As someone who spends considerable time travelling, the prospect of free citywide WiFi always sounds appealing. I’m not the only person to feel this way; I remember when Google announced the San Francisco WiFi blanket a number of my California-based colleagues entered a near ecstatic emotional state. I can’t describe their response when the plans were eventually shelved. Let’s just say it involved tears and lots of hugging.

However, recent announcements by the FCC have once again given hope to the prospect of WiFi blankets in both urban and rural environments. Although no commitment has been made and the FCC is continuing to investigate, it appears that the final barriers to using white space could soon be lifted. If successful, the impact on the country’s broadband access could be significant.

There have already been success stories for rural communities that have been given access to this white space. For example, Claudville, Virginia, a small town of approximately 1,000 people has been able to move away from its dial-up service thanks to the implementation of a white-space network. When combined with an effective backhaul network, the implications for Claudville will be significant and could include access to e-health services, distance learning programs and other bandwidth-intensive applications.

The campaign to use white space to increase the level of broadband access is drawing considerable support from some IT heavyweights, including Google, Microsoft and HP. These companies want to use the white space because it offers stronger WiFi connections than currently available, enabling signals to be transmitted across greater distances and through obstacles such as buildings.

However, hurdles still remain and the FCC will need to lobby further to ensure that the white space is made available. In the meantime, I’m encouraging my colleagues in San Francisco to remain close to a fixed-broadband connection, at least for the next few months.

Do you have any opinions on the white space rollout? Have you seen this approach used successfully in other countries? If so, I’d be interested to hear from you.