FCC Set To Finalize Rules For Next-Gen Wireless

GovTechGuy writes "The FCC's agenda for Thursday includes a vote on the final rules for unlicensed devices making use of unused TV spectrum known as 'white spaces.' Industry and lawmakers have predicted the opening up of the white spaces could result in the biggest leaps forward in wireless technology in the past 25 years. Among the benefits is so-called 'WiFi on Steroids' which allows a large number of users within a 50-mile radius to tap into a single high-speed broadband connection for the same price as a traditional WiFi router. The FCC is expected to approve the move, but Google and other companies warn that the devil is in the technical details of the rules."

Comments

Re:P2P networking

[commodore64_love]

>>>I'm tired of having to choose between two or three effective local monopolies for internet access

Sorry but that's not will happen. The people behind these whitespace TV Band devices are the same people that control the cellphone market. ATT, Sprint, and so on.

So just forget about home users?

[alexwcovington]

Allowing these devices to power up through a 50 mile radius basically speaks to the market the manufacturers are working toward.

These "white space devices" are going to be industrial-scale. They will cost tens of thousands of dollars and will have to be set upon a pretty tall tower or building to even be safe from an EMR standpoint.

It's not home networking. It's not even local area networking. This is a business model for Wireless ISPs that doesn't include an FCC licencing and application process.

That's it. Big Whoop.

Re:So just forget about home users?

[Anonymous Coward]

Please stop posting about things you obviously know jack all about. You're thinking of broadcast FM stations where it's all about advertising revenue, where dumping more power in to the antenna directly relates to having more people that MIGHT be able to listen to your station, and it will certainly help the people at the fringe of your service area hear the advertisements better. VHF is line of sight only except in a few rare circumstances (tropospheric ducting and sporadic-E). 100,000 watts is hugely overkill for things that computers listen to, especially when you can plug a huge antenna in, unlike your car where you want as small of an antenna as possible. More power does NOT equal more distance, only antenna height will give more distance. Most broadcast stations also have to contend with another station on the same frequency only 100 miles away, so most of their power is wasted drowning out interference to better improve your listening experience.

For VHF and UHF communication all you need is line of sight and enough power to get over the noise floor and whatever path loss there is (trees, distance, a wall or two). 20 watts out at the "base" station up on a tower would be far more than enough. Since they'll be using nice big gain antennas so you don't have to, it would have about 50-ish watts peak emitted power, and your incoming signal would be amplified by many dB's. Your little box that you plug in to your network would probably max out at 10 watts out, and it will probably be able to automatically reduce power like existing RF networks. For people on the edge of the service area an outdoor antenna would be all that's needed.

The way the network would work is that your dinky iPad would connect to your existing wifi, which would then connect to whatever replaces this 'white space'. Antennas for this band are simply not small enough to fit in to an iPad and still be useful.

I assure you, 50 miles radius is actually quite trivial, especially when you don't have to worry about mobile stations with crappy antennas.

Re:What open channels?

[sconeu]

Yeah, the channel numbers stayed the same, but didn't they move in the spectrum during the digital changeover?

This is the whitespace formerly used by *ANALOG* broadcast TV.

Re:What open channels?

[commodore64_love]

Okay I just did a quick scan of my region, and here's all the occupied channels. Do you see any open spots for these TV Band/whitespace Devices? I don't. Also notice that many TV stations overlap simply because the FCC ran out of room!

VHF lo: 2 3 4 5 6 (VHF-lo)
FM Radio: between 6-7
VHF hi: 7 8 9 10 11 11 (WBAL and WBRE) 12 13 13 (WJZ and WYOU)
UHF: 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 21 (WHP and WIOC)
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29 29 (WUVP and WMPT)
30
31
32
34 34 (WCAU and WPXW)
35 35 (WDCA and WYBE)
36 36 (WTTC and WITF)
37
38
39
40
41 41 (WVIA and WUTB)
42 42 (WMCN and WTXF)
44
45
46 46 (WBFF and WFMZ)
47
49
50 50 (WDCW and WNEP)
51

Re:What open channels?

[commodore64_love]

>>>What are all of those channels with no call numbers next to them

Quoting myself: "Here is a list of all the occupied channels". In other words they all have TV broadcasts on them. Every single number listed in my last post is occupied by a Station broadcasting video.

As for your percentages above, they are not even close to accurate. Cities overlap. People can see TV stations from neighboring markets - in my case I can see 4 different markets, and sometimes even 5. So excluding isolated places like Alaska or Hawaii or Phoenix, you can take most of the percentages in your post and divide by two (or even three):

FIXED:
Charleston, West Virginia 36%
Helena, Montana 31%
Boston, Massachusetts 13%
Jackson, Mississippi 30%
Dallas-Ft. Worth, Texas 20%
San Francisco, California 18%
Portland, Maine 33%
Tallahassee, Florida 31%
Seattle, Washington 26%
Trenton, New Jersey 20%
Richmond, Virginia 22%
Manchester, New Hampshire 16%
Little Rock, Arkansas 30%
Columbia, South Carolina 35%
Baton Rouge, Louisiana 22%
.