Senators Aim to Wirelessly Jumpstart Broadband

JimW writes "Article at Practically Networked...A couple of senators actually have a clue about how broadband might be effectively promoted. Not that I have anything against my tax dollars propping up failing telco's by pushing DSL on areas where it isn't financially viable. Methinks the dark fiber will stay dark." Their plan calls for 255 MHz of spectrum to be allocated for wireless broadband - to compare, the band occupied by 802.11b is 83Mhz wide, with each channel being 22MHz (they overlap).

Comments

well some senators must be...

[k0rro]

generally smart and fun ?

Why use tax dollars for this?

[ellisDtrails]

Instead of using tax dollars to promote broadband, why not let the private sector handle this and get the government out of legislating technology (CPAA, DMCA, etc).

Re:Why use tax dollars for this?

[pknoll]

All they're doing is lobbying the FCC to carve out frequencies so that wireless broadband applications are tenable.

I'm not seeing evidence of tax dollars being used to build the infrastructure; just making it possible for someone (private corp., maybe) to do so.

Re:Why use tax dollars for this?

[StormRider01]

With that kind of thinking, vast parts of America would still not have electricity and telephone service...

Re:Why use tax dollars for this?

[xanadu-xtroot.com]

why not let the private sector handle this

Because they're not doing much about it as it is. Not that I disagree with you in questioning why get the govt. needs to be involved, but the telco's/ISP's/what-ever do need a kick in the ass, it seems. If some of the tax I pay helps me get off my 56k, and gives the telco's a wake-up call, then sure, I'll blow the extra little bit per paycheck.

But that's just me, of course...

Re:Why use tax dollars for this?

[Daniel_Staal]

Because the value of a network goes up with the square of the users connected, but the revenue goes up linearly. In other words: it may be more valuable to have everyone connected, but it probably wouldn't happen with just the private sector because they wouldn't make money from it.

Not that this has anything to do with the article, which is just about opening up spectrum for use.

Re:Why use tax dollars for this?

[phorm]

Building the infrastucture but leaving the development to private corps is good in many ways. Tax dollars might indicate a government-run network. A government-run network could easily become a government-controlled network. We wouldn't want the government watching our every move onli... er wait. Well, we wouldn't want it to be worse than it already is, in any case.

Of course, you'll probably end up facing corp greed Vs gov't invasion of privacy (and greed). Sometimes corps are the lesser of two evils though.

Re:Why use tax dollars for this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, the vast parts of America where nobody fucking lives. Instead, we all pay higher taxes so that there can be a pay phone in the middle of the tundra in Alaska.

Re:Why use tax dollars for this?

[ellisDtrails]

Agreed, by no means do I obsolve the corporatation of all misdeeds in dealing with this sort of thing, but I'd like to see the end of mixing legislation and technology. The more the government is comfortable with this, the less rights and more restrictions we will have.

Re:Why use tax dollars for this?

[ellisDtrails]

My comment was in regards to :
Not that I have anything against my tax dollars propping up failing telco's by pushing DSL on areas where it isn't financially viable

from the OT.

--ellis

Re:Why use tax dollars for this?

[dj28]

If the telcos aren't doing anything about it, then there isn't enough consumer demand to justify the cost. Getting the government involved with this is just wasting more of my hard earned money. I don't want to subsidize the telecommunications industry if they aren't even willing to spend money on it themselves, and if people aren't willing to pay for it.

Re:Why use tax dollars for this?

[Anonymous Coward]

People choose where they wish to live. If they want to live out in the middle of no-where they are in essense giving up certain ammendities and perks of city life for the privildge of living unencumbered country living. They should pay the extra for phone/electricity/DSL
If you want something pay for it. Keep your paws out of my wallet.

In rural Colorado

Re:Why use tax dollars for this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Mr. Aviss, we at the echelon facilities in West Virginia would like it if you'd stop stating that we are watching everyone. We are simply watching you.

Re:Why use tax dollars for this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Building the infrastucture but leaving the development to private corps is good in many ways. Tax dollars might indicate a government-run network.

Why do you need a service provider at all? It's just space you're using to communicate with. Buy a card for your box, and 802.X hub for about $150 and you're set for life.

It's basically cellular P2P by people for people.

Re:Why use tax dollars for this?

[The_K4]

And if your the poor bastard stuck driving from Anchoridge to Gnome and your car breaks down, you might LIKE that payphone!

Re:Why use tax dollars for this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Seperation of technology and state?

What sort of crazy thing will you ask for next? Seperation of church and state?

Re:Why use tax dollars for this?

[vipw]

The only way the private sector can get the FCC to unlicense or relicense bands is through graft and corruption. The private sector is essentially excluded and at the mercy of the FCC, all they can do is "lobby". I think the 900MHz and 4.3GHz unlicensed bands are an excellent demonstration of the benefits of relaxing bands for general use.

I would prefer if only certain bands were considered off limits instead of only certain bands being considered allowed. Setting a band aside only for broadband might not be a good idea. Look at 4.3 which was set up for anyone who needed it, If it was just a little bit bigger it would work pretty damn well for broadband. Many isps are actually deploying broadband on it anyway for rural areas.

Re:Why use tax dollars for this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why have a government at all? just subcontract police work to security companies, bureacracy to paperwork companies, and military to mercenaries.

Re:Why use tax dollars for this?

[macdaddy357]

You Rite dat Marikan reel good! Guh-hyuk! That's Anchorage and Nome.

Re:Why use tax dollars for this?

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean like the ILECs were willing to spend money to implement ISDN or xDSL?

The telcos sit on the implementation of new technology because it is more profitable for them to keep selling their favored products - DS1s and DS3s - to businesses than to push the envelope of technology. If not for the Telecommunications Act, we probably would not have seen xDSL sold as far and wide as it did (of course, Northpoint folded and Covad didn't do so well either, but I would submit, based on anecdotal evidence, that they lacked the support from the ILECs that they were legally entitled to.)

Unfortunately, it's a damned if you do, damned if you don't, situation. If you don't facilitate the development of new highspeed access with legislation and/or funding, it ain't gonna happen. If you do, you're supporting the creation or perpetuation of a monster (think Bell). I don't have the answer, unfortunately...

Re:Why use tax dollars for this?

[LWATCDR]

Ever here of the TVA?
In the 1930s the goverment spent tons of money getting electricity and phone lines to every little town and farm in the country.
Was it money well spent? You bet it was.
You let the goverment build roads and interstates why not bandwidth?

In the end it will help the US economy.

Re:Why use tax dollars for this?

[univgeek]

Yeah, and exactly the same thing happened in California right? There was all this demand for electricity and the private companies supplied it without govt. intervention. They didn't exploit the situation and create an artificial scarcity did they.....

BTW. that's sarcasm...

Re:Why use tax dollars for this?

[Lemmy Caution]

Logical conclusion: neither you nor the original story submitter actually read the article.

Re:Why use tax dollars for this?

[Anonymous Coward]

you're not real. if i close my eyes, you go away.

Re:Why use tax dollars for this?

[shepd]

>If the telcos aren't doing anything about it, then there isn't enough consumer demand to justify the cost.

No, it's just that the telcos are useless at spending money (to them, it flows like water). Case in point: Running about 100 lines 15 km alongside the already existing fibre to my subdivision a decade ago to an old, out of date, and rather overloaded exchange, rather than building some sort of mini-CO there and using that shiny fibre line.

This is the case with many other companies. Another case in point, I've tried to set up a deal with a few local companies to redistribute their wireless internet to various households here, ensuring they make a profit as well as myself. No interest at all.

And, last example is the cable co. They also run cable under our town. They decided against wiring the houses here, as they'd have to pull it about 1 km or so. So now 95% of the houses have DSS, and they have zero business.

What makes this all the funnier, though, is that the telcos, etc. think that areas like mine are full of hick-homes with people that can't afford high-speed, when the reality is that the average home in this subdivision costs $300k (and for this area, that's probably about $100k above average) and there's no apartments, and being that it is a little ways from the city, communications equipment are WELL used.

Ho hum. More stupid decisions. I'm used to it, and plan to profit on it the moment I get the cash together to put in some wireless 'net.

Re:Why use tax dollars for this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Alas, that FCC and Congress tried to deregulate so others could play the game. Eeek!

The solution was to control the competition, and poorly thought-out deregulation let them do so (kind of like electricity deregulation in CA!).

Soon, once again, the telcos can reap all the profits! No more competetion! Phew!

Finally, you're right! "Equal Access" laws don't apply to the Internet! That's why you can get a phone anywhere, but you can't get internet anywhere.

Some day, only big cities will have working telephones. Because that's where the most profit is made.

Re:Why use tax dollars for this?

[macdaddy357]

The problem is that the private sector only cares about robbing and looting for quick and massive profits. Building a broadband network is a long-term thing that won't pay for any executives' Jaguars, yachts, vacation homes, call girls, and cocaine in a single quarter, or even a single fiscal year, so greedy businessmen won't bother. Since this network would be such a valuable public service, it should be publicly funded. After all since we elect our officials, and pay taxes, we collectively are the government.

Re:Why use tax dollars for this?

[Timothy Brownawell]

Yeah, and exactly the same thing happened in California right? There was all this demand for electricity and the private companies supplied it without govt. intervention.

