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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).
The way to "effectively promote" technical stuff is to run an ad in Wired. No legislators need apply.
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.
When all that wireless Kazaa traffic gives me a brain tumour, who do I sue?
Trolling is a art,
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.
Don't anthropomorphize computers, they don't like it.
With that kind of thinking, vast parts of America would still not have electricity and telephone service...
*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?
The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky
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.
Just because I doubt myself does not mean I find your position compelling.
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.
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
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.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
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.
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. It's just that yours is stupid.
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.
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.
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)
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.
GetTheJob.com : Nothing but Real Jobs.
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."
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
GeneralEmergency
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...
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo.
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--
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.
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.
Karma: Censored (mostly affected by decency laws)
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!
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.
Honesty may be the best policy, but apparently by elimination, dishonesty is the second best policy.
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.
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.
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
I am very easy to get along with, but I don't have time to waste being nice to people who are being stupid. -Theo
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.
Paper Pusher
Senators Jump to Aimlessly Wire Broadband
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
Insightful huh?
Let's take a look:
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!!!"
Hmm, how about you read the article? It says quite clearly what they are intending to do.
Again, how was this insightful?
Forget the whales - save the babies.
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"
I couldn't think of a wider spectrum that would exist than between liberal Boxer and conservative Allen.
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?
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How ya like dat?