Slashdot Mirror
American Cellular Companies Clamor For Fresh Spectrum
alphadogg writes "No one will ever say that America's wireless carriers are too proud to beg. This year's Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association Wireless trade show in New Orleans seemed less like an industry gathering at times and more like an infomercial dedicated to forcing the government's hand to free up more spectrum. Start with CTIA President and CEO Steve Largent, who dedicated the vast majority of his introductory keynote address to discussing the challenges carriers will face if they don't get fresh spectrum to use within the next few years. Execs from T-Mobile, Verizon and others also beat the drum. Verizon Wireless CEO Dan Mead, for example, said: 'Innovation is at risk today due to the spectrum shortage that we face. If additional spectrum is not available in the near-term, mobile data will exceed capacity by 2015.'"
Once you reach capacity, you've reached capacity, you can't go any higher than that
All your 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 are belong to us
I would like to know how efficiently they're using what they've got, and from someone who isn't them or paid by them. A lot of companies build for new features and a rapid release schedule rather than for efficiency.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Is it not possible to make the cell sites closer together? Or would this require actual capital investment on the side of the carriers?
Howabout the people elected to look out for the public interest take this opportunity to make sure that the lessons of the last decade or so are applied to any new spectrum licenses?
After all, if these businesses are desperate for what we have, we should use that leverage to negotiate the best possible deal. I'm thinking real net neutrality (not neutered neutrality), better inter-carrier interoperability (like all new spectrum must be used for only one type of signalling, say GSM only) and lets throw in a requirement that all phones which operate on the new spectrum can not be carrier-locked either. And that's in addition to what Google was able to wrangle on the last spectrum auction which required that the wireless telcos must also accept 3rd parrty devices on their networks.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Theres plenty of unused spectrum higher up, UV, X-ray, gamma ray...
I get one for an equivalent of a tenner. It comes as an extra with my fixed 24/1 ADSL landline.
Of course, I'm from a different continent.
Verizon cannot be facing a near-term spectrum shortage. Verizon asked the FCC for permission to sell 12 MHz of spectrum they arent using http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/18/us-verizonwireless-spectrum-idUSBRE83H16U20120418
I know this is difficult for most people to understand fully, but there are some pretty serious risks involved when exceeding the capacity of a wireless transmission medium. Although you can't see or feel them, the wireless network is made up of millions of miles of thin, flexible tubing, each called a "wireless spectrum". These wireless spectra run through the air, across our great nation, and around the world. In short, they're everywhere. They're above your house, they're inside your house, they're even next to you as you read this.
Like any tubing, it has an internal pressure threshold. The tubing walls are somewhat elastic, so they can take a slight amount of excessive data. But if you start exceeding the threshold significantly, and over a prolonged period of time, the tube could split, or even completely burst.
I shouldn't have to tell you about the dangers of a split or burst wireless spectra tube. If the data valve in the server room isn't switched off soon enough after a leak or a break, massive amounts of data may leak out of the damaged wireless spectra. While it's annoying to have your phone call dropped, or to have your Internet connection go down, the pollution caused by this leaking data is the biggest concern of all.
While purely telephonic data is easy to clean up if leaked, Internet data leakage or spills are a much bigger problem. This Internet data can be a very vile mixture of smut, gore, and atheism. So with more and more people using the Internet on their wireless devices, the data content flowing through the existing wireless spectra is extremely toxic and dangerous to handle.
I fully support increasing the size of the wireless spectra tubing, as well as the wall thickness. We have to do whatever it takes to prevent the environmental and social destruction that could be caused by even a single wireless spectra bursting or breaking. No expense should be spared to ensure the safety of our great country and its people.
I get one for an equivalent of a tenner. It comes as an extra with my fixed 24/1 ADSL landline.
Of course, I'm from a different continent.
Oh sure, a magical place where you're not locked into carrier, where plans are reasonably priced and your providers aren't buying special consideration and favors from the government. Actually, that does sound pretty magical.
