The reporter, as with most of them, doesn’t know his buttocks from a warm rock.
Here’s the actual facts:
The FCC auctioned off a 62 Mhz-wide chunk of spectrum in the 700Mhz region recently, and generated over $20 billion in bids in aggregate, well above pre-auction estimates of how much wireless companies would bid for this post-UHF-TV use of the spectrum.
Now, sort of as a result (ie, the FCC smells money in that there ether!), the FCC is considering an auction of a 25-MHz wide chunk of the AWS-III band, which is 2155 to 2180Mhz, which would provide for wi-fi-like broadband, just in a slightly longer wavelength than the 2.4Ghz (2,400Mhz) band currently in use.
Now, for where the “free and family-friendly” nonsense comes in: there is a thoroughly dopey proposal out there in Congress, championed by Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-CA), Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) and Rep. Chris Cannon (R-UT) to made the carrier winning the bid on these AWS-III brand auction to provide free, “family friendly” wireless access, with a minimum level of service of 200kB/sec download speeds.
This, of course, represents a complete fantasy on the parts of the sponsors of this goofy bill.
Thank you for clearing it up. I had already seen this on Slashdot the other day and was looking for someone to fix all the miserable reporting errors.
Now, for where the “free and family-friendly” nonsense comes in: there is a thoroughly dopey proposal out there in Congress, championed by Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-CA), Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) and Rep. Chris Cannon (R-UT) to made the carrier winning the bid on these AWS-III brand auction to provide free, “family friendly” wireless access, with a minimum level of service of 200kB/sec download speeds.
This, of course, represents a complete fantasy on the parts of the sponsors of this goofy bill.
I don't think it's fantasy, and it's not without precedent. Network television is subject to decency regulations for what goes over their public airwaves, and having an advertiser-supported public digital network is a fairly similar circumstance. Also, owning that spectrum means big $$$ with zero content investment, so decency hurdles, especially since they will probably be web-only and the tech is pretty well-established, are probably barely a factor for whoever wins.