UHF Channel 55

[Rmp5s]

I know that relatively recently, the FCC put this band up for auction since it was open after the shift to digital TV. I heard that Google was trying to buy it to turn it into a nationwide (free I think...???) wireless internet provider.

I just saw a commercial for FloTV. After a bit of research, I find that it uses this band to broadcast tv programming.

A) Isn't this what we used to get for free with those little antenna'd tvs for free?

B) How didn't Google get it? I know they were ready to put up the 4.6B dollars for it but, from what I read, agreements couldn't be met regarding who could use it. Google wanted everyone to be able to use it.

C) Who DID get it?

Does anyone know what happened with this? As of right now, it looks like capitalism at its finest: Google wanted to buy something to offer something for free/cheap and money grubbers didn't want that to happen...

[Lennox]

That would be epic for a free internet provider, but I imaging it would be at least 50 times slower than 3G on Verizon. There would probably be so much clogging and people could use it as a proxy to torrent.

[Rmp5s]

That was my first thought..."man...how slow would that be?" But:

A) It's Google...they'd make it work...

B) A NATIONWIDE, FREE (or cheap) network to check email on or whatever real fast would be epic...

I just wonder what happened? I was really looking forward to what would happen with it when I heard what Google was trying to do with it all. Then I heard nothing for 3 or 4 mo, then I find out that this company is running on it...I wanna know what happened!!! lol

But, as far as speeds go...who knows? I didn't even know wifi over uhf was possible until I read that article. However, even if it isn't horribly fast, it could make up for it with the very well established, reliable network that already exists.

True true though, man...that would be epic as hell...how cool would that be?

[sniperviper21]

B) A NATIONWIDE, FREE (or cheap) network to check email on or whatever real fast would be epic..

its called 5$ a month dial up.