If you live in a rural area, your only real options for Internet service besides dialup are satellite and if you’re lucky, 3G mobile Internet. Both of these have a multitude of negatives associated with them whether it be low data caps, terrible latency, or cost. There is a new technology on the horizon, however, called WhiteSpace broadband.

The name White Space comes from the location of the frequencies that are being used. The frequencies come from the unused white spaces in the 54-698 MHz spectrum (TV Channels 2-51). Because of the frequencies being dispersed in between those that are currently in use by over the air television channels and devices such as wireless audio systems, there was much controversy over the use of them. White Space transmitting devices have the potential to interfere with those other technologies.

The FCC ruled in 2008 to allow the unlicensed use of white space technologies, and included some very strict rules for its use -- including constant monitoring for legacy devices, such as wireless microphones that could be in the area, and yield to said devices. However, in 2010, the FCC revised its decision by removing the strict monitoring requirements, but it also made the ruling that the devices could not be used locally as a Wi-Fi technology.

That decision really was a shame as Microsoft had been testing a white space utilizing wireless access point, and it only took one to cover their entire campus, presumably achieving close to the 400-800 Mbps theoretical rate for local networking. This is also the reason if you search for white spaces, you’ll often see articles from years ago claiming this as "Super Wi-Fi." While you won’t be seeing so-called "Super Wi-Fi" anytime soon, you might begin to see mobile ISPs pop up that don’t completely suck, at least compared to many satellite and wireless carriers.

With fewer barriers to entry than a wireless company and better performance than traditional mobile ISPs, people in underserved areas could finally begin to see some decent broadband. In trials, a UK company was able to deliver 16 Mbps over a distance of 10KM, with presumably more distance at the cost of a little throughput. This is fantastic news as not only is it on par with current 4G but you could opt to purchase service from a local company that treats you like a person and not a cog in an infinitely hungry corporate machine.

There might also be more competition locally, but I’m not sure on the specifics of overlapping service areas. It might be that interference issues only allow one person or entity to use the frequencies in each specific service area. That opens a whole other can of worms though with the decision of who actually gets to use those frequencies in a specific area. Municipal mobile ISP anyone? I can dream.

This new technology also raises the question "Can this possibly be used as a replacement for traditional cell service?" Of course, this technology will probably never attain the coverage of the massive wireless carriers, but if it becomes ubiquitous enough and there is some sort of agreement between each mobile ISP that allows roaming on each other’s coverage area, it could work well enough. Any non-coverage areas could be solved with a dual SIM phone and a cheap wireless plan or even a cheap prepaid plan.