Spectrum as Property

the economist troll writes "An article in this week's Economist argues that overcautious control of electromagnetic spectrum, on the part of regulatory agencies, has resulted in the sheer waste of up to 95% of available spectrum. The article suggests remedies for this sorry state of affairs, including (but not limited to) various methods of privatization. Peppered with history and interesting facts--for instance, did you know only 2% of America's spectrum allocation is determined by auction?--this is one article you won't want to miss."

Comments

Waste?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would any more bandwidth be made private? So only a few corporations can control our communications networks? Yeah, let's go with that. Four more years for Bush (and Michael Powell)!!

One article you don't want to miss?

[Anonymous Coward]

Peppered with history and interesting facts--for instance, did you know only 2% of America's spectrum allocation is determined by auction?--this is one article you won't want to miss.

Yeah, if the rest of the article contains statistics half as fascinating as that one, I'd probably be riddled with regret if I didn't read it. I'm on the edge of my seat waiting to find out precisely which frequencies are actually determined by those actions. Thanks for the heads up!

Re:One article you don't want to miss?

[Jeff DeMaagd]

I think there are proposals to allow WiMAX and the like to tune into unused bands in the TV spectrum. Using ATSC's 8VSB modulation, each channel nets 20mbps, so UHF could have 120mbps or more capacity alone.

Re:One article you don't want to miss?

[Bishop]

give 'em all a year or two to retune

This is not a simple process. In some cases it is basically impossible. Many of the transmitters are hand tuned devices hardwired to a specific frequency. When it comes to TV many stations are using 20 and 30 year old (and older) transmitters. Legacy problems like this exist all over the spectrum. The frequency bands do need to be reallocated, but who is going to foot the huge bill?

Alternitives?

[c0dedude]

How is it done in Europe, Africa, Asia, S. America, and in Austrailia? How is it working out for them? I hate to jump to privatization without a prescident.

Re:Alternitives?

[That's Unpossible!]

Privitization of public utilities and resources in many cases produces bad results for the people, but makes the regulatory agency rich.

FUD

case in point is the water utility system in El Salvador

While that can be an example of a poorly run utility, it offers us no insight whatsoever into privatization without explicitly detailing how it has been privatized.

And there's no incentive for the water company to fix the problems either.

If the water system was truly privatized, the incentive would be that poor service would result in them losing the contract to provide the water service. Far more incentive than a government bureacracy running a utility, where is the incentive to an establishment with no oversight?

Re:Alternitives?

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

Imagine if you could broadcast anything over the radio without fear of the FCC, as long as your station was popular enough to pay your broadcast bills instead of your fines to the government?

Imagine that, perhaps, not all radio emissions generate money. Imagine that researchers and hams get trampled on by some company because the company has millions to throw at a piece of the spectrum and the researcher/ham doesn't?

Imagine you have a small dinky radio station that broadcasts programs for "friends of the earth" and other ecologists, and Texaco buys out all the spectrum available, and that *oops, too bad* the dinky station can't broadcast anything?

Imagine that. It'd be great wouldn't it? I can't figure out whether you're an idiot, a troll or a convinced republican...

Re:Alternitives?

[grcumb]

"If the water system was truly privatized, the incentive would be that poor service would result in them losing the contract to provide the water service."

Er, no.

What has happened in a significant number of countries forced into 'Structural Adjustment' by the IMF and/or World bank is that the government is told to sell off publicly owned utilities or face complete loss of access to international finance.

The utilities (like water service) get sold off to private companies from developed nations, which inevitably raise rates beyond the point of affordability for the majority of customers. Revenues fall in certain neighbourhoods, and managers, arguing that it's not cost-effective to perform proper maintenance there, don't service the equipment.

Government officials - assuming they haven't been paid off - can gripe all they want. The managers of the utility blandly point out that they can't provide service in places where they can't make a buck, then head back to the golf^H^H^H^Hoffice.

How do I know? I'm living in a country where this exact process has crippled development of water, electricity and telecommunications services .

Why would anyone assume

[PhilipPeake]

that auctioning off spectrum is a good thing?

Its braindead. The RF spectrum is a limited resource, and as such is subject to speculation and fraud -- have we forgotten electricity auctions so quickly?

Re:Why would anyone assume

[jfengel]

Spectrum auctions would be a way for the government to make money, without having to raise taxes directly. Something like this:

* There is a valuable (limited) resource that we own in common

* The government parcels out the resource to whoever is willing to pay the most for it

* That money goes "to the people". In reality it goes to the government, who uses it to buy an army, interstate highways, mink farm subsidies, whatever your representatives have put into the budget.

* The buyer makes the money back by selling you something you want (TV, cell phones, garage door openers, etc.)

The fraud problem is also a government problem. It's most easily fixed by demanding the money up front, though that tends to lock small bidders out of it. There are other ways that involve instituting various regulations. Just because the government has been stupid doesn't mean it has to be. (Or maybe it _does_ have to be, in which case the problem becomes insoluble and we're all screwed, and we'll just take guesses because that's the best we can do.)

