Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Yet Another "Last Mile" Option

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the wouldn't-that-be-special dept.

Jay writes "This article on Yahoo talks about the FCC looking into licencing the 70 - 95GHz bandwidth spectrum. Which would provide "12.5 gigabyte Internet access to homes or businesses as many as 12 miles away from an antenna." Another option for bringing bandwidth over that last mile?" And we could see products based on this during my grandchildrens lifetimes.

4 of 191 comments (clear)

  1. Another secret auction? by Dark+Paladin · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I could be wrong, so feel free to correct me on this (as always), but didn't the last time the FCC "open up" bandwidth, it did it in a secret auction that only the "baby bells" could attend?

    Now, if this auction were fully public so local folks could actually get a bid in and, oh, I don't know, fucking compete, then I'll get excited.

    Until then, I'll keep up my plans to lay my own fiber in my area (and hope my neighbors stop reporting me for trespassing.)

    --
    52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
  2. Shrinking choices by r_j_prahad · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Where I live, Qwest is my phone company, and Adelphia provides the cable TV. Service is worse than horrible from both companies, they both act like they're going to go titsup first thing tomorrow morning. Extended phone and cable outages are the norm, mainly because they don't have enough techs after the last round of layoffs. The only adequately staffed department in either company is the collections division.

    It's beginning to look more and more like my last mile is going to be wire-free... maybe satellite, maybe some chunk of the earthbound radio spectrum, but it probably won't be coming from the traditional infrastructure.

  3. A better option by nsayer · · Score: 3, Insightful
    One of the things we have to look forward to once broadcast television has gone fully digital is the give-back of the VHF TV spectrum. IMHO, VHF TV was one of the biggest wastes of spectrum ever conceived. The 12 channels of TV take up more than a quarter of the VHF bandwidth. By contrast, the 56 channels of UHF take up about 12.5% of UHF.

    So what?

    In general, lower frequencies tend to suffer a bit less from multipath distortion, suffer less from feedline losses, are easier to engineer, and more efficient to generate.

    Channels 2-6 are very low in frequency indeed. They start at 54 MHz (TV channels are 6 MHz wide), but there is a 4 MHz gap between 4 and 5 for various low power services (mostly RC cars and planes), with channel 6 abutting the bottom of the FM radio channels (88 MHz). Now, I think channels 5 and 6 should be dedicated to an amateur broadcasting service, and the rest perhaps to land-mobile activities, but channels 7-13 are the perfect place for low power data services.

    Of course, it's going to be years before the VHF TV transmitters are finally turned off, but I do believe it will happen eventually, and if we don't plan well in advance, there will be a smoke-filled-room give-away of this prime spectrum to someone with a lot of money, which isn't necessarily in the best interests of everyone.

  4. This range contains protected bands by jqpublic · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The 70-95 GHz range is a critical radio astronomy band. Much of the gas in the Galaxy emits spectral line radiation in this band. See http://www.ntia.doc.gov/osmhome/reports/pub9835. Portions are protected in some areas