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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."
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?
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Rare Window - free your photos
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?
Woooooo - flamebait!
:)
So much misinformation in that I actually laughed... briefly...
Ethernet = CSMA/CD, that is, Carrier Sense Media Access with Collision Detection. Only one station transmitting at a time. Works OK for packetised data. 3G uses CDMA - Code Division Media Access - all users share a common frequency band and their signals are spread across all the available spectrum, and scrambled with a code unique to that user so that they can be recovered. No collisions occur.
Modulating a Carrier Frequency - all broadband communication systems do this. Duh.
Video link on a 50Hz carrier = snake oil.
Video on the cellphone isn't a goal, it's available now with 3G networks.
High speed mobile comms requires microwave frequencies. "Low" frequencies are typically already allocated to AM and FM radio broadcasts, and higher ones to VHF/UHF TV. No beaurocracy needed.
I'm going to stop now and return to my normal colour.
These sigs are more interesting tha
Releasing spectrum is good. Releasing unlicensed spectrum is better.
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
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