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

Woo hoo!

[grub]

'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.

Great! I can use open "Linksys" networks from across the city!

P2P networking

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's hope these types of changes lead to widespread distributed networking among members of the public.

I'm tired of having to choose between two or three effective local monopolies for internet access, and still having to put up with bandwidth-to-price ratios that are in the dark ages compared to many other developed nations.

Re:P2P networking

[Archangel Michael]

Nope it won't.

It will be CB radio all over again. 40 channels of everyone trying to talk over everyone else. It will die in obscurity with nobody using it, because they've moved to something else. Think about how many people live in the 50 miles surrounding where you live.

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.

Re:P2P networking

[adolf]

By posting this, I'm un-modding some other stuff. So be it.

With CB, you have to listen to everyone else's banter. Communications are broadcast, by definition, to anyone else whose particular squelch setting and receiver sensitivity will allow them to receive it. It is easy for one party in one conversation to step all over another party in a completely different conversation, while being completely unaware of it.

There are no PL tones on CB to limit unintentional interference and distractions, just different channels.

But I hasten to say that things have moved on:

We now live in a world where communications are neither so rude, nor so limited.

It is now trivial to determine the precise sender and recipient of a transmission (hello, IP). It is trivial to ratchet down output power, automatically, such as to very nearly speak only to those who you intend to speak to. And it's possible to share a band, due to things like CDMA, TDMA, and OFDM.

None of this exists on CB.

And when mesh networking enters the picture, things become even less like a CB.

The acceptance of a white-space provision by the FCC, no matter what modern technology it consists of, will be a boon for communications amongst a populace -- including the torrenters and the porn mavens, as well as the web browsers and the Facebookers.

To think otherwise is to disregard everything, so far, that the Internet has brought to us, as well as everything that has been learned about RF communication over the past few decades.

2008

[markov_chain]

Something similar seemed to be approved in November 2008. Anyone know why it didn't have any impact? As far as I can tell a bunch of tech companies complained that the requirement to listen for existing broadcasters, or looking up a database, was to expensive to implement in devices, and a bunch of existing broadcasters complained about interference. What will be different this time around?

Re:2008

[Sepodati]

This is the same issue on it's second or third go-around. I'm sure the rules for using the spectrum have been updated to take in the latest complaints, but that's probably about it.

It's time for the FCC to open this up and see what happens. Rules are in place. I'm sure they'll be adjusted as this goes. Let's use the spectrum and start dealing with some real issues instead of "possible interference" and horror stories.

-John

Re:2008

[Sepodati]

Go fuck yourself. Why do we have to go through this every time? Not everyone lives on the east coast. Your free TV will not go anywhere.

What open channels?

[commodore64_love]

Where I live (the Northeast Megalopolis) there are NO open channels. Every single channel from 2-51 is occupied by a TV station.

(sigh) I can easily imagine the kid next door turning on his "next gen wireless iPod or iPad" directly over top the Philadelphia or Baltimore sports game I'm trying to watch. Technically the FCC rules say I can order the kid to turn off his gadget, but that doesn't mean he would comply.

Cellphones currently have 600 megahertz of space.
TV has 200. Let TV keep its space.

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]

>>>didn't they move the spectrum during the digital changeover?

No they did not. Analog 2-51 and Digital 2-51 are exactly the same spectrum. In fact a lot of the stations are had to do a "live cutover" from analog-to-digital at midnight June 12, because they occupy the exact same spot. These stations include WPVI, WGAL, WBAL, WHYY, WJZ, and so on.
.

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

Mistaken again. The former analog channels 52 through 69 have been sold to cellphone companies (plus emergency police radio), and are already in use even as I type this sentence. These TV Band/whitespace Devices don't operate in channel 52-69 and also don't exist yet.

Re:What open channels?

[MarkRose]

The spectra weren't even used by analog broadcast TV. The spectra consist of unused space between the old channels, space that was left unused to avoid interference, harmonics, etc. between the analog channels.

