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America Needs Unchained Spectrum?
pillageplunder writes "Businessweek has an interesting viewpoint on the state of the wireless spectrum and how it's not being utilized to its max. While it's an opinion piece, the author raises several valid points. Establishing an exchange-entity to facilitate trading wireless spectrum, ridding the restrictions on spectrum available for sale, and weeding out the politics behind many of the recent and not so recent FCC policies. A thought-provoking read."
Take a look at the FCC spectrum allocation .. All the way up to 300Ghz is utilized by all kinds of shit.
Be thankful they squeezed in the 2.4 Ghz for u.
http://www.ntia.doc.gov/osmhome/allochrt.pdf
Deregulate IPs: That way we can be more inventive with our technology rather than having someone give us permission to be on the net.
Deregulate Domain Names: Think of the expansion of the internet if we all could use www.slashdot.com!
How about the airways: why regulate who can fly where and when?
Honestly I can see some leniency but the regulations occur because we have to think about collisions. Dont come crying to me when you cant make a 911 call because a guy 2 blocks away is streaming his music to his IPod.
Just because we have 80% space free doesnt mean we need to pack it with other stuff. For you server admins out there, who among you don't follow the 80/20 rule? 80 percent of the resources 20% of the time.
This article is a good example of someone who needs a little more insite into how the world of technology works.
CS: It is all sink or swim...oh and did I mention there are sharks in that water?
Granted, more unlicensed spectrum would be a good thing, but even that's not the answer, because it would get sucked up too, by people doing thigs like `110 Mbps WiFi' where they use the entire 2.4 gHz block of unlicenced spectrum for maximum speed.
It's not the FCC. It's the manufacturers doing this, and they're doing it because it's one of the few blocks available for use without a license.2.4 gHz is the first block of unlicensed spectrum with a good deal of size (other (small) blocks live around 27, 49, and 900 mHz.) The > 5 gHz blocks could be used too, and are for things like 802.11a and some cordless phones, but it doesn't penetrate walls as well as 2.4 gHz.
Back when radio was new, many companies all trying to capitalize on frequencies created all sorts of different headaches because there was no regulatory body governing behavior. Every broadcaster tried to make their own standard so to listen to their signal you had to buy their radio and create their own custom broadcast array. Every broadcaster was under no obligation to honor another's usage of another frequency. The only time it mattered to them was when it dropped their quality. Then of course none of this was cheap for the consumer either....
It was an unregulated, unmitigated disaster and hence the reason why the FRC (predicessor to the FCC) was created. They standardized radio broadcasting practices. They organized bandwidth usage so overlaping wouldn't be a problem. They made the system at least approachable.
Now we can argue if the FCC is to ridgid in their regulation but the idea of making a regulatory body for spectrum usage is a good idea.
Actually, international treaties mostly regulate frequencies below 30 MHz (HF and below). These frequencies can have worldwide propagation, so it is important that everybody coordinate them. VHF, UHF, and higher frequencies tend to be fairly localized so each country can make their own rules about it.
Unless you live within a few miles of an international border, it is unlikely that spectrum users in another country will interfere with your Wi-Fi.
No....
Wrong. Spread spectrum provides no more, and no less, bandwidth than channelized transmissions; what it does is provide a more graceful degradation of bandwidth instead. Channelized transmission has a hard limit - you can have X transmitters, each getting Y bandwidth. Spread spectrum, on the other hand, gives everyone XY bandwidth. *However*, as more people transmit, the signal to noise ratio goes down, which reduces the capacity of that bandwidth.
Look into Shannon's capacity theorem - it explains exactly what you can get out of a given amount of spectrum. While spread spectrum is good at avoiding hard limits on number of users, nothing can eliminate the hard limit on total information.
The better analogy would be: channelization is like DSL. Everyone gets their own pipe, which runs at the stated speed. Spread spectrum is like cable - if no one else is on, you can get lots of bandwidth, but as more people start using the same cable, the available bandwidth goes down.
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