Exactly right. Back when CA was trying to "deregulate", the electricity retailers lobbied for -- and got -- fixed retail prices, and laws saying that wholesale electricity could only be bought short-term (spot market only, no contracts). Demand went up far faster than they predicted, and instead of making a killing from low wholesale/high retail, they got hosed from high retail/higher wholesale. Since they were losing money, they couldn't buy the electricity they needed from out-of-state producers.

The electricity shortage in california was caused by electricity distributors trying to legislate themselve a profit, without getting caught. That problem was caused by government interference; I see no reason that not having the government "encourage" telcos to provide broadband would cause a similar situation.

Tim

Re:Why use tax dollars for this?

[ellisDtrails]

How insightful! The "private sector," as if it is a single entity, doesn't care about broadband? I think not. And why is "this network ... such a valuable public service"? What great benefit do the people in the areas get now that they get are "wired"? They get to surf CNN, buy books from Amazon, and further destroy their own local business and cultures. Sounds like fun. The greatest benefit goes to the same private sector that you abhor. So think about your grand claims before you knee-jerk a reaction. You also missed my point that I am advocated for a toning down of the frenetic pace of government technology policy. What has it achieved for us? The DMCA, Copyright extension, and Hollywood legislation. Look there and find your yachts.

Re:Why use tax dollars for this?

[univgeek]

And they played fair when supplying power, didn't fake maintenance, didn't show false loads on the distribution lines, and try to make themselves a profit, sell power out-of-state and sell it back in-state at higher prices again?

Re:Why use tax dollars for this?

[MrSubtle]

> In the end it will help the US economy.

Help the US economy compared to what? Either the services are worth paying for or they aren't. If they aren't then it's a waste of money for the government to pay for them. If not then the government isn't required.

The TVA is actually a good example of why having the government build loads of expensive infrastructure that was unjustified by any rational economic benefit. Politicians love to buy votes with public funds, and that's the real justification for the TVA.

It's easy to look back and say "Look at all of those businesses and homes that wouldn't otherwise be here except for subsidies. What's harder to see is all of the economic growth that was stunted through taxation and regulation and never developed at all. Of course those effects are diffused all over the country, and consist of non-existent things which would have otherwise existed, but that doesn't mean that the effects are unreal or that the TVA generated a net economic benefit.

If politicians actually wanted to generate economic development then they would show that they are serious and spend their OWN money and learn something about business rather than just patting themselves on the back for spending public funds for "development".

Senators with ideas is bad news

[PhysicsGenius]

The way to "effectively promote" technical stuff is to run an ad in Wired. No legislators need apply.

Re:Senators with ideas is bad news

[mwolff]

Wired just had an issue out whose cover involved wireless networking.
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/10.10/

Not exactly an ad, but meh.

sign me up.

[the_2nd_coming]

if Ican carry my laptop anywhere in the city and use this anywhere it is a total winner.

Hmm..

[grub]

When all that wireless Kazaa traffic gives me a brain tumour, who do I sue?

Re:Hmm..

[Ponta-kun]

More importantly, what are you going to do with the summons the RIAA gives you for all the illicit mp3s you get exposed to?

Re:Hmm..

[revery]

Obviously the federal government. By their decision to allow unregulated access, they have insured that no one could be held liable as an entity, therefore, they are liable.

IWTBAL - I want to be a lawyer

Wow QWZX

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm amazed Barbara Boxer is behind this. If you've never heard her speak, it's -- interesting. I'm convinced that she is literally a moron. I'm serious: this woman is one of the stupidest human beings I've ever heard.

I can only assume that she had a staff member that thought it was a good idea and convinced her to get behind it. I'm really doubtful that she's understands one whit what she's promoting.

It's not my intention for this to be flamebait, by the way, although I'm sure it's sounding that way. You really have to hear the woman try and make off-the-cuff remarks to appreciate how stupid she is.

Re:Wow QWZX

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you trying to say that she's the Democrats "Dubya"?

Re:Wow QWZX

[stratjakt]

Every democrat is the democrats Dubya. That should be their campaign slogan - "We're all as dumb as Dubya!"

Bunch of shrill, whiney overreactive knee-jerk morons.

Look at Daschle's latest tirade on how Rush Limbaugh is inciting violence against him.

Microsoft sucks. Can I have my karma now?

Re:Wow QWZX

[Anonymous Coward]

I live near DC, I saw that my (ex)mayor is stupider then your senator. ("We need a police car on every sidewalk")

Re:Wow QWZX

[Anonymous Coward]

[i]this woman is one of the stupidest human beings I've ever heard.[/i]
Agreed. She, like Ted Kennedy, does not believe in the right to self-defense. What good are all of the other rights, if you're dead? If more people like her end-up in congress, we might end-up like England. Last summer, one poor man was sentenced to 15 years after killing a burglar with a kitchen knife. The burglar was between him and his two little girls. In the same situation, I'm sure most of us would have done the same thing. The London Times referred to the burglar as the victim. It was disgusting.

Re:Wow QWZX

[Anonymous Coward]

The burglar was between him and his two little girls. In the same situation, I'm sure most of us would have done the same thing. The London Times referred to the burglar as the victim. It was disgusting.

Hey, they're British. All the decent people left Britain about 200 years ago, and all the ones with any courage died in the world wars. It isn't as if they are really even people any more; they're just human-shaped animals.

Re:Wow QWZX

[Anonymous Coward]

They're largely a nation of sheep...

Re:Wow QWZX

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought that was New Zealand?

Re:Wow QWZX

[Anonymous Coward]

It's those Scotsmen I'm particularly worried about... man, how hard must it be to get a date when you have to resort to cloning sheep?

Re:Wow QWZX

[Anonymous Coward]

I live near DC, I saw that my (ex)mayor is stupider then your senator. ("We need a police car on every sidewalk")

If by "near DC", you mean "Maryland," that actually may be appropriate, considering that MD drivers are the worst in the nation.

Re:Wow QWZX

[bill_mcgonigle]

"Dubya" got into Yale, then Harvard. Babs went to Brooklyn College. You tell me.

Well SOMETHING has to be done!!!

[eyegor]

It's hard to imagine babs boxer and George Allen getting together on anything, but this seems to be a good first step.

Last mile is the hardest nut to crack. Around these parts, Verizon hasn't delivered broadband to very many people (I suspect they're waiting for their competitors to die off first) and our cable provider (adelphia) is in chapter 11.

My only concern is that we need to ensure that nothing will interfere with the wireless data. 802.11 shares spectrum with too many things.

Re:Well SOMETHING has to be done!!!

[Sc00ter]

"My only concern is that we need to ensure that nothing will interfere with the wireless data. 802.11 shares spectrum with too many things."

Well to bad all 802.11 devices are part 15 devices. They can not interfere with other device but they must all acecpt it from other devices.. Meaning that if somebody's cell phone tower is causing problems, or the ham down the street is messing around with his 100 watt 2.4ghz setup and you're in his path you're out of luck.

Re:Well SOMETHING has to be done!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

I think what he meant was that whatever wireless technology follows, the spectrum has to be sacrosanct.

Re:Well SOMETHING has to be done!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep. That's why I can only get 25 feet from my wireless router. I even tried 802.11a and that barely made it 20 feet. My theory: I have a ham operator 2 blocks away and a cell phone tower 2 blocks away and a wireless internet base station (for fixed-wireless) 1/2 mile away. Makes me wonder whether it is worthwhile to make 2 pringles cans to get just 35 feet. Sometimes even re-wiring your house is an easier and cheaper solution.

Re:Well SOMETHING has to be done!!!

[Blimey85]

the ham down the street is messing around with his 100 watt 2.4ghz setup and you're in his path you're out of luck

I wouldn't be so sure of this. Most Amateur Radio operators would not want to cause interference with anyone, and all of them that I know, myself included, would do whatever we could to not cause interference if we were notified about it. If you check the laws governing Amateur Radio, you'll see that it's not lawful to knowingly cause interference under most conditions.

It's been a while since I took my exams but IIRC, knowingly causing interference to someones wireless network could get your license revoked.

Re:Well SOMETHING has to be done!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

128. While technological progress AS A WHOLE continually narrows our sphere of freedom, each new technical advance CONSIDERED BY ITSELF appears to be desirable. Electricity, indoor plumbing, rapid long-distance communications . . . how could one argue against any of these things, or against any other of the innumerable technical advances that have made modern society? It would have been absurd to resist the introduction of the telephone, for example. It offered many advantages and no disadvantages. Yet as we explained in paragraphs 59-76, all these technical advances taken together have created world in which the average man's fate is no longer in his own hands or in the hands of his neighbors and friends, but in those of politicians, corporation executives and remote, anonymous technicians and bureaucrats whom he as an individual has no power to influence. [21] The same process will continue in the future. Take genetic engineering, for example. Few people will resist the introduction of a genetic technique that eliminates a hereditary disease It does no apparent harm and prevents much suffering. Yet a large number of genetic improvements taken together will make the human being into an engineered product rather than a free creation of chance (or of God, or whatever, depending on your religious beliefs).

