Broadband for Big Brother???

[Cliftonite]

Disturbed (but not surprised) to read this:

About 50 miles of the A14 between Birmingham and Felixstowe will have network sensors fitted that will send signals over white spaces between television channels, providing technology that could make government systems able to control car speeds and monitor traffic.

Source: http://www.onlincolnshire.org/news/national-broadb...

And The Gruniad

[SV8Predator]

theGuardian said:

The telecoms watchdog Ofcom, which on Wednesday approved the project as part of its new blueprint for how Britain will use Spectrum...

Is that Spectrum as in Captain Scarlett?

[marshalla]

SV8Predator said:

Is that Spectrum as in Captain Scarlett?

O O

[SteveSteveson]

More paranoia stuff...

theguardian said:

The technology, which sends signals over the white spaces between television channels instead of mobile phone networks, could even pave the way for government systems to automatically control car speeds.

In the same way that the transistor radio "could even pave the way" or GPS or any number of other things.

theguardian said:

"Sensors in cars and on the roads monitor the build-up of congestions and wirelessly send this information to a central traffic control system, which automatically imposes variable speed limits that smooth the flow of traffic," Ofcom said. "This system could also communicate directly with cars, directing them along diverted routes to avoid the congestion and even managing their speed."

They are throwing out vague ideas that might be possible to make it sound more exciting to the public. The main thing seems to just be a better way of implementing variable speed limits, which given how much people round here complain about them not changing fast enough must be a good thing.

[Athlon]

marshalla said:

O O