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FCC Petitioned to Restrict 2.4GHz Band
Mean_Nishka writes: "Internet News is reporting that satellite radio provider Sirius is petitioning the FCC to regulate and hinder providers of 802.11b based networks. Sirius claims their radios operate at frequencies only 55mhz lower than wifi's range, and fear that Wifi users could interfere (especially mobile and internet service providers). This could effectively kill free networks nationwide..."
And those frequencys are .2 MHz apart!
Besides, I was under the (mistaken?) impression that one of the selling features of this satellite radio crap is that it is all digital.
Thus said, could there ever be enough bleed through to completely wipe out their signal?
OR is Sirius more afraid people will start driving around town listening to Shoutcasted streams on 802.11 networks? Oh yeah, gee, I wonder.
- JoeShmoe
.
-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
1) Which is more important, satillite radio or wireless internet access?
2) Which is the FCC most likely to understand better?
3) Which side has more money?
I think it's obvious which side will win out (if there can be only one, that is).
[PowerPoint] is a tool for capitalist presentation
Sirius probably didn't plan ahead, and has a fixed transmitter on their Satellites to save a few bucks off the cost of the satellite... They would need to launch new satellite.
Looking for any old 8-bit Heathkit/Zenith software/hardware - http://heathkit.garlanger.com
This isn't that big of a deal.
:: The Critically Acclaimed New Linux Site. Ads Not Included.
"Besides being limited in size by FCC regulations, the 2.4-GHz band in which 802.11b products operate is becoming overcrowded. This is the same band that the long-awaited Bluetooth products, microwave ovens, some wireless speakers, and the latest wireless telephone handsets call home. Today's products already eke out all the performance they can within the band's regulatory structure, leaving very little bandwidth to accommodate next-generation needs such as video broadcasts and voice channels.
The most likely place for wireless expansion is the 5-GHz band. Its comparatively wide- open space could provide increased speed and better control over the quality of transmissions. Plans are afoot on both sides of the Atlantic to devise a suitable protocol for the 5-GHz band. Not surprisingly, the U.S. and Europe are pursuing two different and non-interoperable 5-GHz protocols."
Read the rest here.
m o n o l i n u x
1. I don't know the nature of either signal, but 55MHz is a decent amount of seperation. If there are pieces of 802.11 equipment which are really transmitting 55MHz too high, their manufactures deserve a bitchslapping from the FCC.
2. If satelite radio receivers are having a hard time dealing with a signal 55MHz away, their manufactures need to send the design teams back to school.
3. If someone is running 802.11 equipment at power levels which overwhelm nearby satelite receivers listening 55MHz away, they probably need to re-engineer their setup to use less power and/or use an antenna with a different pattern.
4. If none of the above scenarios are true, this is probably Sirius looking for a little extra elbow room. If granted, their next move (a few years from now) will probably be to pettition the FCC for use of the now underutilized spectrum.
Despite being a govenment agency, the FCC a knowledgeable technical staff to sort this kind of thing out. Occasionally the FCC even listens to them!
Come test your mettle in the world of Alter Aeon!
The reach of the petition is widespread, affecting industries as relatively small as the fixed wireless industry to everyday industries whose existence is almost ubiquitous in American households -- digital TVs and microwave ovens.
"We're from the FCC and we have an order forcing you to leave your microwave on thaw."
Just wait until Intel releases 2.4GHz Pentium 4. I wonder if FCC will tell Intel to use another frequency.
802.11 interferes w/ the head-tracker we use at our school for 3D stuff. We basically need a TEMPEST-protected room so we can play w/ our 3d toys.
