How Reliable is 900Mhz Wireless Internet?

amrust asks: "I live in an area that currently is not being served by broadband in any way. Local ISP's are discussing bringing Wireless Internet into our area, and for some of the more difficult to reach places, they have mentioned 900Mhz being used. I was wondering how reliable/secure the 900Mhz spectrum is for Wireless Internet, and if anybody has some comments on experiences with 900Mhz wireless internet that they can pass on?"

Comments

Frequencies

[hackwrench]

Any frequency is just as secure as any other. It depends on the protocols that run over it.

I would assume...

[twiztidlojik]

That it would be more reliable to use the higher spectrum. If you can transmit 900 million waves/second, then you probably can't fit as much error correction in the stream as the protocols used in 2400 million waves/second communication due to the lower bandwidth of the 900MHz band. Then again, I'm just guessing. Any radio geeks want to take a stab at this?

Re:I would assume...

[dJCL]

Based on my phone experience, I've owned and generally used both a 900 and a 2.4 phone. The 2.4 sounds better close in and can get a good secure connection to the base station within about 100+ meters of my base station. On the other hand, my 900 was quite capable of connecting to me when I was over 250+ meters away. The connection quality was pasable, but the range was great.

The reason they are probably using 900 is for connection distance. The same equiptment will cover more users with probably less bandwidth, but that is a price to pay.

As someone else noted, security of the connection has nothing to do with the frequency, so just discuss that with the provider. As it is, still 80% of the wireless networks that I run into are even setup with WEP(mine is not, but I have other ways) and most are default settings, so if the provider even tries to put in some security, no one will bother with them unless they have a reason.

Enjoy!

ISM

[Detritus]

900 MHz is an ISM (Industrial, Scientific, Medical) band, like the 2.4 GHz band. Unlicensed devices may not cause interference to licensed users and they must accept interference from other devices. This means that you are at the bottom of the totem pole in a "junk" band. If you can't use your unlicensed 900 MHz device due to interference, tough shit, that's the price you pay for unlicensed operation in an ISM band. Devices designed for ISM bands are usually designed with low cost as the primary design goal. That often means that there is no shielding and the RF electronics function poorly, or not at all, in a hostile RF environment.

The end result is that you should keep your expectations low. If it works, great, if not, try something else.

Re:ISM

[Muad'Dave]

Amen to that, brother! As a part 47 user of 902-928 MHz, I have to deal with part 15 users noise. My local power company, Dominion Resources (aka VA Power) just installed some Schlumberger C1SR meters in my area. They're the kind that transmit usage data on 910-920 MHz as a part 15C device. As far as I can tell, they broadcast their info every min or 5 min instead of being polled - aargh! My whole neighborhood now has lots of meters blasting away for 99 44/100% of the month when there's no meter reader truck around to hear them. I could be a nasty boy and demand their removal if they interfere with my part 47 use - we'll see how bad it really is after I get a chance to quantify the interference.

Of course, searching for manufacturer code F9C, product ID C1R-1 on the FCC Product ID Search page returns little useful info regarding the exact freqs and modulation techniques in use. They asked for and received confidential status on the most interesting bits. Ugh.

PS - The FCC product ID search page can return all sorts of useful info on any product with an FCC ID. For instance, the info on the electronic key for my car returns schematics, data format info, etc. Sweet!