Now, the point of the article is that spectrum isn't really a limited resource at all. Obviously that's not entirely true, otherwise we'd use just one frequency and we'd all be happy. Certainly the lower frequencies (to a point) are more valuable than the multi-GHz ones, because it travels better. But they claim that technology allows spectrum to do far, far more than we're doing with it. In that case we may not have to auction it at all, not because it's subject to speculation and fraud, but because it's not worth very much.

Re:Why would anyone assume

[Elwood P Dowd]

The RF spectrum is a limited resource, and as such is subject to speculation and fraud -- have we forgotten electricity auctions so quickly?

Whatever. Everything is subject to speculation and fraud. California's electricity deregulation was set up completely wrong. Just like the USSR doesn't prove that socialism is broken, Enron doesn't prove that energy deregulation is broken.

When you have the Cato Institute opposing your "deregulation", you know something is amiss.

Re:Why would anyone assume

[Euler]

Like all things, the answer is someplace in the middle. This article was way too Utopian. OTOH, saying that privatization is all bad is wrong also.

A agree with what you said, if we could do what the article states with re-using spectrum, then there wouldn't be any argument at all. The reality is that there are a few tricks to multiplex the spectrum, but it's still finite. You can do things like directional antennas, and digital spread spectrum can co-exist with modulated transmission. But, the work of Shannon and Nyquist put very hard limits on the maximum throughput of a channel with real-world noise. The analogy that the human ear can pick one conversation out of n-others simply isn't true. The author hasn't, apparently, been to a party where you keep having to say: 'huh?', 'what?'. Add more background conversations/noise (Shannon) and the throughput falls off. I can sort of see how you could discriminate 'conversations' with the right protocols, but the idea that it is infinite is very bad science. I believe the human ear works very similar to spread spectrum technology, but also draws from syllable information stored in the mind's knowledge base to discriminate conversations. The point is that it isn't a miracle, and still has physical limits.

There is definitely much wasted spectrum because the government has put it out of reach of any economic pressures. But there needs to be some central control because the invisible hand of the economy isn't intelligent enough to correctly plan certain aspects of spectrum allocation. Also, interactivity of devices requires some authoritarian control even if it isn't 100% efficient. Set aside spectrum for military and public services. Let the rest be traded and sold commercially. The FCC should still be involved in the facilitation of these transactions for 2 reasons. 1. its the equivalent of keeping public deeds on property - there needs to be an authoritative unbiased record stored someplace. 2. There will be times that proposals need to be rejected because of technical incompatibilities. The 2 parties in a transaction may not care about an issue that would effect a third party.

I don't think spectrum fragmentation will be a problem at all. There will be strong economic pressure to keep chunks of spectrum together. There will be capitalists who act as consolidators if there is value in having unfragmented spectrum.

Re:Why would anyone assume

[Elwood P Dowd]

astroturfing

?!

I was responding to the great grandparent poster, not the article. His point was that deregulation in this sort of situation is bad, based on the example of recent attempts at energy deregulation.

My point is that California is a poor example of deregulation: Cato seems 100% in favor of deregulating just about everything, and they were opposed to California's deregulation plan.

Which is why I made the analogy to the USSR: California & energy deregulation are related in the same way that the USSR & socialism are: just like you say, not at all.

For starters

[Politicus]

For decades after Guglielmo Marconi invented the radio in 1897

Um, Tesla invented radio technology, Marconi was the first to put it to use. He actually licensed Tesla's patents.

Waste I do not think so

[MadHungarian1917]

As a ham many areas of spectrum are underutilized because the technology does not exist to successfully exploit them. For example the repeater which takes a radio signal coming on one frequency and retransmits it on another is the basis for the entire cell phone industry.

At the time the commercial interests wanted that spectrum for expansion of paging.

What financially driven interests forget frequently is that basic non-directed research is a good thing which yields benefits down the road and often entire new industries.

Like the RFID crowd wants to put high power RFID tags on the 70cm band. This interferes with both Hams, Wind profiling radar and satellite communications. The difference is someone can make a quick buck.

Also these RFID tags can be read at a distance of several miles with the right equipment. So much for RFID being a 'short range' technology

If i am lucky First Post

Re:Waste I do not think so

[wfberg]

As a ham many areas of spectrum are underutilized because the technology does not exist to successfully exploit them. For example the repeater which takes a radio signal coming on one frequency and retransmits it on another is the basis for the entire cell phone industry.

Don't know about the states, but over here in the bad olde world, cell technology doesn't use repeaters except for indoor/underground coverage. Base stations relay calls onto either wired infrastructure, or onto line-of-sight microwave transceivers that, while technically RF, are a different beast altogether. (In fact, they're unlicensed since they don't interfere much, being line-of-sight).

The whole point of cellular technology is to hand off calls to regular infrastructure. If it were all completely wireless, you'd have calls being repeated from base station to base station until they reached their destination, meaning that your call would take up a channel over the entire area of that patch.

In fact, cell technology is so yummy good because you only use the channel locally. This means that with only a limited number of channels you can support dozens of simultanious calls per cell, rather than dozens of simultanious calls on the entire system. You can even split up particularly crowded cells into multiple micro-cells (although you have to shuffle around which frequencies are used in the neighboring cells).