Maybe sirius should use 3D differential phase decoding to "listen" to a frequency at a location. Basically, two or more antennas allow you to discriminate among different sources, just like how your ears and brain work; as a practical example, using three antennas prevent jamming of GPS by enemy noise sources. The GPS antijam method uses constellation position prediction and real-time kinematic (motion) compensation (doppler shift, etc.) upon the sender's signal and receiver's motion, note this is wholy listener-side compensation, no mods to GPS constellation are needed for antijam technology. If sirius is broadcast-only, then they need to mod their receivers to use this type of technology. Why force restrictions on existing equipment for people trying to be fancy w/ their new toys? Screw em if they can't play w/ others already out on the field.
We can get alot more bandwidth if we use this type of technology along with CDMA-type encoding. It might be slightly more expensive and logistically prohibitive, but economical use of bandwidth demands it.
The biggest trick the devil pulled was letting lawyers become politicians so they can write the laws.
This is HUGE. Many wireless ISPs already functioning with the 2.4GHz range. Plust free networks are springing up like www.seattlewireless.org and www.houstonwireless.org, there are tons. And you say its no big deal that they will have to scrap their equipment? All of them??
Protocols will not eliminate interference. 5GHz has different transmission properties than 2.4 GHz. It a different frequency. Many WISPs were already bracing for this and expect to have to move into 5GHz, but 5GHz is handled just the same as 2.4 so far. 802.11a is already out there at 5GHz.
If the FCC wants to do somethign they need to give a unlicensed range for specifically data communications only.
Honestly, who gives a damn about satellite radio. More people are using wireless internet that satellite radio.
for example, a person in an office complex tunes into the XM hip-hop station. Because some idiot was using an ibook with a wireless Airport card, Snoop dog is dropped from the ceiling all mutated and deformed!
:)
Again, serious implications!
First off - Satellite transmissions are orchestrated on a
an international basis. You don't put one up without
co-ordinating where it's going to go.
Sirius is a licensed service. 802.11 isn't. The
general rule is that unlicensed services have to shut
down if the licensed service is troubled.
At the same time - I've got to think that Sirius should
have seen this coming BIG TIME and don't think they
have a snow-ball's chance to get 802.11 shutdown. The FCC
is nothing if not a bit practical about such things.
How would you enforce shutting down every device already
shipped???? If Sirius didn't do an adequate engineering job
to create their service - tough titties.
Have you compiled your kernel today??
Yep, this most certainly would effect data networks. Does Sirius not understand the fact that the 2.4 band has been available for public use for years now? You'd think they would have performed interference tests with their equipment from day one, instead of waiting until the last minute. This is ridiculous...Sirius may have invested $3 billion, but what about the rest of us who have already invested significant amounts of money outfitting out sompanies with WiFi. If money matters in this matter, then my money matters too.
--It's Pimptastic!--
This crap is gonna go down in flames even faster than Iridium did.
Subscription, NON-LOCAL alleged radio, devoid of all of the values that make radio work in the first place? Bleahh!
Ever turn on AM in the am (giggle) looking for something that's NOT ART BELL? Local color?
That's what satradio is gonne be like in no time. Kiss of death. Nobody's gonna pay for the kind of homogenised drivel satradio will become within (mark my words) two years.
Can't wait to see the pretty lights when they deorbit those puppies luminescently.
THAT, I'd pay money for
>8->
Brak: What's THAT?
Thundercleese: A light switch.. of TOTAL DEVASTATION!
Their business model sucks and they aren't going to survive. I've got 50 channels of radio from DirectTV I never listen to. Who's going to start paying to hear something they've been getting for free already? Besides if I want to listen to continous music coast to coast I'll put my money into a MP3 compatable car cd player and burn my own.
Since free wireless networks potentially open the Internet to everybody (even without access to a phone), could it be argued that restricting 802.11 networks is a violation of our first amendment rights? Technically a free 802.11 network is a public forum.
Free wireless are about to become as big as open source, MP3, and even the Internet itself. Let's hope greed will not get in the way.
