Policy by the Numbers: December 2013

Policy by the Numbers

Data for policymaking from Google and friends.

White Spaces and Rural College Towns: the Beginning of a Beautiful Friendship

Monday, December 2, 2013

Michael Calabrese is Director of the Wireless Future Project at New America Foundation. Blair Levin is Executive Director of Gig.UFederal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler began his tenure by correctly noting, "Unlicensed spectrum has been and must continue to be the catalyst for innovation." With wireless traffic projected to increase 87 times in five years, we will increasingly depend on unlicensed spectrum to grow the mobile economy. Not only does unlicensed contain greater capacity—the capacity of Wi-Fi networks is 28 times greater than that of 3G and 4G networks—unlicensed enables huge savings. Wi-Fi off-load, projected to soon carry 60-80% of the traffic, will enable over 200 billion euros in annual savings for carriers in Europe alone.One promising area for unlicensed services is unused television channels, known as "White Spaces." White Spaces development, however, has been hampered by a chicken and egg problem. Without clarity about demand, manufacturers won't devote the resources necessary to lower equipment costs; without costs coming down, demand will not be sufficient.Several years ago we joined forces—Michael as an advocate for allocating White Spaces for unlicensed use, Blair from the direction of providing the high bandwidth networks rural college towns need and often don’t have—to create AIR.U, a project dedicated to using White Spaces to accelerate the deployment of next generation broadband networks in rural areas. AIR.U is a collaboration with the Declaration Networks Group and various Higher Education Groups, including the United Negro College Fund, the New England Board of Higher Education, the Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California, the National Institute for Technology in Liberal Education, and Gig.U, as well as Google, Microsoft and the Appalachian Regional Commission.AIR.U network deploymentNow it's time for another step forward. Last month, Declaration Networks Group announced a "Quick Start" Network Program tailored for Higher Education communities to evaluate, design, and deploy high capacity broadband networks leveraging White Spaces. The program includes an assessment of expansion approaches and a sustainable path to increase the coverage and capacity of high-speed wireless connectivity to the community. The program is offered exclusively to the AIR.U institutions. It includes a network with a base configuration supporting multiple Wi-Fi hotspots, and a user group for AIR.U Quick Start participants to collaborate in developing White Space technology, establish best practices, and share approaches for community expansion activities. We believe this partnership between rural college communities and white spaces networks is the beginning of beautiful friendship, catalyzing more extensive deployments, and accelerating economic and educational development throughout the United States.

Google

Labels

2012
Algorithms
Analytics
Announcement
Art
Broadband
Build Economy
Cable
Case Study
Censorship
Cities
Civics
Cloud Services
Community
Competition
Connectivity
Content Creators
Copia Institute
Copyright
Courts
Create Jobs
Creativity
Cultural Exchange
Culture
Dalberg
Data
Data Localization
Data Science
Data Visualization
DataKind
Datastore
Debate
Digital Divide
Disabilities
Discovery
Discussion
Documents
Droids
Economics
Education
EFF
Elections
Employment
Encryption
English
Entrepreneurship
Ethnography
European Union
Evaluation
Event
Explore Future
Family
Fiber
Finance
Food
Foreign Aid
Free Expression
Future of Music
Global Development
GOOD Magazine
Google
Government
Government 2.0
Government Surveillance
Guardian
Hangouts on Air
Healthcare
Highlights
Housing
Hunger
Improve Lives
Inclusion
India
Innovation
Interconnection
Intermediary Liability
Internet access
Internet of Things
ISPs
Language
Lawful Access
Linguistics
M-Lab
Maps
Methodology
Mobile
Municipalities
Music
Net Neutrality
Network
News
OECD
Open Data
Oxera
Oxford Internet Institute
Policy by the Numbers
Policy Fellowship
Policymaking
Political Campaigns
Politics
Privacy
Public Data
Publishing
Research
RIAA
RNIB
Robots
San Francisco
Science
Section 215
Security
Small Business
Social good
Social Media
Society
Space Exploration
Spectrum
sports
Start-ups
States
statistics
Study
Suicide prevention
Surveillance Reform
Telecom
Theory
Traffic
Transparency
Transparency Report
Transportation
UK
Urban Innovation
Video
Vision impairment
Weekly Roundup
World Bank
Writing
Youth
Zero1

Feed

Disclaimer

The authors of these posts include Googlers and guest bloggers. Opinions expressed here do not necessarily represent Google’s views. We hope the numbers presented will inspire meaningful conversations and inform policy debates.

Company-wide

Public Policy Blog
Research Blog
Student Blog

Products

Official Android Blog
Chrome Blog
Lat Long Blog

Developers

Developers Blog
Ads Developer Blog
Android Developers Blog

Google
Privacy
Terms