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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. But will it benefit the owners? by peripatetic_bum · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The question that I keep saying raised and being answered (not the favor of home users) is what happens when bandwidth becomes more and more available and the end-user starts getting charged for it.

    Here where I live, I've been asking business to consider installing a wap11 to allow customers surf while they have a cup of coffee, but all of them have refused because they fear the increased costs. At home, if I tried to set up my own wap11 for use outside my house, and let a few people start using, what would be bills be? I wouldnt mind paying a little more, but I keep reading the the cost of bandwidth is really going to start to get expensice so that ISP's can make their money ( no problem with that)

    Thanks for reading

    --

    Sigs are dangerous coy things

  2. 12.5 gigs and they want to stop mp3 sharing? by kipple · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This is a good one. They want to stop mp3 sharing BUT wants to provide customers with larger bandwidth.

    Let's face it - what is broadband used for? You can download a webpage on an isdn line (64/128k) almost as fast as you can on a DSL line (640k) due to the fact that by the time the traffic flow has got to its peek, all of the data has been transfered.

    So, what about digital video and streaming? Cool. DSL could easily be used for that. But what is the percentage of people using broadband to see video streaming (except pr0n) compared to those who download 'piracy' music/movies with it?

    It's ok if they provide businesses with broadband (they have lot of users, plus mail must have a reliable link). Ok for VPNs. Ok for websites.

    But the whole purpose of giving broadband with dynamic IP address (and sometimes not allowing the customer to put on its own service, like mail, www, ftp...) could be nothing else than giving users a way to download files. Nothing else.

    It's like giving citizens a REALLY fast car and REALLY good freeways for a REALLY cheap price, and telling them not to go fast. Why not? You don't even got hurt if you download music!

    This looks just like another contradiction of Capitalism, to me. [and yes, after this sentence, this comment will be modded down to -6]

    just my .2 euros

    cheers

    --
    -- There are two kind of sysadmins: Paranoids and Losers. (adapted from D. Bach)
  3. Professionally Installed? by LordYUK · · Score: 1, Interesting

    This means equipment will be expensive, and would have to be professionally installed.

    Oh lord, it took 12 different techs 6 tries over 4 months to get my 1 cable modem working... Imagine if something actually had to be PROFESSIONALLY installed!

    :)

    --
    This is my sig. Its pathetic.
  4. Why can Ham operators do what the military can't? by pa3gvr · · Score: 2, Interesting

    On Friday, March 1st, 2002, two Californian Amateur Radio Operators communicated over 175.3 Km (almost 110 miles!) using home build 75 GHz equipment. You can find an article here. The fact that the military is not interested in this band might not be the difficulty of building the equipment, but the in the difficulty of operation and / or the reliability of the connection. Just my $0.02