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The 700MHz Question

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the just-give-it-to-me-for-pirate-radio-stations dept.

mstrchf07 writes "The FCC will soon be auctioning off the rights to use the 700MHz spectrum for wireless communications, with the winner being able to choose the direction of wireless services development in the US. With stakes this high, is the playing field fair, and are business needs trumping consumer and technological interests?"

5 of 148 comments (clear)

  1. Total bandwidth? by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 5, Informative

    If I understand the article correctly, it would seem that 700 Mhz spectrum would only give you 15 MB/s of available bandwidth if it used similar compression techniques to 802.11g. If, as the article suggests, this spectrum were to be used for some big WISP, maybe Google, it wouldn't seem to me to be very viable as the available bandwidth would be split amongst LOTS of users in order to keep it cheap. Now, UMPCs and mobile devices conceivably need less bandwidth, but then, isn't that what we have wireless phone service for?

    It seems to be like this article is a bunch of meaningless speculation about Google's plans for being a ubiquitous WISP.

    --
    My blog
    1. Re:Total bandwidth? by BlueParrot · · Score: 2, Informative

      It would probably work the same way as it does for mobile phones. I.e, you restrict the signal strength so any given transmitter / receiver pair only covers a fairly small area. That way if you have sufficiently many access points you can use the same frequency many many times, in different geographical locations. There are numerous other games you can play ( as all ISPs do ) with regards to contention, traffic shaping etc... With sufficiently smart access points you could give priority to clients that use little bandwidth overall, but want a very rapid burst every now and then. You can also implement various protocols that save bandwidth, like multicast. Basically, after throwing a few "hacks" into the network you can get a remarkably efficient use of that 15MB/s, effectively meaning you use the full 15MB/s rather than having it idle for 90% of the time and then suddenly get choked by a peak in demand. Sad thing is that because this will work much better for unencrypted data ( since you can analyze it better ) it will basically mean that if users are pressured into encrypting their traffic because a couple of players *cough* just can't help but violating people's privacy, then that will negatively impact the performance of the network. Now, the network maintainers obviously won't like that, and thus you can expect to see users who care about their privacy being penalized for encrypting their data. Either actively ( connections dropped, port blocks, subscriptions canceled etc... ) or passively ( encrypted traffic gets lower priority... ).

  2. Re:I think someone has a sig relevant to this news by Aladrin · · Score: 2, Informative

    Insightful!? The ORIGINAL Soviet Russia jokes were like that. They were not only funny, and the reverse of America, but TRUE. This is probably the first SR joke in years to actually capture to spirit of the original, and you say it got turned on its head!

    UGH!

    --
    "If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
  3. Re:The money by BoberFett · · Score: 2, Informative

    Sigh.

    Ignore the above, I haven't had my Mt Dew yet today.

  4. Deja Vue all over again! by I_Voter · · Score: 2, Informative
    Adam Smith from the Wealth of Nations published in 1776

    Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production; and the interest of the producer ought to be attended to only so far as it may be necessary for promoting that of the consumer. The maxim is so perfectly self evident that it would be absurd to attempt to prove it. But in the mercantile system the interest of the consumer is almost constantly sacrificed to that of the producer; and it seems to consider production, and not consumption, as the ultimate end and object of all industry and commerce.

    ......... snip ......

    It cannot be very difficult to determine who have been the contrivers of this whole mercantile system; not the consumers, we may believe, whose interest has been entirely neglected; but the producers, whose interest has been so carefully attended to; and among this latter class our merchants and manufacturers have been by far the principal architects.

    (Book_Four*Chapter_VIII*Conclusion_of_the_Mercantile_System)