But if worse comes to worse I'll buy up a bunch of microwave ovens, trip the door sensor, point a million pringles cans towards the sky, and show them what real 2.4 ghz interference is like :).
www.lonseidman.com
But isn't the purpose of the FCC to work for the benefit of the general public? I mean that is the point of the FCC, to regulate the airwaves since the current view is that the airwaves belong to everyone...
That being true, wouldn't it only make sense for the FCC to tell Sirus to go back to the drawing board... 802.11 has been around for a while now, and I would have thought anyone with common sense would have thought to see if this would be a problem. Because Sirus didn't plan around this, I don't see how they can just step in now and demand sweeping changes that will destroy many companies and hinder thousands of businesses and cause millions in losses. How can the FCC protect one company's investment at the expense of so many others?
Well, then again, this is the FCC we are talking about... not exactly the most efficient or best policy making body there is... what can I say?
In my opinion at least, 802.11 was there first, 2.4Ghz has been in use for a long time before Sirus was even thought about, so I would think it would be Sirus's responsibility to fix their problem, not the FCC and millions of Americans to work around Sirus.
"We shall show mercy, but we shall not ask for it" -- Winston Churchill
You've already spent significant amounts of money on WiFi. If your equipment gets outlawed (and that can actually be enforced), They (being whoever Sirius is acting on the behalf of in this lawsuit...either themselves or some big wireless networking company who might benefit) would have an easier time selling a competing standard, since the incumbent technology would be out, and the manufacturers of that equipment would not be ready with replacements.
And Freemasons run the country.
In any case, I don't think they have much to worry about. Come on, 55MHz is a lot of spectrum between them and 802.11b.
On the other hand, I also don't think that rampant commercial use of 802.11b is desirable either. If you want to use it at home, that's fine. If some ISP uses it to provide service, I think that's not OK, not because it interferes with Sirius but because it interferes with private users of the spectrum.
If the geeks of the world can restrain themselves from buying their sattelite radio garbage Sirius will go backrupt. I personally just find it amusing that yet another tentacle of the entertainment industry is holding back progress.
The fact is that 802.11b channels are only 25MHz wide. And 802.11b equipment is quite capable of working with adjoining 'cells' butted right up against each other. Check out this table. The non-overlappig channels are 1,6 and 11. Total center-to-center separation? 50Mhz between channels 1 and 11 with room for a channel in between. If Sirius has a problem with 802.11b I'm going to hazard a guess it's because their receivers are crap. I'll bet that they are receiving part of the legitimate 802.11b signal.
;-)
I've actually run tests to see how well two access points work if you locate them close together (about 4 feet). You can see a writeup of all the tests I did here: Interference Tests. When I tried to run two laptops connected to two access points on channels 1 and 6, I found a little interference. Not much. Maybe a 20% drop in total thruput. Once I went to channels 1 and 7 (30MHz separation) the two access points operated with no detectable interference at all. The aggregate thruput was basically 2x the thruput of a single access point. (Note that the 209% and 212% results are because I was using laptop to ap traffic as the baseline, but the equipment I was using produced higher thruput in the ap to laptop direction)
While the interference at channels 1 and 6 technically shouldn't happen, no body in their right mind puts two access points four feet apart and tries to run them both at full bore. So the radios could be a little better. But even in this worst-case scenario, all interference disappeared at 30MHz separation. And Sirius is complaining about 55MHz separation? Almost twice the distance?
What Sirius is finding out is that the idea of transmitting from a satallite to a non-directional antenna is extremely hard. That's probably why the other sat radio company XM plans to spend ~$250,000,000 dollars building a system of terrestrial repeaters! It's hard to link to, but check out the 10-Q SEC filing on their web site if you don't belive me. I can't find it now, but another SEC filing in there goes into detail about the need for repeaters because they know their signal can't be reliably received inside a major metropolitan area.
