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Please take a moment to check out the Free The Airwaves effort and add your voice to the call to bring High Speed Internet to the rest of us. I remember high speed...I used to have it. Now I live in a rural area with 0% chance of getting it via the normal routes everyone else does...no cable option, no DSL or fiber optic cables coming my way anytime soon. My only option outside of dial-up at a blazing 28k, yes 28 k is what my dial up speed is up here, is satellite Internet at $80.00 a month with a less than 1mgbs top speed. That cost is in addition to the Satellite T.V. bill and the phone land-line because my cell phone does not work up here either.
While it is my choice to live in such a remote place where one would expect to do without some modern conveniences, the technology now exists to use the airwaves being abandoned by television broadcasters in February 2009 to bring broadband to rural homes like mine. Great! Except that the big telecommunications companies do not want to let go of OUR airwaves even though they have moved out of the space...as they spend millions trying to privatize the net and make net neutrality a thing of the past, you can imagine how this new idea of internet freedom for all strikes them. Please check out the efforts being made on behalf of all of us who do not have access to broadband Internet and help us out, won't you?
Why free the airwaves?
One of America's most valuable natural resources is our "white spaces" -- the radio airwaves, or spectrum, that have long carried analog TV signals. Three-fourths of the white spaces are completely unused today, and -- especially once TV is broadcast in digital only starting in 2009 -- could be used to kick-start a revolution in wireless technology, including universal wireless online access and numerous new products and services that can't even be imagined today.
This fall, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will decide whether to make this spectrum available for anyone to use. At Google, we think more open access to the white spaces is essential, not only for companies like ours, but for society in general. But this outcome is far from certain, so we've joined a broad coalition of public interest groups and industry peers who are working to convince the FCC to free the airwaves and unleash the next generation of Internet innovation. We hope you'll add your voice to the debate by signing our petition and helping spread the word about this campaign.
Peace Y'all