(Of course, government is using the just-repeat-stuff-over-the-air model for their "next generation" digital communications systems for emergency services. Even the frigging railways use GSM! No wonder that project is failing..)

Re:Waste I do not think so

[MadHungarian1917]

Apparently I did not express myself clearly enough. The repeater technology was the seminal idea behind the cellular system. It had it's limitations but unlike the old radiophone system the repeater used compact transmitters and antennas which could be located anywhere. Also the block of repeater freq's is fairly small so the freq's are reused over and over again similar to the AMPS and CDMA systems.

The handoff from cell site to cell site and the integration with the POTS network are what made the revolution possible. BUT without the repeater I do not think the AMPS system would have happened.

You are correct in that govt's really want to hang onto the old models especially since using a new model would require "GASP" learning.

However for emergency communications you cannot beat a FM repeater system. All you need to know is the frequency and the offset. In NYC in 9/11 the only emergency comms which were up belonged to the hams all the other 'closed source' radio systems could not and still cannot communicate with each other.

Ham Radio is open souce and open standards in the communications field.

The new 'closed source' radios do both digital and repeater tech and are likely to croak when they are needed the most because they rely on their mothership for channel assignment and encryption.

no mothership no comms but the control freaks like the mothership concept because they are IN COMMAND govt contractors like them because they need constant and expensive upgrades.

My state just tossed the delta band radios which they had for 30+ years for a system which will be lucky to get 5 years out of and it does not cover the mountains adequately because of the vagarities of digital transmission. The old FM radios got a little noisy but they were usable. with the 'closed source' radios NOISE == No Comms.

Call the hams!!!

Article Summary is a bit incomplete.

[Raindance]

Thankfully, this article also covers not only the idea of 'spectrum privatization' or letting the free market allocate spectrum instead of the FCC's (rather arbitrary allocations) but also the idea of 'open spectrum'; letting anyone use spectrum in various ways (subject to non-interference regulations, of course- if your device uses spectrum it needs to play nice).

I believe the article supports this thought, that basically it works out that *either* spectrum privatization or open spectrum would be a much better way to allocate spectrum, but the FCC is an organization in search of a purpose and of funding, hence tries to regulate what need not be regulated. Not regulate for any real purpose either, merely regulate.

If we want progress in technology, a good first step would be to get rid of, or radically change, the FCC.

RD

Yes...but ....

[bill_beeman]

Unfortunately, this is the marketing guy's version of some hard engineering facts. The article sounds very much like a j-school graduate's version of what an economist said...and that neither one ever took anything beyond bonehead physics for liberal arts majors (you know, the one without the math).

Yes, there are things that can be done to maximize the efficiency with which we use the available specturm. And yes, there are inefficient users of the spectrum (government agencies being among the most egregious). But this article clearly overstates the case by about the same amount that SCO overstates the value of their IP.

I can't help but feel a little responsible...

[lateralus_1024]

...I've been 'regulating' 3 SSIDS from inside my apartment for months now.
Oddly, my neighbor just got a large envelope from the RIAA...

Umm...try again

[Anonymous Coward]

Four more years for Bush (and Michael Powell)

Don't be so fscking blind. Comments like that are so high school. Look at all the give-aways BOTH parties toss out to their paid clients. If you believe for one second Bush/Republicans are any worse than the Democrats, you're a bigger fool than they ever hoped for. Bush's FCC commissioner, Junior Powell, obviously is a lacky for large corporate interests. But so were his predecessors under Clinton. Hell, go read the USDA rural broadband money rules (from the bill Democrat Senator Harkin sponsored). Would you be surprised it's just a slush fund to give money back to the incumbant phone companies? Yup. If you ain't one, or ain't established old money, you ain't getting money. Funny how it always works that way.

While we're on the propaganda debunking, here's one for you:

1. Go read MoveOn.org's propeganda, especially all the blathering hatred at Bush for sending US jobs offshore to places like India, China, etc.

2. Then read who MoveOn.org is funded by (George Soros).

3. Then read Soros Investments list of holdings. Wow... it's like a list of all the major guilty offshoring companies! How can this be? Maybe Soros doesn't know?

4. Then read the white papers and recommendations by Soros Holdings on offshoring. HINT: If you are a company he invests in and are NOT making him money, he will move to find better management or dump his investment in you.

This country would rock if it wasn't for all you stupid sheep.

Re:Umm...try again

[MHerzog]

I don't think most places hate America. For example, here in Iceland, most people seem to have a quite faverable view of America. I't just G.W.Bush that people can't stand.

My personal thoughts on the matter (as an Icelander). Well: skrewing up the war/massive deficit/gutting important programs/etc. I would definitly like G.W.Bush a lot if I hated America. I really think that it is in the best interest of me, and my country, that America prospers. I can not see G.W.Bush's administration helping in that sense.

This will probebly be modded as a troll, but trust me, it is not my intention to troll. Well with this post at least.

if this goes through

[Anonymous Coward]

i am writing this on
my ipaq from my 1st
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my house in FORT
MEADE, FLORIDA! i
am being ravished by
hurricane charlie.
the power went out
almost 6 hours ago,
but somehow i can
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cheers,
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Sychronocity!