129. Another reason why technology is such a powerful social force is that, within the context of a given society, technological progress marches in only one direction; it can never be reversed. Once a technical innovation has been introduced, people usually become dependent on it, unless it is replaced by some still more advanced innovation. Not only do people become dependent as individuals on a new item of technology, but, even more, the system as a whole becomes dependent on it. (Imagine what would happen to the system today if computers, for example, were eliminated.) Thus the system can move in only one direction, toward greater technologization. Technology repeatedly forces freedom to take a step back -- short of the overthrow of the whole technological system.

130. Technology advances with great rapidity and threatens freedom at many different points at the same time (crowding, rules and regulations, increasing dependence of individuals on large organizations, propaganda and other psychological techniques, genetic engineering, invasion of privacy through surveillance devices and computers, etc.) To hold back any ONE of the threats to freedom would require a long different social struggle. Those who want to protect freedom are overwhelmed by the sheer number of new attacks and the rapidity with which they develop, hence they become pathetic and no longer resist. To fight each of the threats separately would be futile. Success can be hoped for only by fighting the technological system as a whole; but that is revolution not reform.

Re:Well SOMETHING has to be done!!!

[Sc00ter]

Ahh, that is true, but part 15 devices must take interference from hams. I thought the same thing being a ham (N1UEV), but hams are higher on the scale then your WiFi stuff. Sure they wouldn't go out of their way to screw you, but if I'm doing work with 2.4ghz trying to design a better antenna and I'm doing testing at 50watts and you're next door with your wireless internet connection and I bump you off, tough titties.

Re:Senators with ideas is bad news QWZX

[Anonymous Coward]

Mr. PhysicsGenius, I'm often impressed by your lucid explanations. Could you please explain exactly how Internet over Wireless works, and exactly what 225 Mhz of bandwidth really means?

Thank you. You're my hero!

not just laptops

[ryochiji]

I'd imagine there's be a huge demand for bandwidth if just about everything had wireless networking capabilities. Laptops and phones are obvious, but imagine a coffee cup that serves web pages! Um...yeah.

Huh?

[grumpygrodyguy]

*Jaw drops to floor*

I'm shocked, but the cynic in me says that they are just opening up more real estate to be sold to private interest, rather than be preserved for the public. Does anyone have a more in-depth understanding of what these two senators are trying to pass?

Re:Huh?

[F34nor]

VHF?

Has anyone noticed that Lawrence Livermoe has been able to fit a full HDTV singal into the UNUSED portion of NTSC. That means we can take back those free VHF channels we gave to the local stations for the HDTV phase in.

Oh wait we have REPUBLICS in the House, Senate, Executive AND the Judical. We're f*cked. We'll be lucky if we don't have all the media outlets in the entire world owned and opperated by 3 corporations in 2 years.

FCC and possibilities

[insanecarbonbasedlif]

This article reminded me of a previous slashdot artice that pointed to this Business Week article
"Sure, Wi-Fi has huge potential. But the spectrum could quickly become overcrowded and unreliable if it grows too quickly. Success will take two things: technological improvements and a helping hand from Washington. The Federal Communications Commission will either have to allocate more spectrum for wireless use or overhaul the way spectrum is divvied up -- an unlikely scenario given that the commission is overwhelmed by scandals in the telecom biz."
They seem to think that an expended frequency range would have huge economic impacts too.

Re:FCC and possibilities

[Anonymous Coward]

an unlikely scenario given that the commission is overwhelmed by scandals in the telecom biz

Yep, how many Slashdotter's still think politics doesn't effect technology?

Let us not repeat the mistakes of the past...

[mortal_enema]

Make sure the bandwidth is applied to the indended use and enforce reasonable timetables for implementation. No third, fourth, or fifth chances to comply before the bandwidth is realocated to service providers who do have the ambition and resources to make it happen... Recall: Digital TV Bandwidth boondogle.

ME

right...

[tps12]

I love headlines like these: "Congress Declares Digital Cable For All!" "President Demands Pollution-Free Energy!" Right.

Reality check: you can't legislate technology into existence. It takes time, energy, a bunch of smart people, and a ton of money. These guys think they can just write up laws and somehow, through some sort of magic, companies will do as they're told. And if they don't what happens? They're penalized with higher taxes, of course, making them even less likely to innovate, and in some cases putting them out of business altogether.

If you look at it this way, it suddenly becomes less surprising that most of the innovative companies like Sun, Microsoft, and Linux do most of their R&D outside the US, in countries like Finland, Pakistan, and Europe that have lower taxes. If we want to revive the foundering American economy, we need to stop coming up with voodoo feel-good laws like this one and start cutting taxes for the companies that generate wealth.

Re:right...

[IndependentVik]

When you say Europe, I assume you mean Western Europe. What countries there have a lower tax burden than the US?

Re:right...

[Anonymous Coward]

>If you look at it this way, it suddenly becomes
>less surprising that most of the innovative
>companies like Sun, Microsoft, and Linux do most
>of their R&D outside the US

Yes, Linux is an innovative company. Will they have an IPO? I'd love to own some of that innovative Finnish and Pakistani R&D.

Re:right...

[JoeBuck]

Wow. tps12 thinks that Finland and Europe have lower taxes?

The fact is that government has played a huge role in technology creation, and you're using a lot of that technology right now: the Internet, of course. As you say, it takes time, energy, and a bunch of smart people, and money, but in many cases it's been government programs that provide all that. Government-designed TCP/IP beat all the proprietary network approaches (SNA, DecNet, Novell, etc) because it was technically better, and it got better because of a lot of visionary bureaucrats at DARPA.

But, of course, the zealots who believe that government is inherently bad, stupid, and inefficient will ignore evidence to the contrary.

Re:right...

[Bartab]

Reality check: you can't legislate technology into existence. It takes time, energy, a bunch of smart people, and a ton of money.

Except you forgot one thing that wireless needs: Bandwidth.

Re:right...

[pubjames]

[..] innovative companies like Sun, Microsoft, and Linux [..] in countries like Finland, Pakistan, and Europe [..]

Dim people who post to discussion web sites such as Slashdot, LinuxToday and Hotmail, should avoid activities such as listing things, generalizing or summaries.

Or something. Whatever.

Re:right...

[Wesley Felter]

Reality check: you can't legislate technology into existence.

No problem; 802.11 and 802.16 are already here. All they need is more bandwidth.

Convincing ISPs to offer last-mile wireless access will be a bit tougher, though.

Re:right...

[Anonymous Coward]

bs.

I don't know about microsoft, but Sun does most of it's research in the US

Re:right...

[EmagGeek]

Reality check: you can't legislate technology into existence

Offtopic, I know, but:

Yes you can - look at HDTV. No more analog TV after, what's it now, 2006?

Re:right...

[tps12]

You want to put some money on whether analog TV will be around in four years? Don't hold your breath. Even if it were feasible from a manufacturing and economic point of view, the disposal of hundreds of millions of analog TV sets would spell ecological disaster.

Re:right...

[EmagGeek]

I'm not disputing that at all! I agree that it's idiotic to pull crap like this - their rationale was that by giving, say, 5 years notice, everyone was just going to rush to Best Buy to get a new HDTV...

Of course, we all know why the FCC did this - to try to legislate the bubble even bigger...

Re:right...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not just idiotic, though...it plain won't work. Come 2006, they'll be left to choose either to end cable TV in the US entirely or to accept that HDTV is not going to be widespread for long while.

Re:right...

[kels]

Reality check: you can't legislate technology into existence. It takes time, energy, a bunch of smart people, and a ton of money.

Sure you can.

Congress: "Here's a ton of money. Hire a bunch of smart people and pay them to put some time and energy into it."

Re:right...

[Cyno]

You know, if you take money out of the picture it only takes time and energy and a bunch of smart people. Doesn't sound very expensive to me. True I am a zealot, but there's plenty of evidence to support the assumption that government is inherently inefficient. Look at our school system. It wasn't a bureaucrat that wrote TCP/IP, it was those smart people. The same smart people we are smotherring with our school system and economic system which no longer has high paying tech jobs available. We have more than enough smart people, but nobody is willing to give them the proper environment to work and make new things that we all take for granted and give our government credit for. Yeah, our system sucks pretty bad.

Re:right...

[Anonymous Coward]

If you take money out of the picture all the smart people take their valuable time elsewhere and think about ways they can feed their families.

Excellent!

[xchino]

I work for a local ISP, and the competiton between other local ISP's for spectrum caused so many problems that everyone finally just registered a frequency. Except us, since everyone else switched we took over 2.4, but the interference problems persist, especially in residential areas with high concentrations of 2.4ghz phones. I hope this makes it to fruition, it'll make it much easier to find a good interference free frequency for more reliable wireless connections.

Re:Excellent!

[rhost89]

We did the same thing, but we did it early and saturated the whole city with 2.4 on all 3 non overlaping channels (Aironet aggregate 33mb/sec). By the time the competitors caught up they couldnt shoot a 100ft because of the interfearence. Needless to say were the only ones left in town doing wireless broadband. And weve allready done the same with 5.5ghz and 802.11a.

Re:Excellent!

[Doppler00]

What they need to do is creat a spectrum that is dedicated to internet devices only. That's such a waste to use 2.4GHz for a voice conversation.

Re:Excellent!

[isdnip]

Voice doesn't use much bandwidth anyway. So banning it from 2.4 GHz wouldn't do much good.

