Watch your toes. I'm about to drop some knowledge.

Why should you care about the 700 MHz auction? What, you don’t trust me that it’s cool? You want a reason? Well Ok. Do you like cell phones and broadband internet connections? I’m being silly, who doesn’t?

Well the 700 MHz auction is being billed as the possibility to deliver a “3rd pipe” of broadband internet access to consumers. The first two pipes are cable modems and DSL. The cool thing about the “third pipe” is that it wireless. Meaning that if you live out in the boondocks you don’t have to wait until a cable or phone company decides to make service available at your house. The coverage of the “3rd pipe” is supposedly going to be pretty complete; meaning only the most rural of the rural should be outside of its range.

So if there is this new wireless broadband connection, imagine what that can mean for your cell phone… really good coverage and really fast data transfers. The promise of mobile internet will finally be realized in full. Imagine what it means for all the wonderful devices you want to connect to your cell phone… you won’t have hunt for WiFi hotspots because the whole country is a hotspot (if you have service some whoever the 3rd pipe provider is.) So that’s what it means to you, the possibility of better coverage and faster internet access.

A Bit of History
Where does this wondrous 700 MHz range come from and why haven’t we exploited it before? Have you heard about all the hubbub of network television stations having to switch over to digital broadcasts? If you’re a cable or dish TV subscriber it really won’t affect you, but if you get your TV the old fashion way, over the air with an antenna (hopefully with some artfully placed coat-hangers to augment it) then it might be a big deal. Basically the government is forcing all television stations to switch over to digital broadcasts, which will mean you’ll need a digital tuner to pick up the station. If you’re using an antenna to pick up your TV you probably don’t have a digital tuner built into your television. That means you’ll need to get a digital tuner to pick up over-the-air broadcasts before February 17th 2009, that’s the deadline for the transition.

So the magical 700 MHz range comes from reclaiming the old analog television broadcast range. The government gets to turn around and re-lease the frequency range to another industry. It is expect that the government should raise ~10 billion auctioning off.

Tomorrow, technical details and political intrigue!