The idea of broadcasting Wi-Fi in the same manner as broadcasting television and radio has intrigued engineers and innovators since at least the turn of the 21st century. However, in recent years this tantalizing theory has become a reality. In July of 2011 the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Standards Association (IEEE-SA) finalized the 802.22 wireless regional area network (WRAN) standard. WRAN, also referred to as “Super-Wifi”, is a technology that takes advantage of VHF and UHF frequencies to transmit broadband wireless Internet over a 60-mile diameter. This technology utilizes the space between UHF and VHF channels known as white space. After the adoption of the 802.22 standard, testing by Google and Microsoft began (Anthony). Over the last couple of years’ universities, such as Rice University in Houston, TX have been doing their own testing. To this point, the technology hasn’t taken off. As it turns out, it is quite difficult for the Wi-Fi broadcast equipment to stay within the white space of neighboring television broadcast stations. In 2014, lead Rice researcher, Edward Knightly with the help of graduate student, Xu Zhang successfully designed and implemented a new solution which allows for the transmission of wireless data over UHF channels while TV broadcasts are taking place on those same channels. This new technology is known as WATCH (Wi-Fi in Active TV Channels). The FCC granted permission for local testing at the Rice campus in 2014. The basic idea behind the creation of this system was to have the equipment determine when a UHF channel was being accessed by a smart TV. Once the smart TV tunes to a UHF station, the Wi-Fi system shifts its data transmission to an unused frequency on the UHF spectrum (Mack). Of course, for this to work the smart TV had to be modified with this new technology and programming. The idea is that smart TV’s produced in the future would already have the WATCH features installed.
The question, then, is why not get local broadcasting stations involved. Local broadcasting radio and television stations in each market own and operate in accordance with the FCC in the frequency band allocated to them. Each station is already transmitting a signal from a high elevated level, such as short tower on top of a mountain or an extremely tall tower on a lower elevation. The tower is in place, the transmission lines are there, and the technical knowledge and “know how” in broadcasting electromagnetic waves over a region is present. Since local stations have the spectrum license in hand and engineers on staff to implement and maintain this equipment, why not work through them to install the hardware necessary to broadcast wireless Internet (Mack)? An exhaustive online search, up to the time of this research, has not uncovered any evidence that local stations are considering this possibly lifesaving venture. The broadcast industry should act immediately before other brilliant minds, like Knightly and Zhang, discover less costly and re-inventive methods of working around current TV spectrum licensee’s. Every card that broadcasters lose to other entities and industries equals a possible money saving venture left on the table. Strictly speaking, commercial broadcasters are particularly well suited at finding ways to monetize their services and could certainly find ways to make this a mutually profitable service for both consumer and broadcaster.
Broadcast stations live and die by Ad dollars. Without advertisers, the bills simply will not be paid. Another major hurdle, besides deciding Wi-Fi broadcasting is a good idea, will be for local stations to find ways to monetize wireless Internet. One simple method is to include advertiser ads and videos on the initial login screen. Some may remember that back in the dial-up Internet days, there were free internet service providers (ISP’s), such as NetZero. These services had local dial-up access numbers available in most markets. They quickly outpacing pay services such as AOL and Prodigy Internet by offering free connectivity. “How did they do this”, you ask? Very simply, the advertisers paid for it. NetZero’s business model was to attract an audience with free Internet access and then use real-time URL targeted advertising to bring in that coveted ad dollar. Each time you opened your NetZero dial-up application, advertisers showed up on the permanent banner bar in your browser. Even the dial-up application was smattered with advertisements. This didn’t faze many customers, as the business grew to 1,000,000 registered accounts within the first 6 months of the services existence (“Mobile Broadband”). One year later, in 1999, other ISP’s such as Juno, Yahoo!, and AltaVista got in on the act and began their own free, advertisement based, dial-up service. Perhaps broadcasters should look to the past to find ways to monetize a service they are acutely tuned to provide. Working in local television, we would often joke that our sales department would sell ad space on our news anchors foreheads if they thought they could make a buck. Finding a way to make money from the distribution of free Wi-Fi would likely prove to be very simple in a commercial driven world such as the broadcast industry.
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