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FCC Behind On 3G Wireless Network
dinosaur writes "This Week
The US Federal Communications Commission failed to meet a deadline schedule proposed in October by President Clinton on the rules for identifying additional airwaves for the deployment of third-generation high-speed wireless services. Mark Rubin, FCC Wireless Bureau spokesman, said the proposed rules should be released this week. The FCC expects a final report and interim studies on the third-generation airwaves by March 1, 2001. The New York Times has a story on it (lamerator reg required) while NewsBytes hs another summary without the registration required."
The protocol for 3G wireless devices is SIP (Session Initiation Protocol). 3G Wireless promises 2Mbps transfer rates which is well enough for live 2-way video feeds.
A few months ago I heard Reed Hundt (FCC chairman from 93-97) give a talk, and a lot of it focused on 3g wireless and ATV (HDTV) spectrum. The real problem here is he made a big mistake in granting the ATV spectrum, and for free no less, with very little incentive for the conventional TV stations to vacate their old spectrum until AT LEAST 2006. This is part of why the FCC refuses to create "open access" laws for cable, or why they refuse to regulate content on HDTV. They now realize it is better to not regulate until the technology develops.
This spectrum is ideal for reaching indoors and as such is extremely valuable, however the push to get ATV was stronger than 3G wireless, and that's how it went.
The problem with the FCC is that they have to make decisions long before they know if the technology is viable - long before the industry has done market surveys, long before the technology has been invented. True, the FCC makes a lot of decisions based on deep pockets and power, but they really are trying to fulfill the "public interest, convenience and necessity" in their spectrum allocation.
Think back to the 70's. Computers were only in a few research institutions. You wanted to develop a numbering system and hierarchy that would be simultaneously sufficient and not wasteful. So Here is the birth of 32 bit addressing. 30 years later we realize it isn't so easy to switch over to 128bit while maintaining the 32 bit infrastrucure (I know I'm simplifying the problem a bit, but the idea is the same). These geniuses 30 years ago came up with a great system, but they had no idea what would happen in the next 30 years.
The FCC dug a hole for themselves in the past 5-15 years with spectrum allocation. Add to that the fact that FCC chairmen and commissioners last usually 4 years, and then a whole new breed come in and mess things up again. And add that the commissioners are lawyers, not engineers. And they need to be both.
It sucks that the FCC messed up with the whole ATV thing, and I'm sure whoever Bush appoints will take care of the problem for better or for worse, but they are trying their hardest not to make the same mistakes they have in the past.
-Alison
What's that? You don't care about the DSL woes because your T1/T3 is doing just fine? Then maybe you should think about how the baby bells are keeping their prices high while other ISPs are offering $900 to $2500 per month for a T1. However, you still have to go through a baby bell to get the T1/T3 line.
I'll put it this way: if the baby bells can't give a soccer mom a decent Internet connection without fouling up somewhere, then why trust them with a high-speed, high-cost connection to your servers?
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
Without the pesky registration can be found here
Think outside the... Hey, where'd the friggin' box go?
A big problem for 3G in the US is the difficulty in getting rid of bandwidth-wasteful analog TV, especially in the UHF band. For instance, see this article.
It is my opinion that the FCC should auction ALL bandwidth in a "dark fiber" mode with no restrictions on modulation or protocol, as long as you stay within your band. For the more progressive minded, perhaps the FCC should only auction rental bandwidth, with a new auction every 1-5 years.
Blow me away with Offtopic mod points, I don't care! I'm so happy I pulled this shit off (with a router and everything-- schweet!)
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
They will avoid 2.4 GHz, not because of the resonant frequency of water (Which it is NOT, check this link). When the frequency was chosen for microwave ovens, they chose 2.45 GHz because they knew that it would interfere with other forms of communication, and they wanted to keep the interferers all in one (relatively unused at the time) place. Enough RF at virtually any frequency will heat things.
Man, I'm a moderator right now, and I was sooo tempted to mod you down for being so far off base. However, I figured replying instead, to straighten things out, would be the more mature thing to do. So here goes:
When 2450MHz was selected in the 70's for microwave ovens, it was because it was a frequency that made water molecules vibrate really well. It's this vibration that causes them to heat up, which heats up the whole product. This is precisely why microwave ovens take a LONG time to heat items with very little water (puff pastry by itself, for example). It had nothing to do with interfering with things. True, early microwave ovens leaked quite a bit of RF, but nothing else transmitted at or immediately around 2450MHz, so it didn't matter whether or not they spewed RF because there was nothing else being broadcast at that frequency for them to interfere with.
For example, here's a choice snippet from the very link you quote:
Waves of that frequency penetrate well into foods of reasonable size so that the heating is relatively uniform throughout the foods. Since leakage from these ovens makes the radio spectrum near 2.45 GHz unusable for communications, the frequency was chosen in part because it would not interfere with existing communication systems.
2450MHz wasn't in use, and it worked well, so they chose it. Period.
End of lecture, class.
--
The point I was trying to make was that there is nothing magic about 2.4 GHz. RF works pretty well at heating things at many different frequencies. The article I did point to mentioned that 2.4 GHz is far below any resonance for water- the first resonance of water (vapor) is at about 22 GHz. There are industrial RF heating ovens that use 900 MHz. If you want to avoid RF heating of your head, you have to keep virtually any device that generates RF away from it. On the other hand, these devices are very limited in power, so the actual heating that they do is minimal.
I did a bit of research on the damage that RF can do to living tissue, and the only verifiable damaging effect is localized heating, and that is a factor of average power that hits the tissue. (I was working with a high peak power radar at the time, and very concerned.)
There are other reasons for 2.45 GHz beyond communications- the magnetron for it is a comfortable size, not too big to fit in a household device, not too small as to be hard to manufacture.
That frequency *was* in use, just not by many commercial devices- it is at the high end of L-Band, which was used in the 70's for radar (for sure) and satellite communication (I think).
The U.S. Goverment setting deadlines on itself....Now THAT is something that is bound to fail from the beginning...
Blake
Your tax dollars at work
"Science is about ego as much as it is about discovery and truth " - I said it, so sue me.
FCC Bigwig A: Hmmm... we haven't yet worked enough rules in to make sure that only large business and corporations can get access to the 3G specturm.
FCC Bigwig B: That's a problem! I know, we can do what they did with the internet and create a 'Non-profit Coporation to do our dirty work for us!
Bigwig A: We'll call it 'Gigahurts Solutions'. What's better about having it privatized is that in disputes between corporations and individuals, the corporations will come out on top because they have more money to grease palms with!
Bigwig B: Speaking of which, how's new your 'complimentary' summer home in the keys?
Bigwig A: Almost completed! How about your kids' 'scholarships' to Yale and Harvard.
Bigwig B: Billy's grades aren't that great, but I can just make another 'donation' to take care of that!
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
They will avoid 2.4 GHz, not because of the resonant frequency of water (Which it is NOT, check this link). When the frequency was chosen for microwave ovens, they chose 2.45 GHz because they knew that it would interfere with other forms of communication, and they wanted to keep the interferers all in one (relatively unused at the time) place. Enough RF at virtually any frequency will heat things.
There are other frequencies used for heating things, they are in what is called ISM (Industrial, Scientific, Medical) bands. These bands are a bit more "anything goes" than other frequencies. The FCC rules are in this hefty tome. I'll leave it up to you to find the applicable parts. That's why Bluetooth and 802.11 work in the 2.4 GHz region. They have more free reign for what you can do, but you also have to accept interference without complaint.