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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?"

21 of 148 comments (clear)

  1. We need google to buy it by unity100 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    just like early years of internet. some source that is open and free should take custody of it until it is no longer vulnerable.

    --
    Read radical news here
    1. Re:We need google to buy it by timeOday · · Score: 5, Insightful
      The question isn't really whether whoever gets the spectrum is evil, but rather how well their interests align with those of the user base (you and me). Google is in a rather special situation because 1) they are not a network provider (like Verizon and Comcast, whose goal is maximize revenue from - yet minimize investment in - infrastructure), yet 2) google is not a normal content provider, either - mainly they provide links to other content, since their main product is advertising. What this means is that google has a unique business interest in encouraging new services - especially data services - that (i.e.) Verizon does not.

      Here's the best paragraph from the article:

      Will Google buy the spectrum? They certainly have enough spare cash to do so. If they do, it seems unlikely that they would operate the network themselves since it's a long way away from their core business. Instead, they would be likely to sublicense it to other players with the four conditions they originally hoped the FCC would impose [ensuring open services and open networks].
      If this were to happen, I think it would be a good example of the free market working as intended. US cellphone companies are destroying much of the value of the spectrum they control in order to serve their own narrow interests (e.g. charging hundreds of dollars per megabyte for SMS messages). Since google's business model provides more value to more people, google has more cash on hand to win the bandwidth auction. With any luck this could all work out just right.
    2. Re:We need google to buy it by nine-times · · Score: 5, Funny

      Well I would like to see Sprint get it since they are currently the least evil of the cell companies in the US.

      Sounds a bit like saying, "I want to sell my soul to Mephistopheles because he's the least evil demon in hell!"

  2. I think someone has a sig relevant to this news... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    specifically:

    In Soviet Russia, government controls the commerce.

    If you don't get why that is amusing and appropriate - this about the nature of the Soviet Russia jokes, and what that says about the US.

  3. Well... by MightyMartian · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ...are business needs trumping consumer and technological interests?


    Don't they always?
    --
    The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    1. Re:Well... by Opportunist · · Score: 4, Insightful

      They didn't always. I'm old enough to remember times when it was different.

      There actually were politicians who remembered that one of the big sources of the depression of the 30s was that people didn't have money to actually buy crap, so what was produced could not be sold, products piling up and businesses going under because of it. So they tried to keep at least enough in our pockets so we could go 'n spend.

      Unfortunately, few politicians still remember those days. Most that are on the helm today only remember the 60s, where the aforementioned politicians (those who did remember) were in control, and all our current politicians learned that people always had enough money to spend, so shifting more money towards those that already have can't hurt too much, we'll keep buying.

      I just wonder: What should we buy crap with when we barely earn enough to get by? Let's imagine I make DVD players. Now, you want one, I want one, a lot of people want one. When each of us has 2000 bucks to spend, we'll both buy one. When I got 4000 and you got zip, I'll buy one. You can't afford it, so you won't. I only need one player, though (what would I do with two?). So instead of two DVD players sold, it's only one.

      Extrapolate for the economy on a larger scale.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  4. 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 rcw-work · · Score: 3, Insightful

      it would seem that 700 Mhz spectrum would only give you 15 MB/s of available bandwidth

      You're trying to compare two separate units. 15MB/sec is not an amount of bandwidth, it is a bitrate. Bitrates much, much higher than the bandwidth can easily be achieved if you have a high enough signal-to-noise ratio. For example, a "56k" modem can achieve 53000bps in 3000hz of bandwidth. Similarly, low bitrates can still be achieved even with signal-to-noise ratios much less than one (GPS does 50bps with signals less than one thousandth the strength of the noise floor).

      To determine error-free bitrate, you need to know how much bandwidth you have, how much signal you have, how much noise you have, and also what the spectral efficiency of the modulation technique you are using is. The formula is called Shannon's Theorem.

      In other words, once the FCC announces what the maximum allowable power is for this band, then you can start speculating on how much data you can pump through it.

  5. This is a rhetorical question, right? by Tony · · Score: 4, Insightful

    With stakes this high, is the playing field fair, and are business needs trumping consumer and technological interests?

    No. Yes. In that order.

    They playing field is rarely fair when business is concerned. If corporate interest is involved, there is always a corporation able to affect the environment much more than any governmental regulation; and they will always affect the environment in their own favor, whether it is in the best interest of citizens or technology or progress or any other damned thing that doesn't have anything at all to do with "maximizing profits."

    This is all stupid talk. Some corporation will end up in control of a public resource. The public will get fucked. That's how it works. That's how it always works.

    --
    Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
    1. Re:This is a rhetorical question, right? by nine-times · · Score: 4, Insightful

      This is all stupid talk. Some corporation will end up in control of a public resource. The public will get fucked. That's how it works. That's how it always works.

      I think you've hit on an interesting issue in all of this, and I wonder why you didn't put more emphasis on it. The wireless spectrum is a *public* resource. Somehow this whole debate about the 700Mhz spectrum always gets framed in such a way as to imply that some huge company necessarily must own it. However, it's technically public and only gets licensed to some company for commercial use.

      It really must not be forgotten. AT&T has no legal right to own the 700Mhz spectrum. It would be much more true to say that the people of the United States own that spectrum and always will. The question in front of us (and in front of *our* lawmakers (those lawmakers work for us!)) is how we wish to use that spectrum. Even if we license it to some particular business or group for the development of commerce or infrastructure, we have every right to put limits on how it can be developed and used.

