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Open Spectrum: The New Wireless Paradigm
prostoalex writes ""Almost everything you think you know about spectrum is wrong." - starts Kevin Werbach in his working paper Open Spectrum: The New Wireless Paradigm. He touches the possibilities of using open spectrum, and then dwells on such innovative products like software-defined radios, spread spectrum or cooperative wireless networking. Truly informative insight into where the U.S. government stands on the issues of wireless spectrum, where it should be, and how it will benefit society and individuals."
Even if the FCC goes along with this, the telecom industry can not afford to roll it out.
They are heavily burdened by debt from Cell and cable modems.
The law is a weapon of the government, not a protection for the likes of you. Surely you understand that.
Don't even kid about that, it's true! I work in a room with 30 10kw HF transmitters, two 40kw LF transmitters, and one 200kw VLF transmitter. The antennas for these are less than 500 meters away. My co-workers' and my own hair is already falling out and I'm 23 years old.
I wish there was some there was some way that I could be outside playing basketball, in the rain, and not get wet.
"Think of software-defined radio letting you join different wireless networks that are decentralized and encrypted using something ala freenet [sourceforge.net]. "
I have a question: If you have two different sources broadcasting digitally on the same frequence, then you can seperate the two based on encryption standards or protocols, right? However, wouldn't having both transmitters sending data jam each other's signals? Seems to me like they'd have to hear each other and cooperate in order to work efficiently.
In other words, I don't think you can set up two 802.11 nodes with different SSID's and have them work at full capacity.
I'm really naieve here, so if anybody can explain to me if I'm wrong (or even right) I'd really appreciate it. My education on this topic is very basic.
"Derp de derp."
Um, like uh ok.
Are you likening a radio with a wide receive and transmit to a um Win Modem?
I understand what you mean but I really hate your terminology. Software defined agile radio, OMG lets just make all this kewl stuff sound like a pansy made it.
This really isn't anything new the idea in some forms exists now and has for some time and has been implemented. The only new thing is trying to convince the FCC to allow you to work in unused TV channels and other under-utilized bandwidth because your equipment is smart enough to know there isn't anything in there... ...kewl
Coulda said that in one line rather than such a verbose article.
See the Pictures of the Flood of '08
Why? Our whole enterprise system is based upon monopolies. Look at the FCC these days... they've been making the monopoly of the airwaves BIGGER! In most cities, instead of having 15 or 20 different radio owners, it's now down to three or four. The U.S. radio spectrum policy is based as much (if not more) on politics as on physics and technology. As long as it stays this way (and it will, trust me), the status quo will prevail. The unlicensed bands are few compared to the licensed (read: monopolized) ones...they are less then 1 % of the electromagnetic spectrum. This isn't likely to change, either.
No. I think he's right. Certainly, if you reduce the power you transmit to the absolute minimum to reach just the nearest nodes then the bandwidth goes up. Then if you route through the other nodes, the bandwidth goes up. Direction aerials, bandwidth goes up. Optimal filtering to make good effect of the reflections in the room, bandwidth goes up. I truly think that the available bandwidth is very, very, very large. Sure it's lots of extra hardware, and there's lots of processing, but they're getting cheaper and cheaper. Also, as the users, and if properly designed, the room, tends to absorb microwaves, then the amount of bandwidth scales with the number of users- the noise floor just simply doesn't keep going up, since the users get in the way.
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"Yes you could put two 802.11 nodes together - an 802.11a @ 5.7GHz and and 802.11b/g @ 2.4GHz.
As for spectrum coexisting, DSSS (discrete sequence spread spectrum) was originally developed for military usage. DSSS provides several advantages - extremely hard to detect or jam, and works very well even when other DSSS transmissions are occuring in the same region.
DSSS used to be extremely difficult to implement, but now is commonplace and cheap.
The whole reason that the radio spectrum is used is because it is an effective way to send information. Technology has provided a way to transmit significantly more information in less bandwidth, except that it is against the law...
An example would be: Suppose that the transportation industry was regulated in the same manner. In the old days, the only delivery option was horse-drawn cart. Now technology has developed trains, planes, and trucks. However, only a few routes are legally available for the trains/trucks/planes to go on - everything else is still regulated to use horse-drawn carts. Obviously, there would be significantly less deliveries across the country.
No, I don't trust in god. He'll have to pay up front, like everybody else.
<G> It has about as much chance of taking over all parts of the broadcast spectrum; the most massive/extreme implementation ain't happening any time soon.
But, as the author points out, "Open Spectrum" is already the status quo in the band occupied by 802.11*. More to the point, reserving large chunks of the broadcast/communication spectrum for the exclusive use of single radio or television stations is wasteful.
It reminds me of what Deutsche Telekom was doing in Germany in the early 1990s -- they allowed only 1200 kBD analog modems with acoustic couplers, and required that customers buy or lease them from Deutsche Telekom. Most of the Germans I knew who were online back then ignored DT and bought and installed (then) state-of-the-art 9600 kBD modems.
I know it's ethnic stereotyping to say this, but most Germans I know are a LOT less prone to ignore stupid and pointless rules than Americans are, especially American geeks. ;>
My guess is that, if the technology is developed to allow users to share a spectrum without stepping on the exclusive/analog signal, people will start using it, with or without official approval.