[AccordionGuy]

Clay Shirky has just posted his essay, The Possibility of Spectrum as a Public Good . It starts with mentioning that the FCC is considering opening up additional spectrum for unlicensed uses -- "the same kind of regulatory change that gave rise to Wifi" -- and points out that "The 2.4Ghz spectrum is not treated as property, with the FCC in the ungainly role of a 'No Trespassing" enforcer; instead, it is being treated as a public good, with regulations in place to require devices to be good neighbors, but with no caps or other restrictions on deployment or use."

Good reading all 'round.

Re:Sychronocity!

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately I don't have much time to write up proper rebuttals to the Economist piece and Clay Shirky's essay (thesis due in a few weeks), but both articles have substantial elements of ill-informed pseudoscience masquerading as fact.

In particular, the thrust of Shirky's argument is that we should change how we do things (i.e., the regulatory environment) because we can make use of the spectrum as a public commons without interfering with one another. The gaping hole in this argument is that, absent FCC regulation (or something equivalent), there is nothing to guarantee that everyone will operate this way. And it only takes one bad actor to ruin everyone's fun.

As a specific example, imagine that a large telecommunications company decides to market their new "bulletproof" phone service in the (currently unrestricted) 2.4GHz band by spending a huge chunk of cash to set up megawatt-level transmitters all over the place. Sure, their service will work great... but given enough power, it will drown out many/most other devices in the band, whether they are spread-spectrum or not. Shirky also mentions people in adjacent homes using wireless routers without interfering with one another, but there is nothing fundamental about that, either -- I could build a jammer for less than $100 that would disrupt every wireless 802.11g router within a city block.

Nor is this phenomenon limited to the WiFi band -- my lab has done quite a bit of research into the potentially disruptive effects of the proposed ultrawideband (UWB) allocation on GPS, which is in wide use worldwide, including some safety-critical applications.

As for the Economist piece, many other posters in this thread have noted a multitude of problems originating from the journalist-writing-as-engineer nature of the article; here's another big one: The article suggests (in the first two paragraphs of the section entitled "The sweet and low down") that simply repurposing the lower (i.e. currently licensed) swaths of spectrum is something of a panacea. What the author doesn't seem to understand is that there is an attendant difficulty in designing efficient antennas at these lower frequencies. There's a reason, for example, that commercial radio broadcasts aren't done in the 100KHz band -- the antennas on both ends would have to be hundreds of meters long (on the order of a quarter-wavelength) to be even marginally efficient. And if the antennas have to be a manageable size (and therefore inefficient), the transmitter power has to go way up to make the link work -- and we're right back where we started.

There is certainly promise in spread-spectrum radios, mesh networks, and other cool new technology. But it's not nearly as much of a no-brainer as these two pieces make it sound. I hate to be on the side of the "old school," but there is considerable merit to that line of thinking here.

-HJ

So...

[fiannaFailMan]

The Economist recommends privatisation as a solution. Now what a surprise. Don't get me wrong, it's a great paper and I actually subscribe to it, but there are times when it gets into the realms of market fundamentalism, so you should always read between the lines. Some of their articles also read as if they belong in the Leader section, so thick do they lay it on with the opinions.

The visible spectrum

[thephotoman]

I want to purchase all electromagnetic frequencies between 380 nm and 780 nm. Therefore, everything that people could see would belong to me. Or does somebody else already own that part already?

Of course, I'll licence them under the GNU's GPL.

Show me the MONEY!

[Politicus]

The article teases about how the public can benefit:

James Snider at the New America Foundation, a think-tank in Washington, DC, estimates that America's airwaves would have been worth $771 billion in 2001 (when he last did the sums) if every licensee were to use his bandwidth for the service in most demand by the public.

but fails to show how any of this value could be captured? Is this because of who would actually benefit by the proposal?

Michael Powell, the FCC's chairman, has said that he would like to see himself more as a speed cop than as a real-estate agent, and makes clear his penchant for unlicensed bands.

Here it appears that a public resource would be given away for free much like the current road system, but the problem of course is that the public would still pay to regulate a scheme that generates no revenue. Would "speeding tickets" generate the revenue to cover regulation? Would the fed's general fund be used? Who and how would this system pay for it is the bigger question. It sounds like somebody's trying to get something for nothing. Not that that hasn't been tried before, it's just that the public is usually on the losing end of such bargains.

TANSTAAFL

[Detritus]

I read the article. The last time I checked, the laws of physics and information theory haven't been repealed. There is nothing new about any of the technologies that were mentioned in the article.

A must read for everyone interested in spectrum rg

[PaulBu]

Thoughts of Dave Reed (the guy who gave us TCP/IP)
on the subject

Paul B.

Re:Guess What? -- Re:Waste?

[WarMonkey]

Why is formalizing the status quo the cure for the status quo?

Well, if I understand the question correctly, it indeed raises a valid point -- that the political process is a poor way to run anything, even the process of de-politicizing something.

At the time the FCC was founded, a handful of courts were settling disputes between broadcasters by applying a "homesteading" analogy rooted in common law and the concept of first/continuing use of a given freq at a certain power level in a given geographical area.

