Standards set for 'white space Internet' that should aid rural access, though not as quickly as hoped

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers has completed work on technical standards for ‘white space Internet’ frequencies once used by analog television. "With a much greater range but significantly reduced speed, the most likely application of the new standard is to provide coverage for rural and remote areas that have so far had considerable difficulty accessing the Internet," James Lee Phillips of International Business Times reports.

Phillips writes that the hopes for "super wi-fi," as Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski raved about it two years ago, are now "much more cautious. The new white-space Internet standards look to be extremely slow by existing standards, and the first generation or two of devices are likely to be expensive and limited, at least for the time being." (Read more)