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"Looking for public Wi-Fi in your town or city? The hunt may be about to get easier: the Federal Communications Commission is reportedly considering the development of free and public \"super Wi-Fi\" networks across the United States.\nThe proposal, first reported by The Washington Post, would require local television stations and broadcasters to sell wireless spectrum \u2014 the so-called \"white spaces\" \u2014 to the government. The government would then use that spectrum to build public Wi-Fi networks. \nThe public networks would be much stronger than average by virtue of the spectrum used to build them \u2014their signal would hypothetically travel for long distances and penetrate thick walls and other objects.\nUpdate: The government is not building national Wi-Fi networks. Mashable regrets the error.\n\nSEE ALSO: How Does Wi-Fi Work?\n\nThe plan has immense disruptive potential: If successful, it could cause many people to cancel their cellular and Internet plans in favor of connecting to the Internet via the free public Wi-Fi networks. The idea has thus driven a wedge between telecom providers and the world's biggest technology companies.\nMany of the major cell phone carriers, including AT&amp;T, Verizon, T-Mobile and Qualcomm, are reportedly lobbying hard against the proposal. Their argument? The FCC should auction the spectrum to businesses instead of forcing its sale to the government. Some of those companies are also claiming the hypothetical network might cause interference with local broadcasts.\nGoogle and Microsoft, meanwhile, have partnered up in a rare move to support the public Wi-Fi networks. They argue that national Wi-Fi networks would spark a wave of gadgetry innovation. Both companies also manufacture myriad devices or platforms which would benefit from massive public Wi-Fi networks, from Google's Android operating system to Microsoft's Windows Phone and Xbox gaming consoles.\nFCC chairman Julius Genachowski has come down in favor of Google and Microsoft's argument.\n\"Freeing up unlicensed spectrum is a vibrantly free-market approach that offers low barriers to entry to innovators developing the technologies of the future and benefits consumers,\" said Genachow\u00ADski in a statement e-mailed to The Washington Post.\nAn FCC spokesperson told Mashable that the theoretical public Wi-Fi network is only one part of the Commission's plans to develop mobile broadband infrastructure. \n\"The FCC\u2019s incentive auction proposal, launched in September of last year, would unleash substantial spectrum for licensed uses like 4G LTE,\" an FCC spokesperson told Mashable. \"It would also free up unlicensed spectrum for uses including, but not limited to, next generation Wi-Fi. As the demand for mobile broadband continues to grow rapidly, we need to free up significant amounts of spectrum for commercial use, and both licensed and unlicensed spectrum must be part of the solution.\"\nThe plan could also serve as a boon to underserved communities, members of whom often use smartphones as their on-ramp to the Internet.\nThe five-member FCC panel has yet to vote on the proposal.\nShould the government provide massive free Wi-Fi networks? Share your thoughts in the comments.\nPhoto via iStockphoto, kaisersosa67"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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