The 2.4 GHz band is used by microwave ovens, TV cable box extenders, and all sorts of other unlicensed devices. Phones don't belong there only because they can get better performance and less interference at 900 MHz. The recent move of cordless phones to 2.4 is a victory of stupid imagemongering over technical reality. (The first 2.4 GHz phones were priced at a premium, so everyone mistakenly thought it was better.)

Step in the Right direction

[andrew_0812]

I think that wireless will ultimately be the answer to the broadband problem. Most of the cost in bringing any service into the home, be it cable, internet, or telephone, is the cost of running a wire out there. If we could do all of the same stuff wirelessly, then it could be a lot cheaper.

I think that we are still quite a way off from that, but this is a good step in the right direction.

Re:Step in the Right direction

[APL bigot]

I think that wireless will ultimately be the answer to the broadband problem. Most of the cost in bringing any service into the home, be it cable, internet, or telephone, is the cost of running a wire out there. If we could do all of the same stuff wirelessly, then it could be a lot cheaper.

The cost of locating antennas and transmitters on top of the higher mountains around the area is not cheap. The hilltops are privately owned, and these natural monopolies provide a very good income for the owners. They rent space to the FM broadcasters, pager services, cell phone companies, taxi services, state police, etc.

Re:Step in the Right direction

[fataugie]

Doesn't it just figure....

First I buy Andovernet stock and lose my ass on the LNUX merger/price drop, now I own nothing but valley property...

Re:Step in the Right direction

[andrew_0812]

Most people don't own property in space. Satellites will ultimately be the way we go. It is just a matter of time before we have a complete geo-syncronous coverage of the globe for data communication. This will include internet, entertainment, telephone, etc... All types of media will be in the same data stream.

I know that Satellites aren't cheap, and the whole thing is wrought with problems, but that is the way we are headed. You wouldn't have to worry about access in rural areas, or even in wilderness areas.

Re:Step in the Right direction

[Anonymous Coward]

We all need to move to the moon and form the Republic of /. where politicians will be required to be able to network their office computers, pass a basic math exam, and will create government pork programs based on open source.

Clueful senators

[MacAndrew]

The senators are probably as technically clueless as average folks (with a couple of exceptions) but many have technically proficient staff members whom they listen to. The gradually declining lameness of Senate member websites is one indication.

Why Congress? Because in some cases, such as limited bandwidth, the federal gov't is well-suited to setting down the infrastructure to jump-start the industry and to avoid the result of the many competing railroad companes in the 19th century, each with its own proprietary guage of track.

They are following in the footsteps of...

[craenor]

Al Gore! After all, he invented the internet, right?

And God said (insert congressional notes here), and then there was bandwidth!

Uhm...

[jeroenb]

if Ican carry my laptop anywhere in the city and use this anywhere it is a total winner.
Has this ever been not possible? :)

Re:Uhm...

[the_2nd_coming]

ummm....I am impatient and do not want to have a frigen 56k connection over the cell towers that costs me big bucks.

if I can get a broadband service that will give me the speed I want anywhere I am located, then damn it, I want it.

People like you piss me off!

[DAldredge]

You must provide examples:

Those who survived the San Francisco earthquake said, "Thank God, I'm still alive." But, of course, those who died, their lives will never be the same again.
- Barbara Boxer, Senator
Author: BARBARA BOXER

"We may wind up in this country going to zero tolerance, period."
- U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA)

Wired Senators to Aimlessly Jumpstart Broadband

[wiredog]

Well, it does make more sense that way.

Oh...I can hear it now...

[GeneralEmergency]

Assistant: "Senator Boxer, Mr. Eisner is on the line."

Boxer: "Hello Michael, what can I do for you today?"

Eisner: "Hi Barb, sorry for the interruption, but I saw something in the paper today about one of your new projects that has me concerned."

Boxer: "Yes Michael, what was that?"

Eisner: "Oh, its that silly wireless broadband idea. Now I'm sure one of your goofy genX aids tricked you into this so I'm not gonna be mad at you this time, but I do need to remind you about our little, er... training session we held last summer in the Bahamas. You remember it don't you?"

Boxer: "Wee'llll... I sorta"

Eisner: "No problem... I'll just help you remember this again. Now repeat after me, Barb...

DRM, Good!, Broadband, BAD!

DRM, Good!, Broadband, BAD!

DRM, Good!, Broadband, BAD!

DRM, Good!, Broadband, BAD!

DRM, Good!, Broadband, BAD!

There. That should holld you for another six months or so Barb. Thanks for taking my call.

Boxer: "OK, Michael, I'll try harder to remember."

Re:Oh...I can hear it now...

[tato (and tato only)]

Actually, Disney wants both DRM and broadband.
The agenda of the Mouseketeer senators is clear; they want to convert the internet into a content delivery system for the entertainment cartel. For this, they need two things: ubiquitous, affordable broadband and DRM. This way the current internet infrastructure can be used to deliver media content to recipients with reduced capabilities for copies to be made and saved.
Remember the CBPTHTHT? The first part of this is 'Consumer Broadband Promotion'. The Mouseketeer senators actually are trying to promote broadband, rather than prevent it, because it is part of their agenda to convert the internet from its current, relativelly free state to a glorified pay-per-view delivery system for the entertainment cartel.

hey...

[mschoolbus]

At least they are actually trying to help the computer industry instead of making organizations that take away our rights...

Too bad...

[Bartab]

I'll be forced to vote against Barbara Boxer for more real reasons than "broadband." You know, her votes on things that jail people, say like DMCA etc...

Re:Too bad...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll be forced to vote against Barbara Boxer for more real reasons than "broadband." You know, her votes on things that jail people, say like DMCA etc...

You say that as if your vote matters. Face it, the Democractic machine in California determines who their candidate is going to be, and the Democratic candidate is going to win (just look at the Simon/Davis governor's race. Even when the Democrat is a criminal like Davis he's still going to win, because except for a few niche districts California is a Democratic state).

Democracy is an illusion, and California politics is a fraud. Voter fraud there is almost as bad as Chicago, and even if it weren't it would make no difference, since the only option available is whatever candidate the Democratic party decides to offer.

Re:Too bad...

[Anonymous Coward]

You're an idiot. Both political parties do this. Or is there no state in the union that's a GOP lock? And you want to talk about voter fraud--what about Florida?

Re:Too bad...

[Elwood P Dowd]

Oh, be fair.

Both candidate were crooks. Davis' only danger is that he's done so much to piss off real liberals that we almost all went and voted for some loser 3rd party candidate, just to show him he needed us.

But in the end, Simon's positions were just too frightening. So we voted for Davis. And losing an election doesn't make Democracy an illusion.

Re:Too bad...

[Bartab]

Wrong, California has a huge Republican population, its just gerrymandered into specific counties... except Senator is of course, statewide.

Davis won because of the "worst of two evils" principle, he's a criminal, but Simon came off looking like one as well. We would have had a Republican Governor if even a mildly better candidate had arrived (like the LA Mayor, I forget his name)

Also, Condolezza Rice is a California resident, it's possible that she would run for Barbara Boxer's Senate seat in 2004 (unless she's busy running as VP, which I doubt) .. she would be pretty much a shoe in - Republican support in the central and eastern areas of the state, along with centrist black and women voters.

Re:Too bad...

[Anonymous Coward]

You're an idiot.

You're a Democrat Idiot; putting you even lower on the scale.

Both political parties do this.

No they don't. The Republican party in California didn't want Simon to be the candidate; the party establishment wanted Riordan. The Republican party establishment doesn't have anywhere the total control the Democratic party has in determining who the party candidate is going to be.

Or is there no state in the union that's a GOP lock?

No, there isn't. The closest is probably Texas, and even it only fell to complete Republican control this past election cycle. Like most Democrats, you don't know what you're talking about.

And you want to talk about voter fraud--what about Florida?

Great example. The voter fraud in Florida is Democratic. It always has been. The screwed up ballots were designed by Democrats, and the only places where there were voting irregularities were precincts under the control of Democrats. The reason Democrats are so pissed off about Florida is that you finally got caught playing your "lets keep re-counting the votes until we get the result we want" game on national television and the Supreme Court put a stop to your scam.

Re:Too bad...

[Anonymous Coward]

Both candidate were crooks

Simon wasn't a crook; Simon was just incompetent.

But in the end, Simon's positions were just too frightening

Which just goes to show how far out of whack California is compared to much of the rest of the Country. Simon would be considered a liberal in most states. The only idea he had that might be considered "frightening" was the idea of cutting government back to levels that the taxpayers of California could afford and not being a sheep on issues like gun control.

Re:Too bad...

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, Condolezza Rice is a California resident, it's possible that she would run for Barbara Boxer's Senate seat in 2004 (unless she's busy running as VP, which I doubt) .. she would be pretty much a shoe in - Republican support in the central and eastern areas of the state, along with centrist black and women voters.

She couldn't win. Black people vote for Democrats, not other blacks. She would get about 10% of the black vote (the "thinking" blacks, which usually vote Republican for fiscal reasons). Liberal Democrats would never vote for her (she is "absolutist" on several issues like the 2nd amendment). She might be able to win elsewhere, but there's no way she could win an election in California.

Re:Too bad...

[Anonymous Coward]

Flame bait...

Anyway... did you hear that Janet Reno was turned away when she tried to vote in the primary?

Re:Too bad...