If Sirius has burned thru $3 billion and still doesn't have a reliable system, well boo hoo. The only reliable sat-based communications I know of use directional dish antenna's. (Please don't use GPS as a comeback because it doesn't have to work in a lot of places that a car radio has to, and it carries almost no information in the signal.) Irridium tried it and failed. Sirius apparently can't get it to work, and I'm going to guess that they will soon be history. As for XM, well, I think they got it to work, but only by spending a fortune on repeaters so most of their customers probably aren't even using the satellites! I think XM is going to go down the tubes anyway since they probably need to get at least 1,000,000 paying customers this year to keep going.
So I think Sirius and XM are going to follow Irridium down the tubes. And life will go on. As every good capitalist knows, massive failures prove the resiliancy of our system. That's what's know as "The Enron Axiom".
who originally petitioned the FCC to allocate a segment of spectrum specifically for unlicenced usage?
I don't recall if they were part of a group of companies, or acted on their own, but I seem to recall that they were looking for the bandwidth to support products like WiFi.
I would suspect that they, along with Motorola, Intell, a whole slew of network card manufacturers, Intersill, and many other groups would be interested in the arguments and will probably be responding.
As far as licenced/unlicenced goes, it could run either way. CB-Radio was a licenced set of spectrum when it was first popularized. When the FCC realized that they had not way to control the spectrum, it became unlicenced. Now you can still find radios, but you generally have to go hunting for them. I don't recall the last time I saw one at my local radio shack to tell the truth. Truck stops are a different matter.
Even licenced bandwidth is not immune to private interests. LPFM was attempting to licence low power transmitters so that your school, city/county council, or club could set up a radio station for people in the community to listen to as they found it interesting. By low power we are talking in the 2-5 watt range. When NPR came down against it, complaining that the channel separation authorized in the lpfm licences were too low, the possibility faded.
These are just my oppinions and personal observations. I could be wrong.
-Rusty
You never know...
I used to work on Transmitters and Receivers and I can say that 55MHZ is a lot of seperation. The one thing that we were concerned about was something called Harmonics and Intermodulation Distortion. IE: a frequency of lets say 225 MHZ might also have a Harmonic at 450 MHZ etc... They were normally multiples of the original frequency. But the transmitters that we worked on also had power levels of approx 10,000 watts per transmitter (HF) and very large directional antennas. I'm thinking that these wifi cards are putting out signals in the order of milliwatts so interference should be very localized if any at all. I doubt that Intermodulation Distortion could cause such a wide shift in frequency as well.
NAB is fighting to get the FCC to require Sirius Satellite Radio and XM Satellite Radio publicize the location and power levels of their terrestrial repeaters to prevent interference to all licensees, not just those who paid for their spectrum.
I use Macs to up my productivity, so up yours Microsoft!
First the satellites may not be able to transmit at another frequency. Second the receivers that people use to listen may not be able to receive on another frequency.
do you know how spread spectrum technology works? If set up properly only recievers with a certian psuedo random sequence would recieve their transmitters that frequency hop with the exact same sequence - which is probably why the usaf claims their awacs network is un-jammable. No the protocols won't save it - but spread spectrum will.
The beauty of spread spectrum is on narrow band recievers the only interference you hear is low background noise. I have no idea if 802.11 is spread spectrum or narrow band - but either way there's room for more devices on there.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the FCC's job is to server the public interest by regulating radio spectrum. So can somebody explain to me how a subscription digital radio service is more in the public interest than wireless data networks? With any luck all the hardware manufacturers will go write their lobbyists some checks and keep the FCC out of this.
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Bandwidth licensing annoys the crap out of me. Not only do us poor wireless schmoes have to use the resonent-frequency-of-water-molecule-so-no-bloody
</rant>
:wq
Knowing about all those laws is a crime too now :)
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While nobody paid the government for the frequencies that 802.11, there is a huge amount of business going on it 802.11 equipment. The amount of business thriving off the sale of 802.11 equipment dwarfs what little Sirius has manged to do. Ultimately the FCC doesn't care about the money that comes in from a spectrum sale, it's not like they get to keep it. They care about politics, and what will decide this is who can apply the most political pressure. Can Sirius trump Cisco, Lucent, Intel, and all the other electronics companies making a killing in the 802.11 market? Doubtful.