Revisionist historians have pointed out that, in hindsight, it looks a lot like the creation of the FCC (and the attendant nationalization of the airwaves) might have been pushed into place precisely to forestall that legal trend -- thereby locking the ordinary person and small business owner out of the new field and consolidfating ruling class power.

Now, if privatization is carried out as merely a sham for finalizing this expropriation from early broadcasters (who are, admittedly, almost all surely dead now), then you would be correct to be cynical. It would, however, ALSO remain true that (in general) any private ownership is a better way to manage any resource -- but that overlooks the matter of justice in the face of expropriation.

That brings us to this -- the whole debate ought to be not about whether or not to privatize, but what is the correct way to go about it and why.

If it's been so "overcautious"...

[javaxman]

then why do I hear two different radio stations on the same frequency so often?

Why does one over-the-air broadcast station have ghosting caused by another??

What, the free market is supposed to fix those problems magically, without government oversight, when they're still pretty bad with the FCC throwing down tons of rules *and* charging licensing fees?

I smell typical Economist free-market hype. Just let the highest bidders control your spectrum, and everything will be fine, kiddies...

I'm not saying there isn't a need for change in the way RF is used. But I am calling into question a highest-bidder-takes-all approach, and the motives of those who back such an approach.

Re:If it's been so "overcautious"...

[Aim Here]

Did ANYONE here RTFA, or is the Economist putting a different article out to people with my IP or something?

The economist article isn't suggesting Thatcher/Pinochet/Reagan style privatisation - which I think of as the government giving out publicly owned utilities to the highest bidder and letting them fleece us for whatever they can get away with. That's roughly what we have now, with heavy government regulation - and the Economist article doesn't even suggest a less-regulated form of that system.

The economist article is advocating a commons approach. Build a bunch of wireless networks, let the spectrum be used by anyone who has equipment sophisticated enough not to interfere with other people's signals, and then everyone can use the spectrum freely for whatever they want. Simultaneously the spectrum becomes more deregulated, and more publicly owned, which must be a good thing, unless you're a telecoms oligopolist.

The last time I read something like this was in an essay by Eben Moglen, who seems to be more of an anarchist than anything else.

Re:If it's been so "overcautious"...

[offpath3]

then why do I hear two different radio stations on the same frequency so often?

Because current transmitters and radios are using the spectrum inefficiently. With smarter transmitters and smarter receivers we could much more effectively filter out different signals and use much less of the spectrum per broadcast. Or so the article argues.

UHF Television Channel Allocations

[Detritus]

Most people don't understand how television channels are allocated in the USA. Due to interference concerns, stations on the same and adjacent channels must be geographically separated by large distances. For VHF, I've been told that the FCC's rules can be approximated at 160 miles separation between stations on the same channel and 70 miles separation between stations on adjacent channels. The rules for the UHF band are stricter due to the increased susceptibility to interference of television receivers in the UHF band. The end result is that you can't just arbitrarily pack analog stations into a smaller UHF band. Digital stations (ATSC) are more resistant to interference and this allows the rules to be relaxed without resulting in unacceptable levels of interference.

Soros

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you really expect George Soros to dump money into companies which are unprofitable?

Not at all. But for Soros to dump millions into an organization and even pledge that he would spend his entire wealth (which isn't true, but it got him free PR. Dig deep enough and you'll find people like Soros almost never use their own money for these causes. Coerce others to give on your behalf, hook a Governor up with a gay lover and get him to pass legislation per your liking) under complete dishonesty, deception and fraud is unfortunate. Of course, again, it's Soros's right to spend his money spreading complete falsehood. The real shame is how many fools blindly swallow it.

Look at the Euronationalists. A good German friend of mine tells me Europeans are qualified to understand the tyranny in Iraq of Saddam Hussain because of their own ezperience of Hitler and the presumed lessons learned (seeing their continued relativism, nation-wide socialism, and growing anti-semitism makes me believe they haven't shrugged their desire to kill others). Another French friend constantly reminds me how imperialistic we Americans are. Funny, did you know France *still* has colonies (and no, they certainly do not treat them as equals. Dark skinned people could never be an equal to a true Frenchman).

It is the blindness of the sheep and the hypocracy of the con artists like Soros and most members of both US parties that gets tiring. Seems like we need a Slashdot mod category: -1: Horribly Obvious

Money Makes the World go Round

[Detritus]

Every time I read one of these propaganda pieces on the virtues of applying market principles to the RF spectrum, I have to ask, what about all of the users who don't have the money to buy a slice of the spectrum? Are they going to be shut out because corporate users can afford to pay far more than they could ever dream of spending? Currently, there is spectrum reserved for many people and organizations that do not have much money. Economically "efficient" is not the same thing as socially "efficient".

UWB vs. allocated spectrum

[rcw-home]

I'm looking forward to UWB, as it is a (from what I understand) a low/no intereference solution

There is no such thing as a free lunch.

Currently, you get a chunk of spectrum and you do whatever with it. If someone interferes, you track that one person down and get them to stop. The size of your spectrum effectively limits the bitrate you can throw across it, assuming consistent power/noise ratios, because after all, if no one is interfering, noise stays consistent.

