Slashdot Mirror
FCC Commercializes More Bandwidth for 3G services
prostoalex writes "Federal Communications Commission opened up 90 MHz of previously reserved bandwidth for next-generation wireless services. The FCC news release (MS Word, PDF, apparently no HTML) specifies the following ranges to be available for commercial exploitation: 1710-1755 MHz and 2110-2155 MHz. Currently the licenses are issued to the business capable of providing "substantial service by the end of the license term", later on the licenses will be sold to the highest bidder. There's also this announcement about millimeter wave broadband frequencies."
We know what's the best. We should be buy a band, setup our own protocal, and... rule the world!
We have open source software.
Why not open source an entire unique communication project?
Davak
(Rant from someone who carries a Verizon cell due to coverage in US and a T-mobile phone that sucks in U.S. but works fine in other countries.)
This is a good thing. There are too many wireless operators in the US so spectrum is stretched pretty thin. Now we may get to see UMTS here in the states.
The watter absorbtion is so big at 92Ghz that you can only use it indoors.
http://ebgp.net/ccc/
It's great to see they're actually looking for companies who are going to do something with the bandwidth.
The farcical 3G auctions of the 'dot com boom' era was the nail in the coffin of many companies who spent billions of dollars on spectrum they had no idea what to do with.
Let's just pray some enterprising companies somewhat aligned to PC users get their mitts on it. If the telcos snap it all up you can bet it'll priced out of the market for mobile PC applications (wireless VPNs, general high-speed wireless access etc).
A CTO impressing his lunchmates with his swanky cell phone displaying video clips of his kids is one thing, but there's a killer app out there right now for a cheap, wireless, ubiquitous service for PC users.
Bill, Steve, Paul... somebody?
--
Rare Window - free your photos
Well for those without MS Word or Adobe Reader here is HTML link provided by Google
(\(\
(^.^)
(")")
*This is the cute bunny virus, please copy this into your sig so it can spread
Mobile operators were doing, on the whole, well in the uk until they paid over the odds for the 3G licences and have landed themselves in huge amounts of debt.
Here is HTML version of PDF provided by Google
(\(\
(^.^)
(")")
*This is the cute bunny virus, please copy this into your sig so it can spread
I was looking around the web at this last night when I saw the news releases and I saw them talking about pencil beams as though it was very directional. That made me wonder what it's got over laser. At first I thought perhaps it was because it was more resistant to weather variations, is there more to it than that?
They're talking about Ghz speeds over a mile. But technically you could achieve a similar bandwidth with laser as well, right?
This is great news, the development of 3G services in the US has been held up for long enough by beaurocracy. Countries such as Japan, South Korea and Rhodesia have established a technical lead in this area, which can only harm the already weak economy.
What might be interesting, however, is when the new 4G technologies come along. These will be different from previous technologies that work by modulating a carrier frequency, but will instead be analagous to ethernet with each phone using the same frequency and collisions being detected.
The advantages of this is that much lower frequencies can be used (50Hz is being talked about), but by allowing the phones to transmit many millions of times per second, data transfer rates of up to 15Gigabytes can be achieved. That should make video on the cellphone a realistic goal.
The only worry is that again government beaurocracy will not allow theses low frequencies to be used meaning that even poor countries will be able to have better services than the US.
All that glitters has a high refractive index.
Great...let's add another layer of unnecessary complexity to the mish-mash of frequencies and protocols that is US cellular coverage. Bonus points for the lovely distribution plan which will inevitably result in scatter-shot distribution to any company who can file a vaguely-plausible business plan, regardless of what they plan to run over it. Cellular providers can't even build their network out to fill their existing licenses as it is.
Technology advances make this even more irrelevant, as high-bandwidth service is possible without this additional bandwidth -- Verizon Wireless has already rolled out their EV-DO network in their Washington DC and San Diego markets, providing 300-500Kbps average, with bursts up to 2.4Mbps.
The FCC should worry about getting the entire country converted to digital service before tossing out new frequencies willy-nilly.
well the only problem i have with this is that public safety (Fire, Police, EMS, and all those other agencies) have been running into a communication crunch over teh last many years. And there aint no new frequencies being opened up to them.