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Did you miss that someone actually has to pay for the internet connection? Unless MCI*Worldcom themselves put up a wireless connectino and just let people leech off their bandwidth, it's not free.
Um, yes but if a neighborhood sets up a wireless lan, it wouldn't cost anyone anything.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
I second and third that motion. A couple of us here have discussed setting up new domains and alternative DNS's on a radionet that does NOT have a connection to the original Internet, thereby avoiding the commmercialized content and government control now prevalent.
I do think that eventually this alternative network, and the equipment necessary to create it, will become outlawed, What fun we will have then!
How about it, Much Smarter Boys and Girls than I? Can a new radionet be created using new domains like
They did not pay for that frequency band. They payed for an adjacent band, and want 802.11 nets banned because they might interfere with their (theoretical) service.
IMO, I think that the proposal is a roundabout way to ban 802.11 radionets, which if not stopped, are going to be a major problem for pay-for-net services, as no one will want to pay for bandwidth which is freely available after the purchase of a 100 dollar PCI card.
And I never did agree with auctioning off a public resource -- bandwidth -- to a private concern. It leads to nonsense like this.
It's got some good info in it. At the very least, you'll find out that it's part of a bigger request for comments by the FCC on "whether it [the FCC] should change its emissions limits for the restricted bands above 38.6 GHz, and whether the Commision should apply its emissions limits to receivers that tune above 960 MHz." It's also got some of Sirius' technical evidence in support of their claims.
And here's a choice quote:
BTW, this is a public document. I'm not sure if it's on fcc.gov yet but it should be someday...if you can wade through their multiple search engines and multiple data formats. You'll be able to track any replies."This band is your band. This band is my band..."
Donate background CPU time to fight cancer.
The Virtual Bookcase: book reviews
So what? Millions of people are using 802.11b. About 30 people are using Sirius Satellite Radio, and that's likely to go down when the layoffs start.
Why should those millions have to decommission their equipment just to satisfy some idiotic business model put forth by a company that can't even hire a competent engineer to work out interference issues before launching its satellites?
<PARANOID>Wait a sec! "decommission their equipment." The WiFi market has already sold to the millions of people most likely to adopt the technology. So now, Lucent, SMC, etc., prod Sirius into this move, and then those customers will have to buy their equipment all over again - and we already know they're willing to! What a brilliant scheme.</PARANOID>
In other news, I've contacted Sirius to let them know that from this day forward I'll be doing my best to make sure that nobody I know or meet ever uses their service. I encourage others to do the same. Based on XM's numbers, I can't imagine Sirius is overly secure about its prospects, and the chance of losing a whole lot of nerds - their most likely customers, I'd guess - can't be heartening.
"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it." -- GBS
The way these things work is that interference of any substantial amount is illegal for all radio operators, including amateurs. You have to prove interference not just wave the possibility around. The FCC has no reason to take any action against 802.11b after allowing this spectrum for this purpose in this first place. Sirius will only gather a lot of ill-will from cluefull would-be customers. Dumb move!
Yah, he said "hole in the wall" y'know. :)
I've got one here in my office and it blocks my 802.11b. The wireless network goes down whenever I use the phone. Why aren't they complaining about 2.4GHz phones? Maybe because the phones aren't as big a threat to the powers that be.
The ISM (2.4GHz) band is also for amateur use. If they persist lets all get Technician class licenses (no code needed) and start talking with 200 Watt rigs. Or better yet do moon bounce with 1500 Watts. They think they have probelms now from 1 watt 802.11b equipment! Check this out at: http://www.arrl.org/FandES/field/regulations/bands .html
People often raise important concerns on slashdot, and people here are many of those most impacted by a change to FCC rules. So... post your comments somewhere they will make a difference.
g i? native_or_pdf=pdf&id_document=6512980637
Read Sirius' argument. Think about how they may be exagerating or mistating any problems. Think about how changes would impact you and suggest what should be done to correct any real concerns.
