There’s been a lot of talk lately about connecting rural communities across North Carolina to reliable, high speed internet service. There are any number of benefits, including increasing access to education, economic opportunity, and telemedicine. But it’s also expensive to run broadband connections to rural areas where there just aren’t large concentrations of homes or businesses.
Lots of discussion has centered around government solutions to the problem, but Microsoft is the latest to suggest a different plan. Microsoft excels at innovation, at figuring out creative ways to apply technology to create solutions. And that’s what they’re doing here, suggesting a method for using unused airwaves between broadcast stations to provide high speed internet without costly cable.
I don’t understand how the technology would work, but this seems like it’s got a lot of potential. Microsoft is offering to share the technology with other companies, so it doesn’t sound like they’re expecting to make a fortune from this. I expect their solution will be affordable and reliable. And all of it without any need for government involvement beyond lifting some regulations. That’s a win for everyone.