A UWB transmitter raises the noise floor across all bands ever so slightly, basically proportionately to the bitrate and range the transmitter seeks. Not really a problem for a few transmitters. Also, since people transmit so infrequently, lumping everything together means you're less likely to be affected by the interference.

But if UWB becomes commonplace, and people become greedy for higher bitrates, then keeping the noise floor low for the people still using fixed spectrum allocations will become a forgotten priority. And even if UWB becomes truly universal, if the noise floor gets too high, where do you start to fix it? How do you decide which UWB transmitters are talking too loudly and for too long? If you start to license how much power and time they can use, how do you determine that a given licensee (or an anonymous unlicensed user) is the problem?

Some analogies:

If allocated spectrum is like having slow individual PC's, UWB is like being on a fast mainframe while the admin is on vacation.

If allocated spectrum is like a stain on a shirt, UWB is what the stain looks like after it bleeds to all the other clothes you washed with it.

If allocated spectrum is like a monthly marital spat, UWB is like the loud party the neighbors are always having.

Re:A must read for everyone interested in spectrum

[offpath3]

I belive the point the grandparent is trying to make is that it would be a much better system if we build more intelligence into the endpoints of the system (better transmitters, receivers), since in this case we obviously can't change the medium.

The truth

[Anonymous Coward]

The truth is that most places hate America

Actually, if you want the truth...

The Truth(TM) is that people will hate anyone they can blame, if they're the kind of people that are conditioned to blame others rather than take care of themselves. America gets much of the greatest hatred because, for a lazy-assed loser, it is the great personification of all the attributes they know they lack.

Call it Ned Flanders Syndrome. He's so damn easy to despise, because he works hard and deep down is probably a better person than you are. It's disgustingly true. You cheer when misfortune falls upon him or his kind. Why else do so many slackers in the US fear and hate bible thumpers or any clean cut, hard working square?

So instead of working your ass of, you blame everyone else. Look at the previous poster's claim about Florida votes not counting. Dude, set the joint down and read a newspaper. Even a liberal one like the New York Times. Does your liberal newspaper not even count? Did you not read that all these newspapers came down and discovered every way they counted (including all the different ways Al Gore demanded, including making military votes not count which I would presume would upset you if you were consistent), Al Gore lost? Every single way, he lost. He lost. He lost. He lost. The great loser lost. Got it yet?

Change the electoral college system constitutionally next time if you don't like the rules. Really, saying this Florida "selected not elected" nonsense is like loudly farting in an elevator. It marks you as a complete loser to any person of reason (even those of us that do not like Bush - an idiot is of no value to thinking people).

But back to hating, the Africans hate the Europeans. Visit Mozembique - if you are Portugeuse, there are places you just do not visit. Visit French Guiana, where France threw its undesirable prisoners for years. If you're French, you do not leave the resort if you're wise (or at least take an escort with plenty of protection). Do you think the Czech like Germans? Go visit the village of Lidice which the Germans wiped off the map in order to show who was boss. Ask any Pole or Balkan nation native how much they love Russians. You want to know hate? Just ask.

And many of these people have legitimate hate. Most of the world has a right to hate Brits, Germans, French and Spainiards for the continued nightmare that lingers from their colonialism. They envy the US, but HATE Europeans.

Alas it is this reason the Europeans wish to remind us all how much Americans are disliked internationally. It allows them to feel superior for a fleeting moment and pretend their colonial tyranny never existed. But then they go and hate Jews or oppress Muslims and the hatred returns.

Umm... no.

[cr@ckwhore]

The author has demonstrated his lack of understanding of RF basics.

Even a sliver of new unlicensed spectrum in the very low frequencies could therefore make an enormous difference. It could, for example, make possible a cheap alternative to cable and digital-subscriber line modems (for which roads have to be dug up and trees uprooted) in delivering high-speed internet access across "the last mile" to the consumer.

Nope, sorry captain. "Very low frequencies", A.K.A. "VLF" cover about 10-30kHz. Read up on Nyquist's theorem... there's some math involved, but it basically dictates maximum data rates at any given frequency. Even then, in real world applications, maximum data rates are typically lower than nyquist rates.

For example, I'm a licensed amateur radio operator, and I actively transmit and receive data at 144.390 mHz ... at this frequency (VHF, much higher than VLF), data is typically sent at 1200baud. Much higher than that and it becomes more difficult.

Basically, theoretical data rates increase as the frequency of a signal increases.

In another ham band, around 435mHz (UHF), satellites typically send data at 9600baud.

So, data rates are still relatively useless for broadband applications at any realistic point below anything ending with "gigahertz". There's no way in hell (do the math, thank you nyquist) that VLF could be a "last mile" solution.

On to another point regarding "mesh networks" ... (thank you oh great queen of buzzwords) ... I encourage you to study some basic radio theory, get your ham license, and experiment with the APRS network which runs on 144.390mHz ... it's a world-wide "mesh network" which is very active, and very effective, and very well suited for it's purpose.

The truth is somewhere in the middle

[earthforce_1]

The amount of information that can be transmitted over an RF link with a given frequency band and noise floor is finite. The Shannon limit describes the absolute bottom signal to noise limit, below which no useful information can be sent. With wideband spead spectrum technology and robust error detection/correction algorithms, we can finally approach it. That is the bad news. The good news, this is 100x better than most of the (mostly uncompressed analog) open air transmission methods currently being used.

Consider a regular, low noise telephone line limited to 3 KHz bandwidth, no DSL, ISDN, or other high bandwidth enhancements. The first generation telephone modems ran at 110 or 300 baud. Eventually, QAM modulated modems came out that worked at 1200 baud. Later, 2400 baud modem appeared. This proved to be the limit of pure analog op-amp filter technology. 9600 baud modems requred a DSP, to process and recover data from the incoming signal. Later, 19.2k, 28.8k, 33k, and eventually (almost) 56k modems appeared, as the DSPs got faster, and more sophisticated filtering, error detection and recovery algorithms were used. But this was the limit. Pushing more data through a bandwidth limited, voice quality phone line requires a lower noise floor, or more bandwidth. Sending symbols faster requires greater bandwidth. Using a more complex symbol constellation requires a lower noise floor, or eventually the bits smear into each other to an extent that the error recovery mechanism cannot cope.

Open RF is much the same - you have a finite slice of bandwidth to use. You can reduce the signal to noise ratio by increasing the transmitter power, but then you become a greater noise source for everybody else who is transmitting over the same spectrum. CDMA phones are constantly adjusting their transmit power up and down, depending on how well the base station is receiving them. If the BER (Bit Error Rate) is too high, the phone is told to raise its transmit power. If the BER is low, the phone is told to reduce power, in order to reduce the noise. In a CDMA system, you can always add "just one more" transmitter, but eventually the noise floor is raised to the point where calls are dropped.

Also in open RF there are other problems to contend with, that dictate the optimal method of transmission - fading, (transmitter moves behind or out from behind a building) multipath, (Signal takes multiple paths to receiver, resulting in overlap because signals arrive at different times - think of trying to talk across an echoing canyon) and dopplar shifts. (Transmitter is moving, resulting in shifted carrier frequency) In practice, open RF is a pretty crappy transmission medium as compared to any sort of physical link.

In order to preserve optimal use of the spectrum for others, you don't want to transmit omnidirectional. If the receiver is in front of you, the signal you transmit to the sides and back are just wasted transmitter power, and an unwanted noise source for everybody else. Ideally, you only want the signal to go in a laser like path between transmitter and receiver. Very tricky if you don't know where the receiver is, or if it is moving.

Detailed EMR poster

[unihedron]

See the whole EMR spectrum on this poster: http://www.unihedron.com/projects/spectrum/

Re:War isn't about making friends.

[WarMonkey]

Source?

Governmental authorites officially stopped counting in Iraq after the first several thousand.

Looking at fatalities alone, Iraqbodycount.net maintains a set of low and high estimates with a database and documented methodology to back it up -- the low end being currently 11,510 and the high end being 13,483. That figure alone leaves out the civilian casualties from an entire other war (Afghanistan).

The 9/11 fatality figures from september11victims.com follow:

CONFIRMED DEAD: 2948 REPORTED DEAD: 24 REPORTED MISSING: 24 TOTAL: 2996

Putting the statistics aside, though, the point is that the person who chose to take things off on this tangent set forth the odd notion that these two wars have made the US more popular. When it was pointed out that was not the case, the response was an iteration of the truism that war is not about making friends (which really kind of accentuated my point).

How to use the spectrum.

[DavidTC]

It's easy, and completely impossible to impliment at this point in time.

First, divide the spectrum into a million different slices. Specify some of them as high power, and some as low power, some as very long distance, some as fairly long distance, some as short distance, and a few as few very short distance, aka, bluetooth. (You need less as the distance gets shorter, because, duh, everyone can use the same ones.) OSI Layer 1.

Next, come up with some protocol. It needs a sender address, an optional destination address, and data, and that's it. Include a 'logical link control' to let people move around at will. Automatically negotiate a 'backchannel'. OSI Layer 2.

Then let anyone broadcast on any power/freqency, anything. But, and this is the key, require them to always negotiate downward to the 'worst' power/freqency that works, unless they have a good reason not to. (Aka, they're a TV station, and they don't want TVs to constantly have to call them back and say 'Hey, up the power a bit more.' Possibly you'd have to license this, but that's not important because most people would use devices that are bidirectional and thus don't need to worry about it, just the broadcast people.)

But, remember, each frequency has a set power, so if they want to broadcast stronger or lower, they'd need to change power/freqency. And, yes, attennas are designed for certain frequences, so we'd need to have evenly distributed strong and weak ones. (Aka, for every antenna size, we need to make sure we have a 'right next to the tower' power/frequency we can broadcast, and a 'A strong as possible' power/frequency too, that we can both hit with that antenna.)

Then build an assload of repeater stations. For any power/freqency, with the brains to let us link through them instead of directly. (In fact, if you have these, you can ignore the TV broadcast problem. Just have the TV station aim for these guys. If you can get it direct, good for you, if you can't, get it from them.)

