Broadband from World's Tallest Building

StarPie writes "The Chicago Tribune is reporting that Sprint Broadband will be broadcasting DSL from the top of the Sears Tower in Chicago. The range is said to be 33 miles -- a lot better than wire DSL. All you need is line of sight from the Sears Tower." I've spent the last couple minutes straining my eyes but try as I might, I can't see it. I'm stuck with 128kbits.

Comments

Not the world's tallest building.

[Dacta]

Since 1998, the Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia have been the world's tallest building (not including tower structures like broardcast towers) - 1,483 feet vs 1,450.

Re:Not the world's tallest building.

[bbillian]

This is not entirely true. The Petronas Towers are the tallest buildings in one of the four categories for tallest building.

The four categories are:

• highest spire
• highest observation deck
• highest top floor
• highest antenna

The Sears tower holds the title for all of these except highest spire (which is held by the petronas towers in KL.)

Re:Not the world's tallest building.

[bink]

Actually, the Sears Tower was dethroned by the Petronas Twin Towers in 1996, but regained the title in 1997. The way the Petronas Twin Towers gained the title was by putting decorative spires on top of the top floor of the buildings. In 1997 the Council of Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat met and declared the Sears Tower the tallest building again. You can read about it at this link.

This is the acid test for MMDS data

[isdnip]

Sprint is already doing this in a few other cities, such as Phoenix, where they have the MMDS license. Worldcom is doing it in Jackson, MS and a few other cities, and will be expanding it too (they have the NY and Boston licenses).

Note that "line of sight" for MMDS is much better than optical; it means "not over the horizon". Since Chicago is basically flatland, hills aren't the problem they would be in, say, New England. Which is why this Chicago rollout is so important; it could give the technology a real boost. MMDS operates around 2.5 GHz. It is not subject to significant rain fade, and passes easily enough through trees. (Contrast this to LMDS at 29 GHz, which has a typical reliable range of around 2 miles, because of rain fade, though it goes much farther on dry days.)

Each market has one MMDS licensee. This was the FCC's last pre-auction lottery, nicknamed "wireless cable". It was intended for pay-TV broadcast distribution. A bunch of shady operators took fees to enter people into the license lottery ca. 1993. The MMDS companies who bought up the licenses from the lottery winners discovered that there wasn't much of a market, so they went bankrupt or sold out to Sprint and Worldcom (who between them have most of the country's population covered by their licenses, but are just starting to offer service). Now it's viewed as a DSL alternative. Some other operators are also in business; Oxford Telecom, for instance, does MMDS data in Portland, Maine.

This is mostly two-way radio, something the FCC authorized a couple of years ago. (Early systems were dial-up return.) I don't really think there's enough bandwidth there to replace DSL or cable modems in urban areas, but it's a good alternative for people who are out of range of those services. Alas, with only one license per city (spectrum being a scarce resource), it's not totally competitive.

It's not DSL. It's MMDS.

[jeffg]

It's not DSL. It's MMDS -- Multichannel Multipoint Distribution Service.

Sprint Broadband is one of the largest customers of Hybrid Networks Inc.

In fact, there's even an interesting little press release on Hybrid's site regarding the whole deal in Chicago.

This isn't very new to me, as the majority of my work and home bandwidth is provided by a local ISP that has been deploying these systems since the Fall of 1998. As an individual subscriber I've pulled traffic nearing the 8Mbit/sec mark. Yep, that's something a little more than the equivalent of five T-1's.

MMDS has a lot of advantages over your typical "unlicensed" wireless gear operating in the 900MHz and 2.4GHz spectrum... namely the fact that MMDS is licensed by the FCC (in the US).

Businesses that build their existance and survival on the fragile structure of "unlicensed" wireless often don't spend the time to properly research what it is that they are getting into... a mess. The first "provider" in an area to deploy "unlicensed" equipment has great success... and then the second "provider" comes along... and things start to slow down a little... and then another provider comes along perhaps... and things start to break (more)...

And then an Amateur Radio Operator/ham comes along and decides to start using the spectrum for Amateur TV, and the FCC comes in and shuts the "providers" down as they are infringing on the rightful license of said ham to use the 2.4GHz spectrum. *poof* :)

Another thing to consider, and one of the other reasons I like my MMDS provider... They don't have that interestingly restrictive TOS that Sprint Broadband has.

Realities of microwave t/r and a factoid on twoway

[d.valued]

That's the only real problem with XHF transmissions.. (XHF is basically anything above a gigahertz).. they are all line-of-sight.

Clouds, though, shouldn't realy be a problem unless they're VERY thick. The wavelength of a 2.2 GHz wave (I'm assuming 2.2 GHz because I know 2.4 is occupied, and it's the same drek in a different package) is:

c / freq == 300Mm/s / 2.2GHz == .136 m / Hz.

The wavelength is 13 cm or so. That's mighty small (when you consider that AM 1000 is 300m and FM 100.0 is 3m), but they can pass through anything short of a heavy rainfall or a blizzard. (I have a DBS system and can receive in virtually all conditions. Idiot involvement, though, seems to screw everything up royally.)

The short wavelength dictates the LOS and the power of the frequency will determine the range.

I have to commend Sprint's good timing, since a lot of DSL'rs got screwed when northpoint Comms. went bankrupt.

And now, for the coup de grace that'll get me jacked on wireless broadband: It's two-way. According to this marketdroid page, it's completely free of the telephone grid.

However, for you QUAKErs, your ping time may be slightly slower than it would be on a comparable hard-wired connection. This appears (from what little data that's available) to be (at least in part) a party-line system.

According to the site (use zip 60625 if asked), the max d/l is 5 Mbps, and they project 'typical' to be in the .5 to 1.5 Mbps range.

They have an upload cap of 256 kbps.

A few things worth keeping in mind:

1. It's running on RF frequencies, which means that, depending on your paranoia level, you may not want it since quality receivers are available that can receive above 2GHz. And it's not protected by the anti-cell-scanner bills (not like anyone interested in cracking t

2. IP Masquerade is probably the best way to go. They seem to be MScentric. (They are intending to charge an additional ten bucks a month per extra rig online. I didn't know IP's were that rare ;)

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