[Amazing Quantum Man]

Even when the Democrat is a criminal like Davis he's still going to win

As a registered Libertarian, I'd like to quote the GOP to you. As they said when Bush beat Gore:

"He won. Get over it."

Re:Too bad...

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyway... did you hear that Janet Reno was turned away when she tried to vote in the primary?

No I didn't, but I can't say I'm surprised. Reno herself was involved in covering up such a huge amount of voter fraud when she was attorney general in Florida (detailed in the 1992 book "Votescam", when the investigative reporters writing the book took some illegal ballots they found in a warehouse rented by one candidate to her, she arrested them and destroyed the evidence of the voter fraud) that it is inevitable karma that she herself be affected by it.

Re:Too bad...

[Anonymous Coward]

Reno herself was involved in covering up such a huge amount of voter fraud when she was attorney general in Florida

That (the voter fraud and her coverup of it) happened when she was Dade Couny State Attorney, not Attorney General.

better subject

[Leimy]

Senator's aimlessly to wire broadband....

This is a Great idea!

[ka9dgx]

Things are starting to pick up with 802.11b, people building community networks, going around the local loop. If we can get 225Mhz of spectrum to play with, the possiblities are almost endless. The idea of being able to ship bits across space at 100Mbps without restrictions is so freaking cool.

Unlicensed (a commons) but technically regulated (so we don't have bozos with 100 Watt access points) open spectrum is just what we need to help get around the layers of control that are slowly enveloping the internet. It wouldn't hurt to try to do an end run around the IP4 address limit at the same time, and try to get IP6 compatible devices.

--Mike--

Re:This is a Great idea!

[puzzled]

Take a look the Western Mux Tsunami line - I've got bridged ethernet links now that are 45 mbits over loooooong distances, and you can get 480 mbits full duplex across seven miles. Yes, its $98k by the time its up and running, but when you're whacking a $18k/mo DS3 and giving 10x the service ...

re: bozos - I am totally with you on that point - 100mw 'mods' to Linksys (Stinksys) APs that yield 31mw in channel and 69mw of crap spattered all over 2300 - 2500MHz, ATV amps modified to build 'super cells', and the like are giving the rest of us a bad name.

Re:This is a Great idea!

[Cyno]

It'll never happen. I'm amazed they gave away 802.11 for public use. You just know they are going to require some sort of encryption on the traffic that is provided by a corp like CSS, requiring your registration and some amount of $$$. Meaning only corps can build hardware, illegal to mess with because of the DMCA, only available for corps and high paying customers at first, even though the hardware technically costs $50 per router. I'm not very optimistic whenever I hear anything involving our Senators.

RIAA

[Niles_Stonne]

What an unfortunate acronym...

RIAA: Rural Internet Access Authority

Wonder how the RIAA feels about it...

Re:RIAA

[Anonymous Coward]

>> Wonder how the RIAA feels about it

The RIAA feels that you're a fag.

The other RIAA feels that way too.

Signed, Hillary Rosen

500 BILLION DOLLARS?!?!?

[gunnk]

From the Internet News article:

Economists at the Brookings Institution have estimated that widespread, high-speed broadband access would increase the national GDP by $500 billion annually by 2006.

Does anyone SERIOUSLY believe a number like that? Will wireless broadband make us suddenly spend, spend, spend? What's the deal?

Re:500 BILLION DOLLARS?!?!?

[Anonymous Coward]

Spend, not really.

You see, we'd use the broadband to download movies and songs, place them on cd-r discs, and ship them overseas, thereby increasing our own stashes of cash!

Then we'd use the money to buy things. Things we like!

Re:500 BILLION DOLLARS?!?!?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not so sharp with numbers, but if 100 million US households spend $500 annually for broadband services that they would not have otherwise spent, that's like $50000000000. So what's that, $50 billion? Raise prices, adjust for inflation, round up, be optimistic, I can't see it translating into $500 billion GDP either.

I node this...

[BSOD from above]

Imagine the possibilities of distributed computing through this type of network. Then consider that an air gap might not be the same as a good firewall anymore. This about a hacked cluster of wireless zombies knocking content right off the web, it would be worse than being /.ed . Think about the recent repeal of digital rights and then wonder if you really want to be connected through a transparent network. (anyone can intercept radio waves, I am doing it now) I certainly wouldn't use this unless I compiled the operating system myself. It only sounds like a good idea until you think about the complete lack of control you will have over your communications while using it.

Re:I node this...

[Anonymous Coward]

Transport-level Encryption. It does some great things. Check it out.

And who's behind all this...RIAA!!

[ddstreet]

Check it out, the organization that's behind all of this is...none other than...the RIAA!!

However, it's not the RIAA we all love...it's the Rural Internet Access Authority. Oh, the irony! I love it.

Re:And who's behind all this...RIAA!!

[Anonymous Coward]

when are they going to move that nigger trumpt plater off of their front page...

nigger fuck off.

Security

[Whibla]

This is a nice idea, not that it will affect me in any way whatsoever - unless I get my green card... ...however a few questions do spring to mind, the most important one being about security and bandwidth caps (and tin foil hats, but that's another issue alltogether).

Let's say I pay $x / month for this service - what's to stop Jo Schmoe next door using my "frequency" for nothing. Experience with 802.11b, or whatever, is slowly teaching us that wireless is not as secure as fibre / cable.

And how much infrastructure will this take to implement? And at what cost? If it's not economically sound to lay cable will it make sense to put up enough satellites / balloons / repeater towers to cover the whole of the US - I mean there isn't even have full cell phone coverage yet!

Re:Security

[jrmann1999]

While wireless security is a trivial joke, that doesn't mean that all ISP's will use it and ONLY it. There are plenty of things such as MAC registration, VPN tunnels, etc that can make your wireless...well..yours....

Re:Security

[richieb]

Let's say I pay $x / month for this service - what's to stop Jo Schmoe next door using my "frequency" for nothing. Experience with 802.11b, or whatever, is slowly teaching us that wireless is not as secure as fibre / cable.

There is no "your" frequency. Everyone shares a wide band of spectrum. It works like Ethernet, except it can be faster if the frequency band is wider. A lot of data is transmitted in short pulses (short in time) and wide in frequencies. Since each transmission is very short (nano-seconds) there is little chance of interference.

Security is an independent issue.

For infrastructure you can imagine a network that was formed by our computers talking to each other and forwarding packets (google "mesh grids"). So, in theory at least, no infractructue is needed, other than our own computers. Just think of FIDOnet, except at Fast Ethernet speeds...

Finally!

[Xzisted]

George Allen did alot to push technology and its funding as governor of Virginia, so I feel like I can actually trust him to push something like this through. It also helps that congressman Rick Boucher D-Va and he see eye to eye alot on technology. Babs Boxer supposedly knows alot about tech as well, but that remains to be seen.

I guess my point here is that maybe people should focus on talking to representative such as Allen, Boucher, and maybe Boxer when it comes to overturning laws such as the DMCA and to defeating the upcoming ones that are far worse.

Dunno, it's just a thought.

Previously experimented with...

[jaredcoleman]

The FCC did something similar in 1997 to see "whether this is pie in the sky or part of the 21st-century reality."
I haven't read yet about any conclusions drawn from that experiment though.

From the sound of this article, the FCC chair back then was hesitant to give something away for free that would raise billions for him in sales, but did so to see if it would have a positive impact on the eceonomy. If their weren't great results (documentable), these senators have their work cut out for them.

Please Pick an Appropriate Band

[zentec]

It would be *nice* if they picked bands that didn't have obscene losses when shooting through vegitation.

Hopefully this will be structured to give competition to the telcos and not merely end up being spectrum purchased by the telcos.

Is this infringement?

[macdaddy357]

Does the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) know that the Rural Internet Access Authority (RIAA) is using their acronym? World Wrestling Entertainment had to stop using WWF, because it is the registered trademark of the World Wildlife Fund. Did the Senator forsee this?

This is real! 2100MHz +/- or MMDS may be the range

[puzzled]

I run a WISP that covers five counties and I can assure you that this stuff is real. I am on a 'technical steering committee' that drives Cisco's lobbying efforts along with a handful of other industry insiders and the most of the talk around this issue went down about three months ago.

I think the easiest method to find 255MHz in the sub 6000MHz range would be to boot the owner/non-operators out of MMDS space, but there was also some talk about 2100MHz +/-

On the other hand, there is some mil stuff in the 3500MHz range that is pretty darned close to retirement - just take a look at http://www.alvarion.com and see the 3.5 GHz OFDM product :-) :-) :-)

Wireless is nice

[silas_moeckel]

While it's nice that wireless is here yada yada yada lets get real we need real bandwith some fiber to ever house. If they want to legislate something enforce cable internet to all cable users served by 2006 period loose there liscence. Similar goes for phone yea I know the the last mile is a pain but deal with it if you want to keep your local monopoly. Phone charges are insane to begin with there is so much bloat inside these companies it's disgusting. Now dont get me wrong getting a nice need block of unliscenced bandwith would be nice it, would be great if you could up the power dependant on how narrow a beem your throwing (100mw for an omni 10w at a 1deg beam lets say) that would let home and business users get not the technology and drive the costs down for the base radios while letting it be used for LONG shots to get it deap into that rurual country everybody compains about (I dont know I live by a city less than a half mile from the CO at it took till a year ago to get DSL and cable is still just about here this is in CT where the population density is up there, the phone company has been looking to get the biggest bang for the buck out of the city CO's and leaving the doctors and lawyers int he burbs with disposable income till round two)

Easy

[Beliskner]

A couple of senators actually have a clue about how broadband might be effectively promoted

EASY!