The problem is that we're trying to solve a technological problem with regulations. There's plenty of bandwidth for everyone. It's just that we build devices that can't move around to get more. If we stop that, if we build some sort of 'airnet' that lets me use a specifically designated low power/freqency when I'm right under a cell phone tower, but flip to what is currently UHF at near-TV station power when I need drive behind a mountain (Thus sucking all my batteries, but that's not important.), we'd never have to worry again.

And, depending on how smart we design the network on top of this infrastructure, we can magically have cell phones and TV that can tune in radio stations, and direct-connect cell phones. Because there won't be any difference, except hopefully a layer of encryption on the cell phones.

Actually, every device will need some encryption, or at least authentication. So every idiot can't wander around pretending to be CBS. But, hey, we now have a world-wide wired infrastructure to grab public keys off of. And, really, no reason we couldn't hand out keys over the airwaves...we'd just have to what happens with web browsers now. You can get a signed cert, or you can make your own. In fact, make this part of layer 2, also, just because.

Of course, no way in hell this will ever happen...it requires throwing out all TVs and radios and cell phones and everything.

so what should be used instead of a 95% waste?

[nbert]

yes, it might be a good way to make money after all, but those using the frequencies as a consumer will pay for it one way or the other.

Is there anyone out there who thinks that he'll benefit from more efficient bandwith usage on a personal level?
It would be great if the 2.4 GHz spectrum would be licensed - I'm looking forward to pay fees for any WLAN NIC I buy.

95% of the spectrum are not meant to be for profit, but it's not like 95% of it are being wasted/unused.

The RF spectrum is for more than just cellphones

[theycallmeB]

While the frequency allocation chart linked from the article was very nice in my high school physics book, this chart (beware: PDF) from the NTIA is much more informative.

As for the various notions of privatizing or opening up large swaths of the spectrum, it must be done very carefully, if at all, as there are too many users that absolutely must have clear channels to operate safely (aircraft navigation and communication come to mind), but at the same time do not have the financial resources to compete for even a small slice of their current frequency ranges.

The truth is you're talking nonsense

[rxmd]

But back to hating, the Africans hate the Europeans. Visit Mozembique - if you are Portugeuse, there are places you just do not visit. Visit French Guiana, where France threw its undesirable prisoners for years. If you're French, you do not leave the resort if you're wise (or at least take an escort with plenty of protection). Do you think the Czech like Germans? Go visit the village of Lidice which the Germans wiped off the map in order to show who was boss. Ask any Pole or Balkan nation native how much they love Russians. You want to know hate? Just ask.

And many of these people have legitimate hate. Most of the world has a right to hate Brits, Germans, French and Spainiards for the continued nightmare that lingers from their colonialism. They envy the US, but HATE Europeans.

You do not seem to know what you are talking about. Have you been to any of the places you're mentioning? Could you point to Moçambique on a map without looking it up first?

I'm German. I have been to a number of places in Eastern Europe that have seen the worse side of German occupation, and I have never been met with hate. I've been learning Russian, I've been learning some Hebrew so that I could read Yiddish (basically a dialect of German) and speak to some of the few remaining Jews over there, I did some reading, and then I just went there. People were a bit reserved at first, but after two minutes of talk, we got along very well. When I said I wanted to visit my German occupant grand-uncle's grave on the German military cemetery in Smolensk, we drove there together without them even asking.

My girlfriend is Ukrainian. They are probably the country that got the worst of us in World War 2. Do you think she hates me? We are talking Russian at home because my Ukrainian is too bad, and she gives me 9th-of-May victory postcards as a joke. That's Ukrainian hate for you.

I've spent the better part of the last year in Uzbekistan in the French Research Institute in Tashkent where the librarian is Crimean Tatar, born in the 1930s. We got along very well. She told me about how she got to hate Germans between '42 and '44 during German occupation of the Crimea, how Germans threatened to shoot her father before her eyes. After the war, she said, she refused even to look at Germans because of this. After the collapse of 1991, however, she said the five or ten Germans who came to Tashkent for research were young, interested in the local peopulation and their history, they spoke Russian and/or Uzbek and behaved very civilized and friendly in general. She said that these Germans were difficult to hate, and that she was compelled to relinquish her hate for Germans in general and turn it into bitter memories of the German occupants sixty years ago - an entirely different story.

So "all Africans hate the Europeans"? My brother came back a few weeks ago from eight months of work in Ghana where he lived in Accra with a host family, no running water, but the people were fine. Hated because he is European? Definitely not. I know Brits who worked in Nigeria (colony until 1960), Russians who worked in Central Asia (colony until 1917, Soviet Union afterwards) and a Portuguese who worked in Angola (colony until 1975). The memories they brought back were not ones of hate. If you visit Moçambique, there are places that you don't visit when you look like money, not when you're Portuguese. "Legitimate hate"? If that old Jew in Velizh near Smolensk had hated me, I wouldn't have blamed him, but he didn't.

Make an effort to learn people's languages, to show interest in them, their culture and their history. Respect them, look and behave in a respectable way. Stay in places for more than a couple of days, behave like a civilized person and smile when people show you their family pictures. An American who does just that is not going to be hated anywhere in the world, even in the Philippines (US colony until 1946) or Vietnam for that matter. They may not like your country (as an abstract entity) for what it does, what it did or fails to do, but they will not hate you.