Leslie Ellis

[Commentary] About 200 Megahertz of spectrum exists for Wi-Fi transmissions, including the extra 100 MHz in the 5-Gigahertz band granted by the Federal Communications Commission in March. Right now, that spectral slice is carrying 50% to 60% of the Internet’s traffic. Mobile carriers, by contrast, maneuver their traffic over some 600 MHz of spectrum -- licensed spectrum, which means they paid for it. (Dearly.) Some 2% to 3% of the Internet’s traffic moves within that slice. The concern is that LTE traffic will deliberately dump into the unlicensed territories, offloading giant blobs of traffic that can’t see or hear what’s already there -- such as anything moving over Wi-Fi. Is this a real problem? Not yet. Could it be? Definitely.

The people of broadcast television make their way to Las Vegas for the annual gathering of the National Association of Broadcasters.

For broadcasters in particular, it’s a weird time to be in television. The word itself -- television -- is equal parts strongly nostalgic and tele-vestigial.

We took a quick poll of our favorite go-to broadcast-side technologists recently to find out what’s on their shopping lists for the 2014 NAB show. Not surprisingly, 4K video and its consumer-facing brand, UltraHD, will be the main event -- but not all technologists are convinced it’s a go.

“I want to see if live-TV production gear, like big production switchers, has made any progress -- we’re building a big new production facility, but so far it’s only being outfitted for HD,” said one network-side technologist.