when marconi invented the radio all the way back in the 1890s i doubt that he
foresaw just how much stuff would be flying through the airwaves less than a
century and a half later i mean it's gotten to the point where there are more
wi-fi networks operating in the average apartment building then there are fm
radio stations to listen to in a given area
so it shouldn't be surprising then that recently the united states fcc decided
to open up the six gigahertz band for
use which frees up another 1200
megahertz wide chunk of the spectrum to enable higher speeds and relieve some of
that congestion and the kicker is that they want to approve unlicensed and free
use of that band but here's the thing as
it turns out the six gigahertz band hasn't been just
lying around waiting for just anyone to come along and use it large cell phone
carriers in the us actually use six gigahertz for backhaul which is
communication between points in their own system rather than directly to
consumers and water and power utilities
across the country have said that they also use six gigahertz for their own
operations and they don't want a bunch of new traffic coming along and mucking
it up however this opposition to the plan from
utilities and cell providers is being met on the other side by an assortment
of very strange bedfellows including everyone from google to hp to broadcom
who's known for manufacturing networking chips so then what's in it for those
guys well the cell industry wants the fcc to
auction off slices of the six gigahertz
band so that they can bid on them and reserve them for their own use
so then by comparison obviously all of these tech companies
would much rather be able to use this piece of spectrum for their own gadgets
without having to bid against heavy hitters like verizon and at t
you see many of these companies envision being able to use the space to enable
high-speed but short-range communications for
things like wireless virtual reality smart vehicle features in your car
faster phone tethering or casting 4k video to your tv
that all sounds pretty awesome so the thing is because higher frequencies can
carry more data but have shorter range as we explained in this video
six gigahertz has a lot of potential not just for that stuff but also for
providing current and future iot devices
within the same room with the bandwidth that they need
but would it play nicely with the six
gigahertz signals that the cellular industry is oh so worried about well
although there is a proposed scheme called automated frequency coordination
or afc that could automatically determine if there's a conflicting
frequency in the area and make the necessary adjustments
it would involve having to put wireless products in a database
which would be a pain so instead tech companies want to simply
keep complicated licensing and database requirements out of the picture entirely
and instead just ensure that their devices just don't use a whole lot of
power the nice thing here is that many devices
like smartphones for example already operate well below what's considered
normal power levels according to the wi-fi spec which should keep similarly
designed future devices from interfering with any existing six gigahertz networks
so which side is going to win out and what does this mean for you the consumer
well right now the fcc hasn't given any kind of indication that it'll back off
its plans to open up the six gigahertz band and if they proceed as expected
devices that could provide you with one or even two gigabits of throughput per
second could hit the market sooner rather than later meaning you might not
have to wait terribly long for that smart fridge to become actually useful
4k uh transmission to your smart fridge right
no well you know what i'm right about the mass drop and sennheiser collaboration
of the hd6xx openback headphones that
are sponsoring this video they've sold over 70 000 of these things and they're
an all-time bestseller on drop.com they've got the same great sound as the
hd650s meaning balanced mid-range natural sounding bass and all that good
stuff and with a couple of updates so it's got a 1 8 inch plug for everyday
use and comes with a quarter inch adapter for professional users it
features a sennheiser warranty and new users who sign up on the website that's
drop.com we'll have it linked below we'll get 20 off so thanks for watching
guys check out our other videos leave a comment if you have a suggestion for a
future fast as possible video and don't forget to subscribe