Make Me Care

Well, you already missed the auction highlighted on NPR over the past three months and featured in the time pressured Make Me Care segment where advocates get their chance at winning you over on news stories undifferentiated or squelched by mainstream news services. This past March, technology companies such as Google, Phillips, and Free Press bid over the FCC regulated electromagnetic spectrum that follows 58MHz - 698MHz TV channels 1-51 known commonly as "white space." Formerly these 700MHz and above air waves were the unused portion hoarded by major networks and overridden by your computer. These are the same range of radio waves that powers your 800.22 Mbps Wireless Internet Connection and your iPhone. Someone forgot to send you the memo! TV is going from analog, think of Ma Bell and telephone poles, to digital starting February 29, 2009! The FCC is mandating that all new TV's have a digital connection so that your old "rabbit ears" will now pick up a streaming TMZ video or two. Brit, Paris, Winehouse, and Whitney Houston in heavy cycle on your monitor, your PDA, and the old living room TV set. Now does that jolt you?