Yesterday we got our Channel Master CM-7000 digital TV converter box, which makes our older Sony TV digital-ready. I unpacked everything but due to the lack of sleep I got Tuesday night I didn’t feel up to connecting it. So I’m one step away from being digital TV-ready.
And not a moment too soon. Lost in the election noise was news of the FCC’s approval of new, unlicensed bandwidth. Called white space, these frequencies have for decades acted as buffers between analog television channels but thanks to February’s upcoming digital TV transition this bandwidth will become available for new and novel uses.
It will be very interesting to see what kinds of services and/or devices spring up thanks to the unlicensed nature of these frequencies. Perhaps the mobile phone providers will have to become more competitive once new White Spaces data services appear. Maybe the United States will finally become as innovative with its wireless services as Europe has traditionally been.
A bandwidth gold rush is on!