Ladies and Gentlemen, backup all your files free of charge using broadband:

mount nfs.nsa.gov:/users/OsamabinLaden/whistelblowers /etc/xx
cp -f -r /* /etc/xx

When you want your data restored, order the Government to disclose your documents as the native Americans do

Link to the proposed legislation

[burrows]

Here is a link to the proposed legislation, via the Freeside blog:

Proposed bill

Freeside is promising an analysis of the bill as well, but it's not up yet.

Re:Link to the proposed legislation

[burrows]

The commentary is actually up now.

Won't work

[I_am_God_Here]

Won't it be great when the internet runs as well as the DMV. That would rule.

Re:Won't work

[grumpygrodyguy]

Hard to run the DMV when taxpayers are so cheap.

Re:Won't work

[I_am_God_Here]

Because increased taxes solve everything.

Re:Won't work

[Anonymous Coward]

My DMV rules! I had to get a replacement driver's license due to a change of address. I went in on my LUNCH BREAK, walked up to the counter, the woman took my old ID, I told her my new address, and 5 minutes and $5 later, I had a new ID! Arkansas is backwater in terms of bandwidth, but for some reason, our DMV works!

Re:Won't work

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, because you and the other drive in the state don't change addresses very often.

Incorrect.

[juuri]

Reality check: you can't legislate technology into existence. It takes time, energy, a bunch of smart people, and a ton of money

What kind of blind eye to history have you turned? Remember the apollo missions? The great aqueducts? The great wall? Thousands of years of ingenious dam and levy constructions? Pyramids?

Often times it takes a government to declare something as a goal and to commit to it before it becomes a reality, regardless of the nature (in this case technology).

This isn't going to be like that other law...

[Anonymous Coward]

the CBPTDA or whatever that is that was supposed to promote broadband or something by taking away all our civil liberties or something, is it?

A better title...

[Mustang Matt]

Senators Jump to Aimlessly Wire Broadband

More moderation fun

[M.C. Hampster]

Insightful huh?

Let's take a look:

to be sold to private interest, rather than be preserved for the public.

Ah yes, it would be much better for the government to make that space available and then not sell it to a private corpration. That way, we can all sit around and think to ourselves, "I'm glad that spectrum is open for broadband..... IT'S TOO BAD WE CAN'T USE IT!!!"

Does anyone have a more in-depth understanding of what these two senators are trying to pass?

Hmm, how about you read the article? It says quite clearly what they are intending to do.

Again, how was this insightful?

Re:More moderation fun

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah yes, it would be much better for the government to make that space available and then not sell it to a private corpration. That way,
we can all sit around and think to ourselves, "I'm glad that spectrum is open for broadband..... IT'S TOO BAD WE CAN'T USE IT!!!"

What are you talking about? Have you even heard of 802.11? Do you think the best we can do is 10Mbps? It gets a lot better from here...provided noone(insert company here) screws it up.

Re:More moderation fun

[Anonymous Coward]

"how was this insightful?"

It wasn't written by you.

Re:More moderation fun

[bizitch]

Good point -

How the fuck is this new spectrum supposed to get put to use without private investment?

Oh, now I remember.... Socialism is the answer!

Re:More moderation fun

[Elwood P Dowd]

Uh... I don't understand. You seem to be advocating the kind of privatization that is actually *more* gov't control. How would you feel if the visible spectrum were licensed in the manner you prescribe? Are we being socialists by insisting that everyone should be able to use the visual spectrum to communicate?

If grandparent poster's jaw-dropping conclusion is correct, we'll be able to sit around and think to ourselves: "I'm glad that spectrum is open for broadband..... otherwise I wouldn't be on broadband right now." because *any* private organization will be able to use the spectrum. Please show me how this would be a bad thing. And you could also tell me how this is more restrictive than saying only government-mandated organizations are allowed to use the spectrum.

Re:More moderation fun

[M.C. Hampster]

I guess if you could have two ISP's operating in a given area using the same spectrum, without interfering with each other, than there would be no need to license to individual companies. However, I don't think that is possible, which means that certain sections must be individually licensed.

I could be wrong though.

Re:More moderation fun

[akb]

I could be wrong though

You are wrong. Reread that bit about channel width in the story intro.

If there's a topic that you don't understand, try to learn before posting copiously.

Re:More moderation fun

[Elwood P Dowd]

What an interesting coincidence. You *are* wrong. As I open up my laptop here at work, I see that my there are five APs from one tenant here, one from a local ISP, and one from a starbucks in the basement.

Do you have some reason to believe that a new standard would be developed for this new spectrum that worked worse than the current standard?

Even if you were correct, imagine what would happen if we still regulated in the same fashion that we regulate the visual spectrum: You can't put blinding lights in public places, can you?

So, people would have to turn down their APs so that they did not interfere with their neighbors. If your ISP wants to broadcast so loudly that you can't use your own AP in your house, then they need to make a *contract* with you. Anything less is government manipulation, and is as reprehensible as the worst kind of socialism.

This is how the free market works when it works right. I can't begin to understand how anyone could see it differently. Please, if you do, explain.

would you like some cheese?

[Anonymous Coward]

with this whine? *whine whine* big gubmint *whine whine* high taxes *whine whine* welfare sows *whine whine whine*

Useful bands are...

[BSOD from above]

well, useful. People pay good money to buy this bandwidth from the government. The simple fact that the FCC might not charge full price for this chunk of spectrum should raise suspicion. The government has figured that it is worth more($) to them if they give this bandwidth to someone who will resell it and generate tax revenues. Highly suspect!

UK

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been trying to get some sort of wireless ISP going here in the UK for a two mile radius of my home, in a rural area for approx 50 users. The technology for the 'mile-mile' is not the problem. It's getting a 2MB connection to my home\transmitter! At $21000 just blows the economics.

No surprise...Boxer and Allen were paid off by....

[i_want_you_to_throw_]

AOL and Verizon.

Considering that Barbara Boxer has taken $40,500 in payoffs from AOL already this year is one indication of why she is pushing this.

George Allen is no better. $26,150 from Verizon and $22,000 buys his support.

Senators take more payoffs than they actually "get it"

Wide Spectrum

[njhunter]

I couldn't think of a wider spectrum that would exist than between liberal Boxer and conservative Allen.

Why more?

[bongholio]

They want to allocate 255MHz? Why? We already have 675MHz allocated for 802.11a! (5.15GHz-5.875GHz)

Re:Why more?

[univgeek]

The bandwidth is not for 802.11a alone. It is an open band -> anyone can use it for anything -> lots of non-data interference which cannot be controlled.

By restricting the band to data ALONE, much better use could be made of the spectrum.

Re:Why more?

[grumpygrodyguy]

The bandwidth is not for 802.11a alone. It is an open band -> anyone can use it for anything -> lots of non-data interference which cannot be controlled.


I would really like to believe this. Where did you get your information?

Re:Why more?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's also an amateur radio band, and is allocated for ISM and Part 15 use (radar, medical telemetry, etc.)

Re:Why more?

[isdnip]

The bill calls for 255 MHz of contiguous spectrum for what it calls U-NII services. The present U-NII allocation includes 200 MHz of contiguous spectrum in the 5.7-5.8 GHz range, plus another noncontiguous 100 MHz down around 5.2.

The lowest 100 MHz is very restricted, since satellites use it too, so it's indoor only, very low power. Some 802.11a devices hang out there. The power limits on the upper two sub-bands are higher. The 5.85-5.925 band (just above U-NII) is used for vehicle-oriented services -- see the FCC web site http://www.fcc.gov/ for a current proceeding concerning that spectrum. Not to mention a slick spectrum chart covering 300-3000 MHz.

So really this bill isn't asking for all that much, probably just an extension of the 5.7 GHz band. The problem has been lower volume and higher cost for that equipment; if it catches on, prices will fall. But the rules may need some tweaking.

Wireless good, but security lacking

[linux_student]

With so many people, universities, and companies already going to 802.11b, would
it really be wise to "open up" the market completely this soon? WEP is a joke at best;
of the few other systems I have ran into in these parts, The university's wireless
(authenticated via VPN) seems to be the most secure. We really can't expect most
sysadmins to set up a VPN, let alone the home users; I really think that this idea,
albeit a good one, needs to wait for better security that's easier to implement for
the average user.

The Proper Way To Jumpstart Broadband

[glassware]

The number one problem preventing broadband from reaching everyone is competition.

Your local DSL company knows they can charge $49.95 forever for DSL. They know that they don't have to invest in upgrading infrastructures that could threaten their phone revenue. They know they can stall competitive DSL providers by overcharging and underserving them. It's just too easy for a baby bell to sit on the status quo.

On the other hand, some communities around the world have bypassed the phone companies and installed fibre and/or high speed metropolitan networks. Those areas have cheap, fast, always-on Internet service.

