Digital TV is here, what's on the airwaves at 700MHz tonight?

You may remember when digital TV was going to take over analog TV signals years ago and the government kept pushing the deadline back. Well, there's no turning back now, as television providers have finally locked into the new frequencies of digital transmission.

The question this leaves is what exactly will the left over 700MHz block of frequencies give us? Cliff Kuang of Wired Magazine reports that it might be the solution to what was supposed to be the wireless internet revolution. "The airwaves will instead be paved with a new generation of wireless broadband. Some of these so-called 4G networks will use the 700-MHz spectrum that the government auctioned off last year, and they promise to blanket every medium to large city in Net-ready radio waves."

This is all well and good, but there's an additional sense of skepticism that the band will actually be used for that purpose. 802.11a/b/g have become such a household standard for laptops and devices that it's hard to imagine the industry reinventing itself to use a new wireless protocol.

There has been some good news on this however. Many newer laptops come with SIM cards to access cell carrier digital networks wirelessly via traditional cellphone towers. I haven't heard great things about the bandwidth, but it's wireless! Also, companies are starting to release mobile wifi routers with cell carrier technologies embedded. Just after years ago we suggested it was a good idea.

The industry is unpredictable at this point. Let's hope that Google and Verizon don't have to duke it out for who has the best interpretation of what to do with our newfound, cuddly 700MHz spectrum.