I get the feeling the cell phone companies would love to all be on completely different frequencies with completely different protocols. Instead of having 5-band or 6 band phones that work everywhere, The phones manufacturers would have to give up and make phones that only work on ATT's version of 4G and nothing else.
Locking into contracts does exist here, through we're likely to go the way of Danes and legally mandate maximum length of six months to such a contract sometime soon due to competition limitations of a long contract.
That said, in general, most Nordics have very affordable internet offerings due to functioning and properly mandated competition and government incentives.
Surely we have learned by now to be very, very skeptical of any claim by a wireless carrier?
At least is seems that some are not parroting what they are told.
http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/NY-Times-Actually-Bothers-to-Question-Spectrum-Crisis-119397
Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
It has been reported before that Verizon Wireless and AT&T are both begging for spectrum while they are currently holding spectrum that they haven't even used yet! This sounds like they want to grab as much as possible only to crowd others out of the market. The CTIA is an industry lobby group and is not there to benefit the consumer no matter how much they claim to benefit both.
Drop Edge/2G and put a new and faster technology in its place, or give up that block of spectrum and ask for a different block. At least that is what Sprint is doing with iDEN by re-purposing it and its about time.
IF they reduce the signal strength, all they have to do is increase the number of cell phone towers and they can support more users. Cell phone technology automatically does this (it being the whole purpose of cell phones and all) .. so they don't even need new types of cell phones or towers. Spectrum crunch is easily solved.
Oh wait, it'll never work because it involves them spending money on infrastructure. Much easier to beg for spectrum and establish a monopoly.
IF they reduce the signal strength, all they have to do is increase the number of cell phone towers and they can support more users. Cell phone technology automatically does this (it being the whole purpose of cell phones and all) .. so they don't even need new types of cell phones or towers. Spectrum crunch is easily solved.
Oh wait, it'll never work because it involves them spending money on infrastructure. Much easier to beg for spectrum and establish a monopoly.
The cellular companies don't need more bandwidth, they need to get rid of the iPhones.
In what way does an iPhone necessarily send and receive more data in a month than a comparable Android phone used for similar things? Or is it just marketing that encourages iPhone users to do more with their phones than Android phone users? If you can show how the iPhone makes efficient use of the network, I'll see your point. But if it's just marketing, and the CDMA2000 carriers stop selling iPhones, then the iPhone usage patterns will probably bleed over into Galaxy S usage patterns.
You can have unlimited capacity it all depends on power.
True, but it's not electrical power as much as political power to overcome NIMBY types who oppose towers going up near them.
In Canada, we get raped monthly and have to read "Government Recovery Fee" which is not even a government mandated fee but a misnamed extra fee pocketed by the Big Three wireless carriers
In general, a "regulatory recovery fee" is intended to recover the cost of complying with specific unfunded mandates imposed by telecom regulators. These mandates include location service for the emergency number as well as local number portability among wireless, POTS, and VoIP carriers. One fee that is government-mandated is a contribution to a Universal Service Fund (or foreign counterparts), which ensures that essential telecom service in remote areas remains affordable. Your carrier may or may not itemize USF separately from other regulatory recovery fees. Prepaid carriers tend to itemize very little because it's harder to sneak in itemized fees when someone is paying cash for top-up cards.
Four is greater than one and hence, is not a monopoly.
What you say is technically true. But four do form a cartel, and a lot of the same competition laws that apply to monopolies apply just as much to cartels.
You want more bandwidth? That's cool. So does everybody else. FCC should be auctioning off *every* section of commercial spectrum on a rotating 5-10 year cycle. If the cell phone companies can outbid the TV stations, goodbye Channel 13.
(By "commercial spectrum", I mean stuff not reserved by FCC for government, scientific, or amateur use, or bound by global treaty.)
Maybe the reason canada doesn't have a bandwidth problem is because Rogers and Bell gouge us
In other words, the market is working in Canada. There is no shortage because airtime is being priced correctly to make the quantity demanded meet the relatively fixed supply.
