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UK Approves of 5.8GHz For Rural Broadband
Tandoori Haggis writes "BBC News reports a major decision by UK Government to approve the use of 5.8 GHz C-band for use with wireless broadband. A prime consideration is the desire to provide broadband access for rural areas
where broadband cable might be prohibitively expensive to impliment. Previously there had been resistance to freeing up 5.8GHz because it is in an area of the RF spectrum used by C-band radars."
...on the issues involved in deregulating this part of the spectrum can be found here.
The Army reading list
They should read up on hack proofing their networks, in that case.
More info.
This is great, we need to see it here in the States. This would help with Last mile issues out west or in the farmlands. Or, I could use this from my apartment and still get a signal at my favorite bar.... I like that...
Words are only yours until someone else uses them...
From the article:
[i]"The Ministry of Defence had resisted opening up the spectrum because it has radar systems operating in Band C of the 5GHz part of the spectrum."[/i]
Perhaps the UK should stop using C band radars for military purposes, and get with the times by upgrading to L-band or X-band radar.
C-band is acceptabe for weather radar, but even then, you would be more worried about weather radar obstructing broadband connections...not the other way around.
Isn't fixed wireless in the states actually pretty expensive? How are they going to do it cheaply in the UK?
I thought the real selling point of fixed wireless was that these rural areas finally get to have access, and, being deprived of anything near as fast, would pay a relatively high price for it.
crazy to share the band with the military...it realy does seem like licensing without guarantee of service...
The military can shut you down and creat exclusion zones, you have to pay and there is no gurantee of service and they could theoretically raise the licensing fee at a later date. Seems like shaky ground to me.
Sure, the transmitting antenna should be very high. To establish line-of-sight though, you'd probably be fine with your antenna being 10 or 20 feet above your roof.
FM radio is line-of-sight too...and you don't lose everything when you're parked next to a brick house. Don't expect tree branches blowing across to severely affect your signal strength.
You're ignoring diffraction, which of course is more obvious at larger wavelengths. FM radio seems more line-of-sight than AM because the smaller wavelength bends around properly-sized objects (read people-sized houses and small hills) less well.
An FM radio signal (about 100 MHz) has a wavelength of roughly 3 meters. Some brick houses aren't that much larger than this, so you'll can get some diffraction around the house.
A 5.8 GHz signal has a wavelength of about 1/60 this, or roughly 5 cm. So yes, expect much smaller objects to significantly obscure your receival of the transmission.
Finally, what really matters is the index of refraction of whatever material is 'obscuring' the signal. I'm not really sure, but I would guess that wood and brick would be more opaque at 5.8 GHz C band than at 100 MHz.
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