Old television frequencies should be used to create new bandwidths for a super-frequency WiFi to prevent overloading of the mobile networks and boost the economy, instead of being auctioned off to the highest bidder, say German scientists.
Old television frequencies are sold off by governments due to the change over from analogue to digital broadcasting, often to whoever is prepared to pay the most for them. They should instead be used to create a new range of free Wi-Fi, say scientists from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) in Germany.
Transmitting WiFi over old TV frequencies would cover a far wider area than traditional WiFi because they use much lower frequencies. Current WiFi is transmitted over local area networks (WLAN) at about 2GHz and therefore has a limited range.
And instead of auctioning them off, mostly to mobile phone networks, governments could use them for free WiFi networks, rendering pricey mobile phone services such as 4G obsolete.