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FCC To Vote On Spectrum For 5G Wireless Networks (reuters.com)

Posted by msmash on from the faster-download-speeds dept.

5G has been in the news for years, but it's not available for commercial use just yet. Things will become clearer this week. The Federal Communications Commission will vote on July 14 to decide new rules to identity and open spectrum for next-generation high-speed 5G wireless applications. Reuters reports: FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said if the FCC "approves my proposal next month, the United States will be the first country in the world to open up high-band spectrum for 5G networks and applications." He said the FCC also will seek comments on opening other high-frequency spectrum bands. Policymakers and mobile phone companies say the next generation of wireless signals needs to be 10 to 100 times faster and be far more responsive to allow advanced technologies like virtual surgery or controlling machines remotely.

38 comments

  1. 10 to 100 Times Faster by MrMetlHed · · Score: 2

    Bet that means it'll be 10 to 100 times more expensive!

    1. Re:10 to 100 Times Faster by sexconker · · Score: 4, Funny

      Won't somebody think of the data caps?

  2. REMOTE MACHINERY AND VIRTUAL SURGERY by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Forgot one very specific word: reliable.

    1. Re: REMOTE MACHINERY AND VIRTUAL SURGERY by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Virtual surgery shouldn't be done via a mobile wireless network.

    2. Re: REMOTE MACHINERY AND VIRTUAL SURGERY by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Unless all you have is a cell phone and a robot. Then it's a life saver.

  3. 4G is fast enough by LichtSpektren · · Score: 1

    I'm sure this comment will sound monstrously dated before the end of the decade, but in my opinion 4G LTE is fast enough. I'd rather have better network coverage (I'd be truly festive for my cellular data to not cut out when I'm on the subway) and larger/cheaper data caps than better speed.

    1. Re:4G is fast enough by BradleyUffner · · Score: 4, Informative

      It isn't just about speed. 5G also brings better ways to share existing spectrum without interference, adding capacity to the system.

    2. Re:4G is fast enough by TechyImmigrant · · Score: 1

      I'm sure this comment will sound monstrously dated before the end of the decade, but in my opinion 4G LTE is fast enough. I'd rather have better network coverage (I'd be truly festive for my cellular data to not cut out when I'm on the subway) and larger/cheaper data caps than better speed.

      Smaller cells (think in building/in room) = more cells = greater capacity/m^2.

      It's not about the data rates per connection (they could already be faster if they wanted to be). It's about the cell density and killing WiFi which makes no revenue to carriers.

      --
      I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
    3. Re:4G is fast enough by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I agree that less limited data use by consumers is the only thing that would truly drive the requirements for 5G in a sensible way... I for one would not want my telepresence surgery conducted over any kind of wireless connection!

    4. Re:4G is fast enough by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I'm sure this comment will sound monstrously dated before the end of the decade, but in my opinion 4G LTE is fast enough. I'd rather have better network coverage (I'd be truly festive for my cellular data to not cut out when I'm on the subway) and larger/cheaper data caps than better speed.

      I don't know if it actually works this way ... but one might suppose that a faster tech utilized (by you) at a fraction of its capacity might lead to reduced costs. So if you don't need the full 5G speed perhaps you could have a speed cap instead of a data cap, or a speed cap with a larger data cap, allowing the carrier to market the remaining bandwidth to people who do want the speed.

      Of course that would require the carriers to show an interest in giving their customers what they want. As long as the average customer has a relatively long term contract to subsidize their locked phone, I doubt this will happen. The majority of people buying their own unlocked phones and purchasing service month-to-month with no contract would be the best thing to happen to the industry, then jumping ship would be relatively painless. As it stands now the carriers almost appear to be colluding, given how similar all of their plans are. They are probably smart enough to recognize that the barriers to entry for a new competitor are high, and they all make more money if they don't rock the boat by engaging in price wars.

    5. Re:4G is fast enough by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm sure this comment will sound monstrously dated before the end of the decade, but in my opinion 4G LTE is fast enough. I'd rather have better network coverage (I'd be truly festive for my cellular data to not cut out when I'm on the subway) and larger/cheaper data caps than better speed.

      Smaller cells (think in building/in room) = more cells = greater capacity/m^2.

      It's not about the data rates per connection (they could already be faster if they wanted to be). It's about the cell density and killing WiFi which makes no revenue to carriers.

      Seriously, whatever happened to WiMax? It sure would be nice if phones had three major ways to handle data: cellular network (4g or whatever), WiMax, and WiFi. That way you would have a third option in-between "in my own home or at a cafe" and "nearly anywhere". Supposing WiMax were actually available that is.

    6. Re:4G is fast enough by TechyImmigrant · · Score: 4, Informative

      Seriously, whatever happened to WiMax? It sure would be nice if phones had three major ways to handle data: cellular network (4g or whatever), WiMax, and WiFi. That way you would have a third option in-between "in my own home or at a cafe" and "nearly anywhere". Supposing WiMax were actually available that is.

      It worked fine when I had WiMax. LTE would not be available today if it were not for WiMax lighting a fire under the rear ends of the 3G people. They did an effective job of tying up the carriers in order to kill WiMax (in the US and Europe at least). This is why LTE falls so short of its design targets. It was rushed out to crush the threat from WiMax.

      I was one of many authors of the WiMax spec (I'm primarily responsible for the security protocol PKMv2) and worked on the design of WiMax chips, so my views have the jaded properties you might expect from an insider.

      The world with wireless data as an 802 protocol with voice running on top of it, rather than the other way around, would have been simply better.

      --
      I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
    7. Re:4G is fast enough by SirSmiley · · Score: 1

      As someone who lives in a rural area, I can tell you that WiMax is big business here. DSL is slow and limited to near a CO (6Mbit by Bell really). Cable is quite fast (100+ megabit, I get 130-160 down and 11 Mbps up on my 100 Mbit package). This only works if youre in town or on the highway. Once you get into cottage country or even some main rural roads, they have nothing. Seeing WiMax Ubiquiti gear hanging off rural homes is quite common. We have a dozen towers or so surrounding our county that residents cant hit and can achieve up to about 10 Mbit for around 80-90 dollars per month (unlimited bandwidth). Not great, but usable.

    8. Re: 4G is fast enough by hackwrench · · Score: 1

      I would want the robot to have enough internal smarts to prevent major problems from happening no matter what the connection, or better yet no connection and the robot knows exactly what to do. Scratch telepresence altogether. I'd rather trust the operation to an on site on robot, AI. With redundancies.

    9. Re:4G is fast enough by TechyImmigrant · · Score: 1

      Yep. WiMax started out as 802.16 and 802.16a, which described a fixed wireless access arrangement - fixed antennas at both ends. WiMax as it was pushed a few years ago (gaining the WiMax name) was 'mobile' WiMax which involved a number of extensions in 802.16e for mobile stations, much like a cell phone protocol with handovers and all that that entails. However it remained an 802 protocol. So it could bridge with ethernet and 802.11 just like any other 802 protocol. It had QoS to carry voice traffic over the top of the data service. Given that data traffic far outstrips voice traffic, this is the right way to do it.

      Mobile WiMax is necessarily less efficient that fixed WiMax because of the worse wireless channel properties between a mobile station and base station. However WiMax was way ahead of the 3/4G standards in using OFDM long before it appeared in 4G proposals and achieving superior performance as a result.

      There were many fixed wireless solutions and 802.16 set up to agree a common interoperable FWA protocol. So fixed 802.16 achieved its goals. It was around before WiMax and is around today. It replaced many proprietary protocols with a common 802 protocol. The mobile WiMax is the bit that ran headlong into a fight with the carriers, regulators and cellular manufacturers.

      --
      I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
    10. Re:4G is fast enough by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The mobile WiMax is the bit that ran headlong into a fight with the carriers, regulators and cellular manufacturers.

      You mean how Clearwire (having unlimited options as like 1mbps and 6mpbs down) got ate up and shuttered by Sprint?

    11. Re:4G is fast enough by pablo_max · · Score: 1

      and can achieve up to about 10 Mbit for around 80-90 dollars per month (unlimited bandwidth). Not great, but usable.

      And that is a big reason WiMax failed. The WiMax forum was promising years ago that we would see speeds of 1gbps by the end of 2011. That of course never materialized. Of course the WiMax forum was always promising this and that. The actual speeds were massively less than promised.

      My company also spent a lot of resources on WiMax in the early days. We even had a couple of test systems in house. Luckily they were on loan only. When the time came to buy or not, we chose not to spend the 1.2 million USD on the WiMax system.
      By that time, it became clear that Europe would not adapt a non 3GPP standard for their cellular backbone.
      It was also clear that the major test system manufactures were not going to build WiMax systems. One of my friends who works for one of the largest test equipment makers told me they looked into but, but the fee structure imposed by the WiMax forum caused them to tell WiMax to go F themselves.

      At the moment, I would totally agree that speeds are fast enough for mobile users. Hell LTE-A with category 24 will be faster than your network card. So, unless you have a 10gbps NIC at home, there is no need for more. Unless of course it is a shared connection with a lot of other folks.

      Of course... the bigger issue is that a massive increase in speed will not yield a comparable increase in data caps in the US. So, you would be able to bust your limits in a couple of minutes.

    12. Re: 4G is fast enough by don.g · · Score: 1

      Niggle: that ubiquiti gear won't be Wimax. It uses standard Wifi chips and proprietary drivers to do point to multipoint TDMA. This approach was pioneered by Mikrotik and there are now quite a few vendors with similar systems.

      The gear is now fantastically cheap. You can get outdoor units with radio, antenna all in one for under 100USD. Posted by PoE. Runs in the same unlicensed spectrum as normal wifi.

