See what I did there? With the colors? Ah, I thought it was clever. Am I typing this or just thinking it?
The FCC has approved a device, some kind of radio, from a company called KTS or Koos Technologies to operate on the so-called white spaces of frequency that exist between television stations. We’ve done shows about this before. There’s all this room between television signals on the broadcast spectrum that is just sitting there doing nothing. It was allotted to make sure there wasn’t TV interference but the signals are pretty focused. It’s like having one lane of traffic and then 50 feet of shoulder on the road. As more white space gets allotted by the FCC, we’ll see a new generation of devices and technologies able to operate because they’re able to transmit and receive. It’s like a big faster wi-fi signal since wi-fi still operates on a very narrow bit of spectrum. So: innovation explosion may be imminent. I’ll just keep saying it: SPECTRUM IS IMPORTANT.
There’s a lot happening in the world. Through it all, Marketplace is here for you.
You rely on Marketplace to break down the world’s events and tell you how it affects you in a fact-based, approachable way. We rely on your financial support to keep making that possible.
Your donation today powers the independent journalism that you rely on. For just $5/month, you can help sustain Marketplace so we can keep reporting on the things that matter to you.
