Thanks to Teresa Kittridge for the heads up on a recent Daily Yonder article on plans for wireless broadband in rural college towns. There’s a group called Advanced Internet Regions (AIR.U), a consortium of over 500 higher learning institutions and tech industry partners like Google and Microsoft, that plans to bring wireless broadband to rural college communities over the unused spectrum between licensed television stations (white space).
According to the National Journal…
Rural communities are seen as ideal for the use of white spaces for wireless broadband Internet connectivity, often called Super Wi-Fi, because they tend to have fewer licensed TV stations, and therefore more vacant spectrum in the white spaces. Further, the low frequency range of Super Wi-Fi means that a single base station can cover a radius of about 6 miles with high-speed broadband, according to Apurva Mody, Chair of the White Space Alliance.
They are expecting to deploy the first networks in early 2013. I think this is great news for college towns; but with a radius of 6 miles, I don’t know that it will get to the unserved area that are in that limbo between towns.
