Microsoft Wants to Rule the White Spaces (technologyreview.com)

I think technologies like this are going to really take off in the medium/long term. The ability of modern radio technologies to mitigate/minimize interference is at the point where regulatory spectrum management is no longer necessary, except perhaps from a high level, general rule of "don't be an asshole".

Once legacy equipment starts to fall off (boundless optimism here), we will be looking at some very exciting technologies that can possibly have multi kilometer ranges, huge bandwidth and purchasable/deployable by anyone.

This could be the final blow to the last mile that major ISPs in america have a stranglehold on.