Freeing the Airwaves

Another momentous decision was made on Tuesday, November 4, 2008 besides the overwhelming election of Barack Obama as our 44th President.  The Federal Communications Commission met and in a unanimous 5-0 decision, freed our airwaves.

I am not ashamed to admit I fall somewhere in the middle between "techie" and "non-techie."  Perhaps I'm even a touch above the average consumer in computer literacy, however it is that might be measured.  But, I am a total fan of all things Google, and when they asked for support to "Free the Airwaves" a few months ago, I gave it a hard look, then added my name to the petition.

In a nutshell, "Free the Airwaves" was a campaign Google, in cooperation with others, devised to solicit support of a favorable ruling from the FCC to open up the spectrum of unused airwaves known as "white spaces" for wireless broadband service for public use.  Up until now, broadcast TV channels used up some of the airwaves, but the airwaves spaces in-between channels - "white spaces" - were blocked for anybody else to use.  Here's an article from Google about it with the full history and explanation.   This story has been six years in the making, and for obvious reasons, the broadcasting industry was strongly against it.

Much more work has to be done now that the decision is final.  I'll be watching, and looking forward to the synergy created to further improve my fair-to-middlin' techie life.  I may not understand all of this airwaves business, but I get the gist of it - very similar to how I'm not completely sure how the refrigerator keeps food cold; I just know it does, so I use it.