Then give the FCC your input and "file a comment" to the proceeding.
The FCC talks about WIFI and others in terms of where they come in their rules, eg. Part 15 & 18. You can track the proceeding on the FCC's website by looking for Sirius' name, date they filed (Jan 23), that it's "Part 15 & 18", and by the docket number (when it's issued). This is probably something the office of engineering and technology wwould look at. You can also track the proceeding through the website.
In the meantime read the petition Sirius has filed at:
http://svartifoss2.fcc.gov/prod/ecfs/retrieve.c
If it's bad publicity with the main customer segment (namely the crowd with the 802.11b stuff...) then it's bad for them instead of good for them.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
802.11b devices come under FCC regulation part 15. That means they must NOT interfere with licenced operation, and they must ACCEPT interference from licenced operators. Keeping that in mind. As a person licenced to use the 2.4Gc band (among others) I can put up 1500 Watt FM TV repeater on that band and there is nothing that the wireless internet folks can do about it. Part 15 devices are the lowest of the low (even lower than CB) when it comes to radio spectrum use. With being said, the FCC is likeley to grant Sirius's request.
BTW Sirius cannot keep crap out of their receivers that is 55Mc away? I've done better than that on the 2.4Gc band, building my own stuff.
--Radio, the complex made simple. Computers, the simple made complex.
Personally, I'd think that something like 30+Ghz line-of-signt microwave would work for connecting cities, but I doubt there would be enough people with the required knowledge to set that up in every city.
Hey, given the population of the average city, statistically speaking, it's pretty likely that each one will have at least one person capable of providing this type of infrastructure.
I just set up a similar system at work; I'd be happy to stick a tower up on the roof and pimp out some bandwidth :)
Maybe we should think about using that new ultra-wide band radio that covers the entire spectrum at low power levels and is pretty much undetectable by the FCC and media corps.
There are several issues that haven't been addressed in this thread. If you haven't read the actual petition (http://us.share.geocities.com/nospamcarl/sirius_
First, much of the petition deals with RF lighting and UWB. I'm new to RF lighting, but I remember the last UWB thread on
Has anyone done interference testing with 2.4GHz devices and RF lighting? Would RF streetlamps disable Bluetooth and 802.11b freenets?
Secondly, Sirius isn't asking the FCC to ban 802.11b. They're asking the FCC to make WiFi manufacturers put stronger filters on their transmitters. Quoting from the petition:
Obviously, the wireless industry disagrees. But they also claim this would force them to retrofit existing devices, which simply isn't in Sirius' petition at all. The actual proposed rule change is on pg. 26:
So the real questions seem to be: 1) how hard would it be for 802.11b makers to follow that proposed rule change, and 2) Would this mean the end of RF lighting and UWB?
...whether or not the 802.11 devices are radiating out of their specified allotment. Realize that they're 55MHz away from the XM Radio allotment.
There's pretty much no way that a properly engineered device that meets requirements would be transmitting in a manner objectionable to a device properly designed reciever with that much bandgap.
----------
To put this in perspective:
An NTSC signal requires 6MHz of signal bandwidth per channel.
The XM allocation is a solid nine NTSC channels worth of bandwidth separated.
Most NTSC televisions can cope with having adjacent channels, etc. with minimal problems- this is with a lot less seperation than we see with the 802.11 stuff.
----------
Why can't Sirius do the same thing with something that is supposed to be more tolerant of noise conditions. It should be much narrower in bandwidth and guardband with the compression, etc.
The FCC, if they're on the ball, are going to ask Sirius why their stuff is so sloppy...
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas