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FCC Opens More Spectrum for WISPs
flirzan writes "Today the FCC announced that they will be opening up new spectrum for use in wireless broadband applications. The new spectrum will run from 3650-3700 Mhz, and requires that licensees register all system base stations. This is great news for wireless ISPs everywhere, as it will make interference avoidance/mitigation much easier. Licenses will run 10 years, and are renewable and transferable. No word yet on how much the licenses are expected to cost or when they'll be available."
This is good news for companies making mobile devices with lots of storage. After all, that storage is not very useful if there isn't infrastructure (i.e.: bandwidth) available to transfer data easily.
This might also help out community wireless attempts, since at least one part of the technology is being standardized, and the licenses are rather long (10 years).
Wireless Broadband Providers: You have your spectrum play-pen, now do yourselves a favor, and get the hell off the ISM bands with your 802.11x crap for your commercial endeavors. Thank you.
A whole 50MHz chunk of bandwidth?
What would -you- do with all of it?
Three 14-MHz (70ish Mbps to nearby sites under good conditions) and one 7-MHz (35ish Mbps ditto) WiMAX base stations - times several antenna sectors, times several base stations in an array like cellphone sites.
Or maybe split it differently (like 3 or 5 7MHz channels for cells and 2 or 1 14s for networking the cells) to allow better signal quality in the cells by preventing channel reuse for some distance behind the cell.
You could (un)wire a whole city that way.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
There was some talk a while back about allowing WISP's into unused UHF spectrum.
Most rural areas have next to no UHF TV channels and very poor broadband availability. It was hoped this would take advantage of that reality by allowing good hill-following spectrum to be available for rural Internet users, on a renewable basis that would give preference to new UHF TV stations (as if).
No jokes about pig porn, please.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
The FCC regulates the Broadband Radio Services (BRS). This is (now) typically broadband internet access, and happens in from 2.495 GHz to 2.690 GHz, and uses spectrum formerly set aside for (oxymoron alert) wireless cable TV. You, too can get a license in this band for a $230 filing fee, today.
There is another band, 3.400 GHz to 3.600 GHz that's also currently set up for licensed wireless data, a la wi-fi. I don't have a link to this service unfortunately.
What the new announcement from the FCC adds to the party is something similar to GMRS or business band radios-- shared spectrum open only to licensed users. TFA mentions Part 90 as the section of rules that will cover this new spectrum. That's the same section of rules that covers business band radios (and whose licenses cost $100-ish). I would also expect frequency coordination to come into play at some point with this new service, just like you have with other Part 90 services. (Coordination tries to prevent harmful interference and squabbling.)