If the U.S. government recognizes that the rules need to change to keep up with the state of technology, all will be fine and good. If, as I expect, the government refuses to change the rules in a timely fashion, I doubt that will change what people do. Washington has bigger concerns than arresting geeks who aren't interfering with anyone, and will catch up with the rest of us eventually. :>
Catherine
If your wireless car opens someone else's garage and they get robbed, then yes, someone is liable - the manufacturer of the garage door opener. Unless you send the correct sequence, that garage door shouldn't open.
What is your point on the wireless wheelchair? I think that interference concerns are overblown. Circuits need to be designed with care to insure that they aren't susceptible to interference, but they need to be designed that way now. You have to deal with cell-phone towers, microwave ovens, and even fluorescent lights.
No, I don't trust in god. He'll have to pay up front, like everybody else.
If you ever work with Satellite communications systems (spread spectrum included) you will quickly find that even with all the so called "Draconian rules" in place, there is a high probability of someone stepping on your signal and satellite channel - the same has been my experience with other more conventional line of site RF systems - The ONLY way that whis would ever be feasible is if we took all the existing systems and simultaneously destroyed them before wheeling out the "Open Spectrum" systems. I for one don't believe that "free for all" RF spectrum is ever going to be practical or desireable. Does anyone else remember the days of the CB radio arms race and home built 100 W linear amplifiers ? As hard as it is to accept government regulation this is one area we don't want to let go to anarchy - if we do all we'll hear on our fancy Spread Spectrum radios will be static.
I read the .pdf and then I popped over to the New America Foundation and looked at the Senior Staff bios.
Wow I am so stunned at why anyone gives a rip what these jokers put out.
The head guy, the dude the Washington Post profiled last year, Ted Halstead - President and CEO, he doesn't do research. I work with people that don't do reseach, I call them the Grounds Crew.
He went to Harvard woohoo, Presidents Bush and W Bush went to Yale, having exclusive school deploma doesn't mean one is a genius. Harvard Business School didn't consider anything Internet to be "business" until about 1998-99.
Ooh Hollywood types and CongressCritters like them. Another nail in the coffin of respectablity.
The head joker at NAF is the buttmunch that told Warren Beatty to run for President.
"Previously, Mr. Halstead was Executive Director of Redefining Progress, another public policy institute that he founded to promote new approaches to economic and environmental policy." - Thats alot of words to say "He sat around and talked about cloud-cookoo-land."
"Kevin Werbach" - the guy that wrote the paper linked here - "is a technology consultant, author, and founder of the Supernova Group." He also has some 'leet HTML skillz - http://werbach.com/home.html - He uses a Mac, a point in his favor.
They throw out buzz words and do 20 pages and we are suposed to care why?
No, only people who use "paradigm" in a business or technology-related manner [talk out of their asses].
/. article on selling XBoxen as loss leaders to gain $$$ on selling games).
Hm. I'll have to disagree with you there. Webster's defines "paradigm" as "An example; a model; a pattern." When you think about it, a lot of both business and technology follows patterns. The giving-out-handles-selling-blades method that worked so well for Gilette, frankly, is a "business paradigm." That business model's been tried again and again since then (Compare to today's
And in computer science, there's many different ways of writing programs. For instance, take "object oriented programming." If you use OO principles when engineering your software, you're using an "object oriented paradigm." I see no harm in a scholarly discussion of computer science using the term in this manner.
Yeah, sometimes people throw it around as a buzzword. But don't dismiss a term's applicability to two entire fields just because a few people try to sound impressive by repeating it.
A couple reasons come to mind as to why this Open Spectrum nonsense won't work and won't be applied.
First and most importantly, the federal government rakes in tons of money from spectrum auctions and licensing fees. However arcane, that simply won't be eliminated because something "better" has come along that's in the interest of the people. Reducing taxes are in the interest of the people, and we know how resistant the government is to that!
Despite what the author believes, spectrum allocations are a sane way to managing RF. Granted, spread spectrum doesn't interferre with other transmissions *when technically sound methods are used*. But when left to their general devices, the public sometimes eschews technically sound ideas and does stupid things. No matter how robust spread spectrum claims to be, when the front-end of the receiver is overloaded because of a dirty transmitter down the block, things quit working.
I've never had to DF (direction find) a spread spectrum transmitter, but I suspect that it's a far cry more difficult than finding a spur created from a faulty paging server.
I think you're thinking of it wrong. You need to think of it like 50,000 people talking in a stadium. Yes it will be more hard to talk to your neighbor, yes you may half to yell a little louder, or talk directly torard his ear, but you can still do it and exchange information without regulating everyone in the stadium. Also, when talking, you likely have plenty of incentive to yell and direct just loud enough to make sure your neighbor gets your message without alot of wasted effort.
The FCC's attempt to regulate this is awfull. It is like no one is alowed to make a peep - accept the people with the FCC megaphones. If people did that with speech, we would see it like one of those pro fidel castro rallies, but when we do it with spectrum (which physics wise is the same) people just take it on faith that without the FCC - we would all be ruined. It is very disheartening.