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White Space Plan Would Reuse TV Spectrum
An anonymous reader writes "A collection of companies including Microsoft, Google and Motorola are teaming up for a new white space wireless network plan. The White Spaces Database Group, as it will be known, plans on formulating a plan to create, govern and maintain a wireless broadband network on abandoned analog television spectrum. When the spectrum is finally vacated in June, the group hopes that system in place which will allow for the creation of an open wireless broadband network which will be accessible by any device. The FCC officially approved keeping the spectrum open back in November, despite staunch opposition from telco firms."
I don't like the sound of that.
me either, scary..
Why you being racist like that? Do whites really need more space? Don't they have enough already?
!AND
This is a very profound threat to lucrative mobile cartels. Yet it's absolutely necessary as a step on the way to opening the airwaves to serve a real global Internet. My prediction: the telcos will respond with patent litigation, and with "think of the children and *AA" legislative proposals to tie the new open networks up in monitoring, filtering, and other restrictions on use.
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This could provide critically needed rural access to broadband. It would also create competition for local DSL and Cable Model monopolies. There is no downside here for consumers.
Since it's public domain then they shouldn't have any problem appointing me to their board, right?
Any word on how your data will get back to the place you are visiting? Are these frequencies suitable for low-power transmission by consumers? Should be expect yet another cellular radio network? Is that a good thing, given that health concerns have not been laid to rest completely?
I wonder if their documentation will be written in whitespace.
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Any time Microsoft and Google decide to partner on something, you know the rest of us are just going to get screwed. Let's make these two giants work for us by competing against each other. While some may want a bipartisan, colluding government, it is only madness to want the same from corporations!
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I guess I can understand the drive behind some of the corporations backing this:
- Comsearch: Wireless networking
- NeuStar: Network management
- Motorola: Cellular tech
- Dell: PC hardware
- HP: PC hardware
- Microsoft: PC software
But how does Google help?
The only benefit I can see is that they since they don't really have much of an off-line presence, they have a vested interest in making internet availability simple, reliable and widely available.
The difference is that while the other companies may be bringing technical expertise in each specific field to the table, Google is probably only bringing big bags of money.
Staged: Another dramatic variation on a theme, not-so-cleverly disguised as a change of scenery. Uncle Sam didn't see that one coming? Yeah, right; M-G-M study-oh's perchance? What's in a name. ...This better be good.
*expresses in deadpan*
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Are they talking white space or are they talking 700 MHz?
White space means unused TV channels, which means 470-700 MHz after the transition.
What it sounds like, however, is that they're referring to the rules that will govern the new 700 MHz allocations that were auctioned last year.
There is no "abandoned" analog bandwidth. The top 100 MHz of the UHF TV band were reallocated to other services and the TV broadcasters were "packed in" closer together thanks to ATSC's less stringent adjacent channel spacing requirements.
As both a sound engineer at a theater and an amateur radio operator, I fear that these devices will not be made to the standards required for such...versatile transmitters and that they will not properly 'check' for signal presence. It's not too much of a problem for ham stuff (stay out of my 440MHz, I'm happy)--but UHF wireless microphones in theaters utilize unused UHF television channels. I don't want to come in one day, turn on all of my Shure receivers, and have to rechannelize all of my microphones which I already set carefully. I don't know if my wariness is justified, however.
a small chunk of UHF spectrum given to the citizens of the USA to be unlicensed like 27 mhz CB radio, allowing 4 or 5 watts and any external antenna you wish to buy or build, with the sun cycle starting up again 27 mhz CB radio is going to be a complete mess for the next 5 to 7 years making local communication on 27 mhz CB radio almost impossible, since uhf does not get the DX/skip propagation conditions like HF (including 27 mhz CB radio) it would benefit many citizens and especially truck drivers that only want to talk locally to people within a few miles of their vicinity.
and do not say 'get those FRS radios they sell at walmart' because those are worthless little pieces of junk without any decent wattage on TX (1/4 watt) and the speaker audio is not good for a noisy environment like the inside of a tractor or an 18 wheeler, many truckers and farmers would benefit from a decent UHF CB radio...
i would be willing to spend a couple of hundred dollars on a good quality UHF CB radio, and i am not interested in getting an amateur radio (ham) license...
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If they are not licensed, then by what right do you expect them to not get interference? One unlicensed user has just as much right to the spectrum as another. If the mike's were digital, they could, I think, happily co-exist with other digital users of that white-space spectrum. Outside of ham-bands, I begin to think that analog radio devices will quickly become a think of the past - the problem with analog stuff is that basically only one user (or one group of users) can use a certain frequency at a time. With packetized digital communications (and/or spread-spectrum techniques), multiple groups of users can share bandwidth at the same time.
Shared use, seems like a much more equitable use of limited spectrum resources, than the old analog 'dedicated channel' model. Still, if you are someone with analog A/V equipment, I suppose it would kind of stink. I suppose an equitable compromise might be to start by making sales of such 'legacy' equipment illegal, but continue to allow it's use for some number of years, to allow people and companies who've invested in such equipment to 'get their monies' worth' out of it, with a plan to make the continued use of such equipment illegal after a cutoff date in like 5 or 10 years.
Consider how well 700 MHz propogates.
