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."

Comments

great

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

watter absorption

[IAR80]

The watter absorbtion is so big at 92Ghz that you can only use it indoors.

What is the advantage over laser?

[ahfoo]

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?

unlicensed spectrum

[pinguirico]

Releasing spectrum is good. Releasing unlicensed spectrum is better.

3G in Europe

[spectrokid]

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.