30% Troll, 50% Underrated, 10% Interesting
Score:5, Troll
This is a hypothetical but what if all these waves going through our bodies and brains is slowly killing us and by the time we relise whats happening it will be too late. There was a post some time ago in responce to the mothers who sued a school over this that said there where reports of incresed headaches but higher productivity. What about unborn babies... what is the effect on them. I guesse we won't find out for another 20 years when they grow up and enter society.
do unto others as you would have them do unto you
So what?
Last time they landed a story on Slashdot, there was only a link to a Word document. I think a link to a PDF file is an improvement...
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
Releasing spectrum is good. Releasing unlicensed spectrum is better.
aka .. "profitted enough to fork over serious cash for a license"
FREE THE SPECTRUM.
LOW WATT BROADCASTING FOR ALL.
I won't claim to be omniscient regarding 3G, but having recently been laid off from a RF component company I've had some insight into 3G basestation deployment in North America and Europe.
3 gdream.htm2003/5179.htmr oduct/latestresearch/0083 76.htm
My opinion is that one can throw all the spectrum you want at 3G and it will continue to flounder as it has been for the past three years. Companies such as the one I worked for have been looking for the take-off of 3G for quite a while and have now resigned themselves to the fact that it may never really happen. One of the only things pushing deployment in Europe is the fact that licence holders will loose their licences if they don't put any basestations in the field by a certain deadline.
The problem is not a lack of spectrum or too much beauraucracy. Rather is it is a general lack of demand for services that 3G can provide. Here is an abbreviated list of links to stories that support my hypothesis. I acknowledge that there may exist evidence to the contrary out there.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/2248376.stm
http://www.3g.co.uk/PR/April
http://www.tiu.ie/
http://www.ovum.com/go/p
Broadband in the US is as expensive as it is because of the rules and regs of the FCC. Other countries have broadband for what we pay for dialup here in the US. It's obscene!
In Denmark, they rolled out 3G commercially last week. But after a new investigation on radiation in Holland and complaints from people living close to antenna's, there is talk about banning it near kindergardens... House prices are comming down for houses close to an antenna.
10 ?"Hello World" life was simple then
(Shameless plug for my employer)
The aviation industry's been looking into millimeter-wave systems for landing in fog. You can "see" a completely fogged-up runway with millimeter-wave radar.
Fortunately the licenses are "nonexclusive". You'll use a narrow beam, you'll get a license for the path it follows, and if you're the first to apply for a license between those two points you'll be protected against someone else pointing a beam directly at you. The FCC is relying on directionality to prevent multiple users from interfering with each other.
http://216.239.37.104/search?q=cache:A6Tzll8vcOMJ: hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-240 030A1.pdf+&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
The problem with auctioning off spectrum to the highest bidder, is that it is basically a variation of the old "window tax" that the UK instituted back in 1696 (not to be confused with MS one where you at least get something for your money). That tax was so unfair it probably resulted in the expression "daylight robbery" as a phrase for being grossly overcharged.
Mobile phones used to be used by just the privileged wealthy few - who could afford their high costs. For everyone else there was land lines, and public telephone booths for when you needed a phone away from your house. The world has changed now though, and you are practically a hermit in most of the developed world if you don't have one.
When the UK auctioned off the spectrum for 3G services to the highest bidder for GBP 22.47bn ($35.4bn)
The press and general public seem to think it's a wonderful way of collecting "free" revenue from mobile phone companies etc. Unfortunately, since everyone these days practically had to have a mobile, that's basically a GBP 400 tax per man woman and child - a tax that will have a hefty profit margin added to it also by the mobile phone companies - so you'll probably end up paying something like GBP 600 per person.
It is time that the general public saw spectrum auctions for what they are - a blatant rip off by the government against the public. Yes, spectrum has to be allocated, licensed, or kept localised (as in unlicensed low power short range transmissions only) to prevent total chaos in it's usage, but selling it to the highest bidder is NOT in the interest of the public. Perhaps there should be an OPPOSITE mechanism - where the company that can guarantee the lowest cost service to the public gets the use of the spectrum.
On another note, why don't pound symbols come out in Slashdot posts?