The proper way to stimulate Broadband adoption is to take ownership of the telecommunications infrastructure away from the Baby Bells and give it to each city. Then, each city can invest in the infrastructure that makes the most sense for them (microwave perhaps for remote counties; fibre for urban centers). Competing Internet Service providers (and baby bells too) will have fair, equal access to each house and building in the city. Your local city will invest in upgrading its infrastructure to provide a competitive advantage to encourage people to move in and provide tax revenue. Taxes which currently are used to force the baby bells to provide universal telephone service can be repurposed to aid development in poor counties.

Have I overlooked anything?

Re:The Proper Way To Jumpstart Broadband

[oldstrat]

Have I overlooked anything?"

Yup one little thing, your proposing that control be turned over to cities for investment when the proposal is that this spectrum be unregulated for the purpose of enhancing rural access.

The cities have no interest in improving rural access, quite the reverse.

The real upsetter I'm seeing the proposal to free up (unregulate) spectrum is not if it will work, but what happens if it does work.
My impression (and of course I could easily be wrong) is that they expect the wireless rural broadband to be developed adhoc much the way 802.11 has in some cities with groups creating communities of shared resources to the traditional broadband world of xDSL and Cable.
It could work, and in the process drive a stake through the heart of the traditional BB providers, as well as Baby Bells and the final nail in the coffin of the LD companies.
Why? Well it doesn't take a lot of bandwidth to do VOIP tunneling out of a 11+Mb wireless connection.

Re:The Proper Way To Jumpstart Broadband

[Anonymous Coward]

The proper way to stimulate Broadband adoption is to take ownership of the telecommunications infrastructure away from the Baby Bells and give it to each city.

So even though Bell laid the infrastructure and maintained it the government should remove their control of it and give it to local governments? Nice. Maybe we could give the government control of everything and everyone would be equal and there would be no more rich and poor... this has surely worked for other countries in the past.

Re:The Proper Way To Jumpstart Broadband

[siasl]

Nope, but maybe the wireless equiv of the interstate highway system is in order. Then let the baby bells just sit on their "back country road" infrastructure while the rest of us use the highway.

Re:The Proper Way To Jumpstart Broadband

[Anonymous Coward]

The proper way to stimulate Broadband adoption is to take ownership of the telecommunications infrastructure away from the Baby Bells and give it to each city.

Some cities who feel the ILECs don't meet their needs are getting into the telco market themselves, becoming CLECs. This is already happening in Wisconsin, with fiber-to-the-curb projects in Sun Prairie and Reedsburg

dark fiber use

[u19925]

there is plenty of dark fiber available. the problem is that of last mile. the wireless solution offers excellent choice atleast in not too dense areas and specially where dark fiber capacity is available. 802.11b/a are just the starting point. there is plenty of unused spectrum available once you go above 25 GHz for which the technology is still sitting in the lab.

Re:Senators with ideas is bad news QWZX

[taern]

test

Spectrum doesn't have to be owned.....

[richieb]

How the fuck is this new spectrum supposed to get put to use without private investment?

The point is that the spectrum does not have to belong to a private company to be utilized. For example, interstate highways belong to the public, but everyone can use them.

Read about Ultra Wide Band to learn how bandwidth can be shared, just like the highways.

GDP=Gross Domestic Product

[Nazmun]

That means we're going to produce more. At least thats what I think it means... It's been a reallly long time since econ.

You really want bandwidth to be like our highways?

[M.C. Hampster]

For example, interstate highways belong to the public, but everyone can use them.

Do you really think there is a comparison between the two? Do you want the government responsible for creating and setting up these kind of high-tech networks?

Re:You really want bandwidth to be like our highwa

[richieb]

Do you really think there is a comparison between the two? Do you want the government responsible for creating and setting up these kind of high-tech networks?

The roads are a shared resource like the spectrum. The goverment doesn't have to build the spectrum, it just should not allocate it to private companies, if the resource can be shared.

The goverment should sponsor/define open standards that anyone who wants to use the spectrum must follow, and then anyone can build the equipment. Just like anyone can build and drive a truck, as long as they conform to the federal guidelines..

Frequencies???

[Anonymous Coward]

lobbying the FCC to carve out frequencies...Bullshit.
DSL and cable already operate at basically fixed "frequencies" , what the fuck are you talking about?
Did you sleep through the RF101 class?

Re:You really want bandwidth to be like our highwa

[M.C. Hampster]

If this is technically feasible, I would definately think that is the way to go. However, as I mentioned in another response in this thread, I don't think it works that way.

Public Unregulated Spectrum is UNUSABLE???

[JohnDenver]

You wrote:
Ah yes, it would be much better for the government to make that space available and then not sell it to a private corpration. That way, we can all sit around and think to ourselves, "I'm glad that spectrum is open for broadband..... IT'S TOO BAD WE CAN'T USE IT!!!"

First of all, I think the rest of us are wondering how YOU got modded up?

Do you even understand how the basics of FCC spectrum licensing, or are you trying to suggest (Very incoherantly) that unregulated radio, like that being used by 802.11, isn't usable because it's unregulated?

You do understand that the success behind 2.4ghz (802.11) was that is was given to the public and not auctioned to a single corporation.

It's funny, because everybody else is excited about more unregulated public radio spectrums! Almost the ENTIRE tech industry loves it. Why don't you like unregulated public radio?

Please tell us, WHY DO YOU THINK UNREGULATED RADIO, like 2.4ghz (802.11), IS UNUSEABLE???

We're all waiting for your brilliant insight!

Yep, socialism is always the answer

[Anonymous Coward]

I mean, look at all the places it's worked: Soviet Union (where are they now?), Cuba (a real economic powerhouse), China (oh wait---they're actually a market economy now), etc.

A Quick Lesson in Capitalism

[JohnDenver]

How the fuck is this new spectrum supposed to get put to use without private investment?

Oh, now I remember.... Socialism is the answer!

This will work just like 802.11 and the Internet is working NOW.

Since the radio spectrum is available for ANYONE to use, the private investments come from the equipment manufacturers, users, smaller ISPs, bigger ISPs who want a slice of the market, etc.

This is actually very similar to how the Internet got started. Sprint, T-Mobile, and commercial wireless carriers are like the old AOL, CompuServe, and Prodigy.

Along came the Internet (A cooperative system started by the government), which allowed ANYONE to set up thier own ISP and become thier own AOL, CompuServer, and Prodigy.

You see young capitalist: Sometimes the government is nessecary to get people to cooperate initially. The trick is to bring everybody at the table, and THEN let the market regulate themselves. Just like the Internet!

I know that you're a young capitalist, but you have to remember that UNREGULATED radio is a capitalist's friend.

This will be another boondoggle

[Anonymous Coward]

due to cost considerations, things like spread spectrum and self regulation will not be applied to solve the problem. I say create a spectrum for broadband wireless, give it the same sorta requirements as 2.4 ghz pub band, with a stipulation on a large louisiville slugger stating "You will use spread spectrum and 'other accepted design practices' (*tm pending) to avoid frequency stomps (*tm not pending)"

This is Just Expanding Wi-Fi? Nothing trivial...

[JohnDenver]

I know you're skeptical, but what these people are proposing is just a simple expansion of Wi-Fi, by getting more radio spectrum and limiting it's use for data services.

It's just 802.11 with better range and a smarter protocol.

You get Linksys, D-Link, Engenuis, Proxim, and all the other wireless devices guys in a room, and it won't take them long to agree on a standard, especially if it means selling lots of units.

What trivial about unregulated radio being used for broadband?

Overcrowding IS our friend.

[JohnDenver]

The key to making this work is to make sure that this new Wi-Fi is SELLABLE, meaning anybody, with minimal capital, can set up thier own wireless broadband ISP.

Once there is an industry, with a lot of consumers, then you'll get a big push to open more spectrum for unregulated wireless broadband to meet consumer demand.

Now THAT's capitalism kicking the government's ass. (Rather than pandering to the FCC's auction process...)

Just a few problems...

[Anonymous Coward]

Where do I begin...

If you look at it this way, it suddenly becomes less surprising that most of the innovative companies like Sun, Microsoft, and Linux do most of their R&D outside the US, in countries like Finland, Pakistan, and Europe that have lower taxes.

1) Exactly how is Microsoft an innovative company?

2) Since when in "Linux" a company at all?

3) Since when is Europe a country?

4) Since when are taxes lower in Europe than the United States?

If we want to revive the foundering American economy, we need to stop coming up with voodoo feel-good laws like this one and start cutting taxes for the companies that generate wealth.

Oh by all means. If you want to restore the kind of phony rich-get-richer prosperity of the late 90s, which saw crooked corporate robber barons amass fat profits (which they often escaped paying taxes on through one loophole or another) and then cash out just as the bubble burst and left everyone else screwed, then that's a great idea. Let's slash taxes on corporations, particularly "innovative" corporations like Microsoft, immediately.

"last mile"

[Anonymous Coward]

I work for a wireless cable tv and highspeed internet company, we've been doing "wireless" for *years*. This of course depends on your definition of "wireless"...

Our system uses microwaves, broadcast from towers to antennas placed on the roof of the customer's house. Once at the antenna, the signal is carried inside via a regular RG6 coaxial cable to the modem and/or receiver for the tv. The speeds are comparable to those of the wired ISP (there is one DSL provider and one cable highspeed provider in the area); we are 1000/128 kbits/s. Only thing is, we limit your usage per month (not my call!)..

