Broadband over TV spectrum would dramatically alter Internet access

This is the biggest broadband development of the year so far: the potential of using frequencies in the television broadcast spectrum to carry broadband two years from now.

As Eric Bangeman of Ars Technica writes, should tests of the technology being pursued by Microsoft, Intel, Dell and Google succeed, the broadband landscape would be dramatically altered when it comes on the market in early 2009.

"Wireless networks using the spectrum should be relatively easy to deploy, and would provide residents of rural areas easy access to broadband while giving everyone else a third alternative to DSL and cable," Bangeman writes.