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Internet Hardware For White-Space Spectrum?
g2 in the desert writes "I live in a small rural community in the US Southwest, where broadband service varies from decent but very expensive, to lousy but less expensive. Now that the Federal Communications Commission has approved the use of the soon to be vacated White-Space Spectrum, I'm interested in helping the community build its own local Internet service, providing villagers another choice. Does anyone know what companies will be manufacturing hardware that will be required to utilize this spectrum, and what steps need to be taken in order to be in compliance with any FCC rules and regulations?"
Seems the big ISPs don't really want your kind in the broadband business. Watch what happens when good ideas meet greed - i.e. Greenlight providing competition to the greedy last mile ISPs.
All I have to say is - good luck!
I'm sure the Wireless Internet Service Providers Association (WISPA -- http://www.wispa.org/) will be an invaluable resource for you. If they don't have the answers you seek already, they probably will as soon as they become available.
The poster was asking about the "white-space" which is the space between television channels. The FCC has recently approved its use without a license. This is not the same thing as the 700Mhz band.
Your confusion is probably because the original poster described the space as "soon to be vacated" which is not an accurate way to describe the white-space. 700Mhz will be vacated soon, but must be licensed. White-space is already vacant and won't need to be licensed.
I'll let others comment on the hardware and business plans but the problem with rural inherently is that cost of delivering bandwidth from a major city/internet POP to your rural location ala backhaul. Bandwidth is EXPENSIVE when purchased in a rural location unless you have the big $$$ to operate your own fiber backhaul or a wavelength of existing fiber from the POP to your location. It really depends on how rural the location is. You really need to consider the costs and oversell ratio if you're going to do this. Try asking here btw: http://www.dslreports.com/forum/wisp In rural areas the ILEC setup is usually the minimum unless the CO has been setup for DSL/higher bandwidth services meaning it's usually only TDM based. The ILEC has to share the resources with the federally required voice service. And if they haven't deployed broadband out of the CO already then it's not profitable for them. This eventually most likely with the ILEC telling you a very high bandwidth costs and even higher if there's fiber/equipment buildout costs needed. If you're in a rural but not-so-rural location and can do wireless backhaul for the bandwidth (microwave) then you can lessen your costs that way. This is all based on what I read online. Good luck btw.