sometimes its hard to remind ourselves that there was a time before "wifi"

but there was, not too long ago. we had the wifi band, of course, a fairly useless band of signal reserved for garage door openers and microwaves.

that's right... its the same signal. the funny thing about it is that it sucks. really. it heats water well, but it doesn't travel far, it gets interrupted easily, and it's slow. wifi can go through two walls, and then it stops. no wonder you have trouble getting that signal from two houses over, eh?

of course, we're working on better ways of using the same lame signal band: going from B to G to N hasn't hurt us any... but it's no big achievement either.

Wouldn't it be nice if we had a way for clear, clean, fast, dependable signal everywhere at anytime? Think of the possiblities: schools and educational institutions in even the most remote or poorest areas could have access to the information available by the internet as well as secure, reliable connection to thousands of other institutions and academia. Emergency response, police, rescue teams... all would have constant access to the information and people they need to reach.

Don't big brother me either, there would still be the freedom to turn your wireless device off and trek the Sierra Nevadas on your own, but should you need it, the possiblity to turn your (gps, phone, laptop, safety device) back on and call for help would be possible.

And even if you don't buy all that, wouldn't it at least be nice to not have to go crawling under your computer table one more time to figure out why on earth you can't get wireless signal through those three walls to the porch so you can check your email without moving?

Well, there is a way of course, and its really dumb that we're not using it yet.

It's called white space - and its the unused spectrum between the channels of your tv.

Read more here and feel smarter instantly.