Re:What open channels?

[Sepodati]

So if the data doesn't fit your assumptions, you just cut it in half? Nice.

Methodology for the Trenton, NJ area:

"TV channel assignments were compiled using a variety of data sources to ensure accuracy. The preliminary channel line-up was taken from the Consumer Electronic Association's "Antenna Web" online resource (www.antennaweb.org), which lists all available signals from a given zip code. In this case, the base zip code used was downtown Trenton. CEA's listing was then cross-referenced with data from the Center for Public Integrity's Media Tracker Database (www.publicintegrity.org/telecom/) and the television license query engine at REC Networks (www.recnet.com/cdbs/fmq.php). All of these databases consist of information taken from the FCC. A final check was performed using the FCC's TV TVQ Database Query (http://www.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/audio/tvq.html). FCC databases were also searched to determine if any public safety organizations operated in the TV band. Channels with public safety devices were deemed occupied.

This combined station listing was cross-referenced with multiple local television guides to determine which channels are available over the air. All stations broadcasting in or near Trenton that can be viewed over-the-air in Mercer County were included."

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?

[commodore64_love]

I doubt the stations will broadcast that far.

50 miles requires a large antenna like the one I'm using now (4 by 3 feet) to receive a signal..... not really practical to attach on an iPod or iPad. 50 miles also requires a transmitter output of ~100,000 watts. That would drain a tiny iPad battery in about 1/4 minute.

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:Ummmm

[commodore64_love]

>>>(600 megahertz is a frequency, not a bandwidth.

How on earth did you get out of college with an engineering or science degree?!?!? The SI unit "megahertz" can be applied to a discrete point (600 million cycles per second on the EM spectrum) - or - as a measure of bandwidth (700 through 1300 MHz == 600 megahertz of space). So going back to what I said:

- Cellphones have been assigned, by the FCC, approximately 600 megahertz of bandwidth
- TV has been assigned approximately 200 megahertz of bandwidth

Perhaps I am to blame. Perhaps I wrote my sentence in shorthand (aka technospeak) but this IS slashdot after all - I expect technically-minded persons to understand the basics they learned in PHY101.

Truckers

[flyingfsck]

Truckers are still using CB, same as always.

Yeah - WiFi is just like broadcast TV....

[markana]

This is going to work really well... not

Think about it. Compare this mythical 50-mi radius super WiFi to an existing hotspot. Or cell tower, for that matter...

1 - Contention. how many clients will be in that coverage footprint, competing for the bandwidth. Radio is a shared medium - only one source can be using it at a time (disregarding exotic and expensive tricks). So you split it up into channels - there goes your bandwidth. And you MIMO the area into sectors - bummer if you live on a sector boundary and bounce between them. No matter what you do, you have to divide a limited resource among a whole lot of users. Suddenly, small local cells look a lot better.

2 - Power. Sure, your local TV station gets great coverage (or since digital, not so much). They've got a 50-Gazillion-Watt transmitter, and it's one-way. How much power will your laptop/tablet/phone/etc. need to talk reliably to a base station 50 *miles* away? At a decent data rate, with the interference of everybody *else* trying to get the attention of that base? It's hard enough to do on analog *voice* systems. If you thought hidden-node problems were bad with WiFi, you ain't seen nothing yet! Oh, and how big are the antennas going to have to be for these lower frequencies (compared to 2.4Ghz)? The next iPad will have a band around *it* for the antenna....

3 - Infrastructure. How many of these mega-APs will get to be in a given area? Does everybody get one (hey - no license)? It's not going to be easy or cheap to backhaul all of those clients from your huge central site. It's simple to serve a small area at a time, and the cell companies certainly have the hand-off issues worked out (well, mostly). But the only long-range two-way systems out there are fairly low-bandwidth and server relatively few nodes.

You can have bandwidth, coverage, or population - pick 2.