Whitespace Broadband and The Digital Nomad

I am a digital nomad. I was once- and maybe will be again- a ‘jet set nomad,’ but now I like to think of myself as a ‘suburban nomad.’ My working hours are split between the corporate mother ship and our home in suburban Austin. Lately my travel is no more than a 15 minute ‘commute’ from home to office three days a week. I spend the other two days in my home office/man cave with CNN running as ambient noise. Both locations have their obvious pros and cons: no water cooler gossip to slow me down at home, but I lack the human interaction I get at the office.

But what about the rural nomad? I’ve been reading a lot about whitespace broadband lately. It sounds promising for nomads who do not have an office 15 minutes away from their home. To explain whitespace in simple terms, when the FCC originally allocated broadcast frequencies, buffer zones were established between channels to prohibit signal degradation due to interference. With the move to digital TV broadcast standards, some of this space is no longer necessary to maintain signal integrity- a point currently under debate.

There are obstacles to overcome. Among them includes how to insure white space devices (WSDs) do not use frequencies already in use by broadcast TV stations. Broadcasters are quick to point out their customers located longer distances from the broadcast station will suffer from RF interference caused by WSDs using adjacent frequencies. A coalition of companies has been formed to work out standards to ensure WSDs do not interfere with broadcast signals.

The potential for broadband access in rural areas could bring a lot to the digital nomad landscape. Theoretically, people could connect at broadband speeds from locations miles away from urban centers. Will your whitespace-enabled Blackberry deliver your e-mail out on the farm? Can you Tweet from your netbook at the ski lodge? Will you need a 50-foot antenna for adequate signal strength?

There are many questions to be answered about the technology, but for now the most interesting part for me is watching the public debate.