Now consider that every previous attempt to create a wireless mesh network has failed because none has ever achieved sufficient density to qualify as a mesh. Whitespace base stations (non-portable devices) can transmit at 1 watt, with a maximum EIRP of 4 watts. With a sufficiently clever encoding scheme, such devices should be able to hear each other over a long enough distance to finally get over the hump and establish a usable mesh. Portable devices can transmit at 100 milliwatts. If G-phone 2 (3?) comes equipped to use such a network... Maybe with a base station bundled in the box for $30 more...?
Has the wireless mesh concept finally come of age? I'm going to permit myself a teeny bit of hope.
This is going to suck for anybody doing production for live events. This frequency range that MS and Google want lies smack in the middle of the RF ranged used for wireless mics. Random RF signals from digital com systems popping in and out on my receivers is NOT going to sound good.
The current telcos have a ridiculous and blatant monopoly. That they have different pricing schemes for different "services" is the most obvious sign of this. Fees based on the different uses of bandwith rather than the actual amount of bandwith used are ludicrous.
...but if your wireless mics really are in the TV bands, and really aren't Part 15 devices, then they're Part 74, Subpart H devices, which do require a license. There are no other options. You're one of many who've been sold a bill of goods by unscrupulous manufacturers of these microphones which, by law, can only be licensed to television stations, broadcast networks, cable television systems, motion picture producers, television program producers, and Multipoint Multichannel Distribution System (MMDS) licensees (Title 47 USC, 74.832). See this for a pretty good, if slightly dated, FAQ on what's required to license a wireless microphone in the US.
These microphones typically will be offered no protection against interference from whitespace protocols like the IEEE 802.22 standard. Note that the IEEE 802.22 group is also in the final stages of standardizing a beacon protocol, IEEE 802.22.1 [pdf]. This beacon is to be present whenever the (licensed) wireless microphone is in operation, and produces a signal easier to detect (at a greater range) than the microphone itself, so that cognitive white space secondary users can more reliably determine that that television channel is occupied and move elsewhere. This system avoids interference to the wireless microphone by the secondary user.
The IEEE 802 Working Group for TV white space is the 802.22 group. Early on in the work of this group it was recognized that it was important to detect the presence of wireless microphones, for just the reasons you describe. Their solution was the development of a beacon protocol, to be transmitted in the same TV channel as that used by the microphone. (The microphone uses much less than the full TV channel bandwidth, so there is room to do this.) The beacon is carefully crafted to be quickly detectable by the secondary user at long range, even in the presence of severe multipath distortion, and is intended to be placed at the wireless microphone receiver. In this way, scanning secondary users are much more likely to detect that the channel is occupied, and move elsewhere.
With luck, Google & Co. will adapt this or a similar scheme.
There's a politically active group of geezers with nothing better to do other than watch Lawrence Welk and write to theie congresspersons, bitching about why they should be forced to drop $50 on a converter box. Fearing their wrath at election time, Congress will continure to postpone the cutover indefinitely.
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First off, ATSC channels are the same 6MHz as NTSC channels.
Secondly, if you take a peek at a spectrum analyzer, you'll see a big, fat, non-peaky pedestal of signal for digital TV. It's about as immune to low-level interference as I am to ebola.
Thirdly, radio astromony is given a "big" empty space (channel 37).
Fourthly, the day that we call 100mW "low-level interference" is the day that we all, women included, have seven testicles.
Fifthly, these devices are so overpowered that they knock out cable TV.
Sixthly, there are ways (other frequencies, spread spectrum, burst transmission) to control high-bandwidth wireless devices wirelessly.
Seventhly, I had to go up to "sixthly." If you're really in the broadcast and communication "world" (do you mean industry?), you should consider boning up or getting out.
I've always found this topic curious. As much as open source, no software patents or an anti-RIAA stance, I would have expected something like this to be avidly supported by the vast majority of us.
In this latest story, it would seem like the tide is gradually turning as people begin to realise the enormous potential benefits something like this can bring.
Google sums up the change on their web site Free the Airwaves. From what I gather, devices will only be able to be sold as long as they keep to a restricted set of wavelengths, so there shouldn't be any worry about interference.
In theory, it should allow cheaper wifi, broadband, free mobile phone calls (as they would communicate directly with each other, at least over smaller distances, and much further afield too if smaller entrepreneurial setups start to link together), and healthy competition in the overall communication sector.
We've had extortionate prices for mobile calls/texts for WAY too long. It's time to put an end to the nonsense.
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From provided link.
"However, several features that are contemplated as possible options to minimize the interference potential of WSDs, such as dynamic power control and adjustment of power levels based on signal levels in adjacent bands, are not implemented in the prototype devices that were provided."
You may be an engineer, but you're not being completely above board with us.
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The issue isn't so much "how digital works" as it is "how sensitive is your RF front-end"? This applies as much to analog as digital.
Shai Schticks:"You don't make peace with friends, you make peace with enemies"
Never happen. Congress will delay the switch to DTV until Dec. '09, then Mar. '10, then Aug. '10, .... all because some people aren't ready. So the bandwidth will never be freed up for use by anything else.
And by the final delay until Jan. 2013, it won't matter - since we're all going to die on (or just after) Dec. 22, 2012 anyway....