Its an interesting solution, as the bulk of our users are in rural areas that normally could not get broadband. A very good "last mile" solution in my mind..

Failing telcos?

[Anonymous Coward]

Failing telcos? What the heck are you talking about! They're super-profitable!

Of course they always try to say that they're hurting, but the big players are some of the most profitable businesses around.

BROADBAND IS NOT HIGH SPEED!!!!!

[acoustix]

The term broadband does not indicate what speed the connection is running at. Broadband means that it is an ANALOG signal. That's all. The means of sending several analog signals down 1 cable is frequency multiplexing.

Examples of broadband technology are: dial up modems (28.8, 36.6...) and cable modems.

Baseband uses digital signals. Examples of baseband: ethernet, DSL...

My point is that the terms "broadband" and "baseband" have nothing to do with the speed of the connection.

Re:BROADBAND IS NOT HIGH SPEED!!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

>Baseband uses digital signals. Examples of baseband: ethernet, DSL...

DSL isn't baseband. For other examples that are: Arcnet, RS-232, and Token Ring.

Sorry.

upsides and downsides to everything

[zogger]

--the tva had good and bad parts to it. the public observable good, hydro power and the ac electricity 'standard" to a lot of areas. downsides where it helped squash independent home electrical generation in favor of the big picture big guys, even going beyond the co-ops. Back in the 20's and 30's there was a blossoming and successful rural "alternative energy" industry, it got squashed. jacobs windpower for example. Here's a short history:

http://www.windturbine.net/history.htm

Aceytelene generators and efficient small home diesels. There where a variety of DC appliance makers to serve that industry. I'm sorta too lazy right now to go dig up a slew more links, but the gist of it was that alternative energywas reallystarting to take off, in a variety of directions, and including solar in heating at least, and, well, it got squashed. There always seems to be lurking behind big government projects a few fatcats with their hands out, and it's always sold as "good for the people". funny how it works out like that. Hmm, need a new war, who can we hire to build war stuff... wow! we got the same old cast of characters conveniently ready to go into triple overtime and build war stuff. Energy, same deal. Communications, same deal. These social government programs also helped establish this mindset and legal precedent that "the government" can just constanly kick people off their land to do "something". The something always seems to eventually become a basic subsidy, not for the little guy, but for some big international "deal". Sort of like what the stealth mega corps/greenie orgs/ government cartel does now with creating "willing sellers" in the rural areas by first using some "law" like the ESA to knock off a class of rural workers by virtually outlawing what they do for a living, usually based on extremely coercive and faulty junk science (spotted owl, klamath suckers, etc), this then bankrupts the people when they can't work, despite the fifth amendment of the constitution saying they need to be paid for lost whatever when government seizes their stuff, so they sell their properties "willingly". They even give grants to so called "not for profit" orgs, who turn around and use bogus created "laws" and sue people, who then get harassed by government.

I'm saying there's usually always payoffs going on and wheels within wheels with these happenings. Been going on a long time too.

Same deal in a lot of matters with the FCC, supposedly they serve the public good with their regulations, but sometimes it doesn't work. They go out of their way to bust micro broadcasters saying they cause "harm", but they rubber stamp the more or less very monopolistic and extremely lucrative "licenses" given to the major networks and broadcasters year after year, despite mega thousands of complaints they have received, and the harm they cause by mass propogandizing the news shows and by the social engineering they do with "entertainment" shows. Ya, you can complain,and it goes on record for public viewing in the circular file receptacle.

It's not an either / or, there's good and bad in these quasi socialistic experiments they do with manipulating how humans do their work and what happens with industry in general.

I think a better first step is to make null and void the local telcos and the cable copmpanies monopolies, and to rein in the FCC to it's constitutional limits set for the federal government, and that is to regulate interstate commerce as it pertains to broadcasting, and commerce isn't "all" broadcasting, and not all broadcasting or delivered/sent data services.

Just a few points. I sort of agree with you on some good coming from the standards and public works, but I also see the other side of the coin. Basically I want "government" in general to be put on a severe hold right now, as in a total stoppage of any "new" laws, a "cease and desist" order in other words, and a ten year or so campaign to review and remove the bulk of the "old" laws, keeping only the extremely necessary and constitutional ones. I know that's a wish, I'm just wishing is all, heh.

Sounds good to me.

[Codifex Maximus]

After all, I'm on a wireless broadband connection myself. It works great - just as fast or faster than Cable. I get around 120mb/s peak download speed and around 50mb/s upload. All for about $50USD/month in an area that Cable or DSL are not available.

Wireless is a great way to bridge that last mile. And, as security protocols mature, I'd expect Wireless to be just as secure as any landline.

Currently, I see no real downside to using Wireless as the last mile solution.

hey michael!

[Anonymous Coward]

go fuck yourself censornazi. bitch.

Re:This is real! 2100MHz +/- or MMDS may be the ra

[bizitch]

Very kewl! But I have so many questions ...

What kind of bandwidth do your clients typically get?
What hardware do they need?
What is the monthly cost?
Is anyone else worried what GHz range transmissions will do to the inside of one's skull?

And of course - my favorite question to wireless providers is - what environmental factors (rain, lightning, solar flares, etc..) screw it up?

Personally I'm hoping that a UWB solution will enter this space - but I'm sure glad that someone is starting to compete with those legacy wired systems.

Senators Find New Way To Line Corporate Pockets

[ljheidel]

1. Auction off spectrum for "broadband use" in a "public" (open to our corporate friends who give us the larges bribes^H^H^H^H^H campaign contributions) auction. Make sure that the spectrum allocation creates exclusive territories, regardless of the technical feasability of sharing the band.

2. Allow companies to wait 5 years while small players have struggled to create a marketplace(with 802.11b for instance). (Very important to make sure that our corporate friends are assured of a user base first.)

3. Sit back and watch while large corporations use their superior (licenced) technology to kill small corporations (who have to rely on interference-prone, slower unlicenced technology). Large corporations may make an effort to offer to resale their service to other companies as not to seem anticompetitive. However, our friends will overcharge and underdeliver their wholesale product. The wholesale product will be available on paper only. No would-be compeditior will every actually be able to buy it in a timely manner.

4. Large corporations will flail about aimlessly for several years offering lousy service, and clulessly delivering their product. Meanwhile, they will operate at a loss, knowing that their other government-supported monopoly products will fuel the operation until they run all competition out of the market through (often misleading) advertising and legal maneuvering.

5. All competition in the area will be gone, allowing the large corporations to charge $69.95 a month for a 768/128 kb/sec connection which is connected to a network that is oversubscribed 500:1 while claiming that it's "20 times faster than dialup."

I think I've seen this movie before and I think it stunk the first time.

Replacing one with the other

[bizitch]

What makes you think that changing control of the infrastructure from one bloated, non-responsive bureaucracy (SBC for example) to another bloated, non-responsive bureaucracy (say Chicago) will do anybody any good?

Oh yeah - Um .... who maintains the COs then?

The Department of Telephony?

Re:No surprise...Boxer and Allen were paid off by.

[Anonymous Coward]

OK, AOL I can understand ... But why would a RBOC like Verizon want compeitition?

I second that!

[Anonymous Coward]

Dumb as a brick....how is she still in office? :-(

Broadband does mean HIGH SPEED according to FCC

[wa4osh]

The FCC defines BROADBAND: http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/broadband.html This Web site has been designed to answer some of our most frequently asked questions about broadband. While much has been written about broadband lately, many consumers are not sure exactly what it is, what it can do, and what is the potential. What is Broadband? Are There Different Types of Broadband? What are the Advantages of Broadband? What Are Some of the Options with Broadband? What is Narrowband? Test Your Speed. What is Broadband? Broadband refers most commonly to a new generation of high-speed transmission services, which allows users to access the Internet and Internet-related services at significantly higher speeds than traditional modems. It has the potential technical capability to meet consumers' broad communication, entertainment, information, and commercial needs and desires. Are There Different Types of Broadband? There are several types of broadband services: Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) Cable Modem Wireless Internet Satellite

Why not share the UHF TV band? (ch 14-51)

[wa4osh]

The UHF television band goes from 470MHz (ch14) to 698 MHz (ch51). This is 228 Mhz of contiguous prime beachhead on a very underused band. This band penetrates building walls and trees much better than 2.4 or 5 GHz. Why not share it under part 15 on those channels where no local UHF broadcasts exist? TV broadcasters are using ERP's in the kilo and megawatts. Properly designed equipment that is low power that listens before transmitting should not interfere with broadcasters.

Last Post!

[alpg]

We have some absolutely irrefutable statistics to show exactly why
you are so tired.
There are not as many people actually working as you may have thought.
The population of this country is 200 million. 84 million are over
60 years of age, which leaves 116 million to do the work. People under 20
years of age total 75 million, which leaves 41 million to do the work.
There are 22 million who are employed by the government, which leaves
19 million to do the work. Four million are in the Armed Services, which
leaves 15 million to do the work. Deduct 14,800,000, the number in the state
and city offices, leaving 200,000 to do the work. There are 188,000 in
hospitals, insane asylums, etc., so that leaves 12,000 to do the work.
Now it may interest you to know that there are 11,998 people in jail,
so that leaves just 2 people to carry the load. That is you and me, and
brother, I'm getting tired of doing everything myself!

- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...