      For some reason, we've been tricked into not thinking of things that way. Radio waves travel through the air over everyone's property and through our bodies all the time. It's inherently public, like light or air. A responsible government cannot auction off those sorts of resources without any restriction on how they can be controlled or used. Moreover, what we're talking about here is the development of a national telecommunications infrastructure. We wouldn't let a single company own all plumbing so that all pipes, faucets, sinks, and toilets had to be purchased from that company. We wouldn't allow a single company to own all of our roads and highways such that they could deny passage to any driver or any car brand. We shouldn't allow a single company to control our communications over the entire country.

      We are talking about making use of public resources in order to create national infrastructure. I have no objection to involving private companies in the development of that infrastructure, but the end result needs to be regulated in favor of the public good.

      And no, I'm not a communist or socialist. I don't believe the federal government should be involved in very much. If there's one thing the federal government should do, it's maintain a standing army. If there are two things it should do, it's maintain an army and regulate the maintenance of national infrastructure.

  6. More Specifically by asphaltjesus · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I would have loved to see a horse race with the entertainment conglomerates, google and the telcos. Sadly, the entertainment conglomerates can't see the forest through the trees and would abuse consumers just as much as the telcos.

    Telcos win, consumers lose. Same story different day.

    --
    Got Trader Joe's? friendwich.com RSS feeds work now!
  7. Re:2 words... by jimstapleton · · Score: 3, Insightful

    s/needs/wants/

    I don't think business needs are trumping individual interests - they actually parallel in a captialistic society - without the businesses, the individuals would not get what they need/want.

    No, it's the businesses wants (excesses of money, power, etc) that are trumping individual interests.

    --
    34486853790
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  8. The money by OrangeTide · · Score: 3, Insightful

    So what is the FCC going to do with the money they make off this?

    --
    “Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
    1. Re:The money by BoberFett · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Buy filters so no nipples or curse words are sent over the airwaves?

  9. Re:I think someone has a sig relevant to this news by Opportunist · · Score: 4, Funny

    Glad someone got it.

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  10. With the current judicial and executive branch.... by oDDmON+oUT · · Score: 4, Funny

    mstrchf07 asks ...are business needs trumping consumer and technological interests?

    Of *course*!

    And it's not even a matter of business needs, it's business greeds.

    --
    Some days it's just not worth
    chewing through my restraints.
  11. What is good for GM is good for America by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Our congress is the best legislature in the world that money can buy. They will only take care of corporate interests. Occasionally that line might benefit consumers, citizens and America in general. But that is mostly side effect.

    Just yesterday Newt Gingrich came on the George Stephenopolos(sp?) show and claimed that 70% of Americans support reduction in corporate taxes, 60% support abolition of capital gains tax etc etc. That would be alright if he is genuinely a fiscal conservative sincerely trying to reduce the size of the government. But he opened with "New Orleans is still a mess, ..." What? It is somehow the Govt's job to allow people sandwiched between Gulf of Mexico, the Mississippi and the lake to build homes below sea level and keep pumping out water and spend couple of billion dollars in the levy system?

    If Republicans would not take on people's unrealistic expectations from Govt what right they have to complain about Tax and Spend Democrats?

    --
    sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
  12. Re:I think someone has a sig relevant to this news by nine-times · · Score: 3, Funny

    That is clever. It turns the whole joke on its head.

  13. good point by zogger · · Score: 3, Interesting

    A very good point. Maybe the FCC should not allow those big telcos who already are sitting on leased airwaves from bidding any further, leave it to some new companies instead. Let them run with what they have now, improve that, and let some others pull up a chair to the wireless table.

    I also think they should drastically reduce the hoop jumping and expense for lower power broadcasting, open that up as well, commercial or not for profit, it doesn't matter, we have good tech now that would allow a lot more stations on a smaller community basis rather than just extending a few conglomerates power.

  14. Business vs. Consumer by VeteranNoob · · Score: 3, Insightful

    are business needs trumping consumer and technological interests?

    YES. Where have you been?

    At least in the US, it has become so painfully obvious that our government's number one priority is Big Business. Watch the bills that are drawn and enacted in this country and you will quickly see that almost all of them are catering to business interests and, most likely, trampling on individuals' rights.

    --
    Adapt, adopt, or get out of the way!
  15. Re:I think someone has a sig relevant to this news by nine-times · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Well, it is an interesting use of the joke. First, Yakov Smirnoff's version of the joke was usually to have the reverse of America, but have the American version make sense, but the Russian version paint a bad picture of Russia. The GGP post reverses this, having the Russian thing make sense and the American be corrupt. Since the joke is about reversal in the first place, reversing the reversal is in itself a bit funny.

    Also, the jokes were originally meant to be a bit dark and ironic, and then used as a Slashdot cliche they were usually ironically ironic, resulting in a sort of nonsensical whimsey. Now, another layer of irony is added, almost returning the joke to its original sense, but I would say not quite to its original sense. So much irony has basically made it a non-joke, and simply a piercing critique of current US policy. It's pointing out that as ridiculously backwards as Soviet Russia was, it still may have been less backwards than we are now.

    Now, did I really have to explain myself like that?