What you need to manage is that you have enough capacity to unsure that you maintain adequate performance during 95%-99% of peak demand periods
And with services that require high throughput sustained for long periods, such as Netflix VOD and OnLive gaming, demand during peak demand periods is likely to increase over time. If it is not feasible to increase capacity, such as if NIMBYs are blocking new towers, the only way to maintain adequate performance is to reduce the quantity demanded during these peak demand periods. As price goes up, quantity demanded goes down; hence the price gouging.
Oh wait, it'll never work because it involves them spending money on infrastructure.
How would you recommend getting past NIMBY residents who complain to the city that they don't want to live near a big ugly tower and get brain cancer?
We can double your bandwidth overnight. You will all agree to use the following, single communication type on all headsets. You all share identical spectrum and there shall be no more than one carrier will be allowed per tower.
You shall separate your infrastructure operations from your carrying operations and form state specific operation from your disperse groups. You will be required to have basic coverage over the entire landmass except where geographical features make it impracticable. Your infrastructure groups will be regulated by each state with the caveat that they shall provide identical billing prices to all carriers and that the total annual profit shall be limited to a range of 4-7% of gross operating funds, with a budget and rate setting amount between 5 and 6%. Excess profit shall be carried over for inclusion in the budget and used for infrastructure buildout or rate reductions.
All of the carrier groups, which are now wholly and permanently independent of the infrastructure no longer need worry about bandwidth internally.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
What really needs to happen is that carriers need to realize that their networks depend on a finite amount of spectrum, therefore infinite increases in data speed and throughput are not possible. People will just have to deal with the fact that their phone cannot replace a computer connected to cable/DSL internet as far as speed of data transfer is concerned.
In other words, internet will always be slower on a phone via 3g or 4g networks. Also, 3g/4g coverage is very spotty.
In my opinion, other posters here are correct. All carriers need to stop trying to screw their customers, and work together to get the most efficient use of the spectrum they have before the FCC even thinks about considering their whines for more spectrum!
If the carriers did not strong-arm people into buying data plans, they would not be running out of capacity. According to this survey (http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2404086,00.asp) 50.4% of Americans with cell phone service have smartphones. Nearly every one has a data plan because all of the major carriers, except for T-Mobile, require it for smartphone users, and T-Mobile does not make it well known that you can avoid the data plan charges.
Considering today's economy, given the choice, many people would gladly save the ~30 bucks a month that a data plan costs.
This is like sci fi comedy.
Duct tape can be used to repair split/burst wireless spectra tubes -- if caught early enough. Right at the moment of the burst, it can be done, but after about 3.4 seconds, the split will be too long. I suggest we train squirrels to patch these bursts. they're numerous and quick -- not to mention if one gets caught in a burst and dies, no one really cares.
What does wanting more spectrum have to do with bandwidth issues? It is obvious, to me at least, that they want the additional spectrum for ownership and nothing more. They know it exists. The last thing the want is someone else getting to first. Or worse. It being handed to the public!
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
Most of UHF/SHF frequencies assigned to radio amateurs for experimental purposes are seldom used, and it is quite difficult to justify this waste. It would be much more of benefit to the collectivity if these frequencies were used for new wireless applications (WiFi, cellphones, etc.).
Require those NIMBYs to accept a telco-funded repainting of their house with that paint that has radiowave blocking material embedded in it.
If they dont want to accept the risks of the tower then forcibly prevent them from receiving the benefits of the tower. Given a choice between a nearby tower or zero cell reception inside their home, only the serious kooks will take the paint job and for those folks you can claim to have improved their living situation with better protection from those harmful radio waves.
In Germany it's 3GB on a no-contract no-commitment prepaid SIM for €20/mo. (if you go over, you still get service, but 56k-ish speeds) This is on the Deutsche Telekom network, probably the best in that market.
Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile here in the US has a no-contract plan through their website that's fairly similar: it's US$30/month for 100 min talk + 5GB data at 4G speed, then 56k-ish speeds after that. All of the other plans I've been able to find cost 2-3 times as much to allow smartphones, and most only include 50-200 megs of data usage with high per-kilobyte charges beyond it, and many now include wifi & Google Talk use in counting towards included data/minutes.
I sure hope T-Mobile decides to stick with the US market in the long run, needless to say -- we need them.
Apathy Sucks, Nobody for President!
Oh, there's a passageway labeled payg to that land -- it's just that the sexy expensive phones we all like to pal around with are too loyal to the provider they 'share spectrum space with' to follow us through it.
Apathy Sucks, Nobody for President!
Every article I see about spectrum is vague....like "Pepsi is thinking of buying land in New Jersey". We never hear which bands of frequencies the company in question covets, who has it, or what, specifically they intend to do with it. How hard is it to put in the specific channels/frequencies in articles...this drives me nuts...OK, I am a ham, and have some idea what/where the frequencies are, but article after article omits what is being sought and or fought over.
After all, what America needs is more spectrum for wireless microphones so that every block in every town can have its own awards show on public access cable! Get with the future, already!
Follow the money. Remember how SCO couldn't compete with free linux, and tried to shut it down? Well, the IPTV and cableco and satellite providers are trying to the shut down free OTA TV so they can charge an arm and a leg for their services. Follow the money...
* USA AT&T has Uverse
* USA Verizon has FIOS
* Canada Rogers has Rogers Cable
* Canada BCE has Bell Fibe and Bell satellite
But people like me, in and around major cities, can get 10 to 20 or more channels of free legal OTA TV. And OTA high-definition TV is way better than the compressed crap you get from the cable/satellite/IPTV providers. They hate this for exactly the same reason that SCO hates free linux. Many people won't buy your product if they can get a similar product for free.
No matter how much spectrum they have, they'll always be clamouring for more TV spectrum, until every last free OTA TV station shuts down. Then watch cable/satellite/IPTV rates shoot through the roof. I'm old enough to remember the days of UHF channel 83. Then cellular grabbed the 800 mhz band, and UHF ended at channel 69. Then they grabbed the 700 mhz band and UHF now ends at channel 51. They're trying to shut down free OTA TV, 100 mhz at a time.
According to http://www.dailywireless.org/2010/06/18/phoney-spectrum-scarcity/
> Telcos paid over $15 billion for spectrum they are not using. AT&T is
> the worst offender, sitting on more than $10 billion in spectrum. The
> FCC seems to encourage this kind of speculation, and is doing the
> Telco's bidding by opening more spectrum for corporations to sit on.
This is not about meeting real demand, this is about shutting down free OTA TV.
I'm not repeating myself
I'm an X window user; I'm an ex-Windows user
"Innovation is at risk today due to the spectrum shortage that we face."
I thought that's exactly what innovation is for. Why innovate if everything is handed to you?
Honestly,
It is well known that iPhones use too much data for no good reason.
for example:
http://www.neowin.net/news/iphone-4s-owners-use-twice-as-much-data-as-iphone-4
It is well known that iPhones use too much data for no good reason.
With what servers are they communicating? The article you linked doesn't go into any detail about the kinds of traffic that iPhone 4S users generate. The press release about the study claims that the 4S is roughly comparable in data volume to high-end Android phones. Does the study itself give details about the specific types of traffic?
True, however one has to wonder why it's not rolled into the cost of basic service.
I'd guess it's a subtle way of telling customers "This charge is not our fault. Please lobby your national telecom regulator to either repeal or fund the mandates."
the same carrier doesn't charge it on all plans
True, they tend to be charged more on plans that already include other itemized items.
It's like Bell Canada charging everyone $3 "touch-tone fee" in order ot use well, DTMF signalling. (and no, you can't call 'em up and say you want to go back to pulse dialling to avoid the fee).
What did the customer service representative tell you when you asked why the fee continues to be charged now that DTMF is decades old?