum sensing technologies” that are already used by the military to automatically ensure that a channel is, in fact, open before using it. The FCC is considering a plan for two separate uses for the airwaves, one for consumer and the other for commercial operations.
WiFi technology is currently used in several industrial devices including wireless sensors and monitors. However, even if the FCC gives Google the ok, Whitt predicted that late 2009 will be the earliest we see devices that support WiFi 2.0.