      --
      Pretend that something especially witty is here. Thanks.
    13. Re:4G is fast enough by lars_stefan_axelsson · · Score: 1

      It worked fine when I had WiMax. LTE would not be available today if it were not for WiMax lighting a fire under the rear ends of the 3G people. They did an effective job of tying up the carriers in order to kill WiMax (in the US and Europe at least). This is why LTE falls so short of its design targets. It was rushed out to crush the threat from WiMax.

      Well, I think you're probably a bit too coloured by your background. I was at the other side, i.e. the telecoms side, and while it is true that 3G+ and 4G standards were affected by WiMax, and while WiMax was initially very scary, when we learned of the standard we all let out a collective sigh of relief.

      The main thing we were "afraid" of was cost, i.e. that WiMax would come out much cheaper, and sweep away the high margins of telecoms over night. The way to do that would have been the same way that datacom beat telecom, i.e. make do with much less. Cut away lots of the added features that no-one really wanted badly enough to pay for anyway, and do the cheap and easy 80% instead.

      The way to do that with WiMax would have been to cut away mobility and roaming. Having to communicate with a moving terminal (both within a cell and between cells) is what adds all the fundamental complexity to wireless telecoms. If you cut away those two to start, then the problem becomes much simpler. But of course, WiMax suffered from the "second systems effect" compared to WiFi. So WiMax tried to be everything that mobile telecoms already was. They added all the complexities to the standard and hence missed the boat. As soon as that was realised, we realised that there wasn't really any "threat" per se. They'd need years to get to where we were already at, and they'd have to spend the same money/resources to get there.

      Now of course, I'm also coloured by my background from building mobile internet boxes for Ericsson way back when, and I would actually have liked WiMax to shake things up a little (coming from the datacom side myself), but it's no accident that while the WiFi side is alive and healthy, WiMax went the way of the Dodo fast.

      Oh and P.S. with current 4G you have exactly what you ask for. I.e. data with IP based voice on top. If anybody had implemented that, which most/many haven't. Most nets are actually 4G data only with no support for IPMMS, falling back to 3G for voice. 3G is the last system with separate voice and data channels.

      --
      Stefan Axelsson
  4. Yaay more porn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    More HD porn can be downloaded or streamed now( while Big Brother is watching)

  5. Politicians, clueless as usual by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Policymakers and mobile phone companies say the next generation of wireless signals needs to be 10 to 100 times faster and be far more responsive to allow advanced technologies like virtual surgery or controlling machines remotely.

    Because human laws take precedence over physical laws.

  6. Re: Open Spectrum Blocks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    420 to 450 MHz is used for what's called flight termination. If you are anywhere near a military or aerospace testing facility, you WILL be Jammed by these signals when present.

  7. Um by ADRA · · Score: 3, Interesting

    "wireless signals needs to be 10 to 100 times faster and be far more responsive to allow advanced technologies like virtual surgery"

    Can I pre-emptively opt-out of remote wireless surgery on my medical records please!

    That said, I've looked at gaming over 3G+ networks and generally the latency was abhorrently bad, so any innovation in that arena would be grand.

    --
    Bye!
    1. Re:Um by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Telesurgery generally requires semi-autonomous operations for this reason. The good news is, most of surgery is actually improved by semi-autonomous robots. More precise movements can be done, and a skilled surgeon who's hands have begun to tremble due to age can still be useful.

      There's at least 3-4 major universities in the US alone working on this stuff, plus Canada, and Europe.
      Some info about NASAs part in it: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/NEEMO/NEEMO12/mission_journal_2.html

    2. Re:Um by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 1

      "wireless signals needs to be 10 to 100 times faster and be far more responsive to allow advanced technologies like virtual surgery"

      Can I pre-emptively opt-out of remote wireless surgery on my medical records please!

      Greeting and salutations, Citizen of the world! Please to send 150 bitcoin to this address, and we will make certain your wireless operation goes well. You never know what could happen when you don't take precautions like paying us 150 bitcoin! As well, we reset your password, but good news! It is only 5 bitcoin to tell you what the new one is.

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
  8. Innovation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Innovation isn't stifled naturally by anything but time. The problem is your 5g network will have government agencies and corporate co-conspirators salivating on how to spy on you more. To even access their precious network that they may manage but did not necessarily invent they will deep inside want your whole life story, and who you know, for "your safety".

    wake up.

    1. Re:Innovation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The problem is your 5g network will have government agencies and corporate co-conspirators

      A minor gripe, I know ... but when did this term "co-conspirator" become popular, and why? The very nature of a conspiracy automatically implies multiple parties. It's not useful like the term "co-worker", since some jobs can be completed by a single person working alone. Why not just call them "conspirators"?

      Is this like the way, in just a few years, tons of people started saying "new-kyoo-lar" instead of "noo-klee-er"? It really seems like no one is allowed to read the news unless they cannot correctly pronounce "nuclear". That one is definitely not an accent or regional variation. It's a retarded inability to master the use of a three-syllable word.

    2. Re:Innovation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What really gets me is the "co" in conspire. It's like "over-exaggerate" or "redundantly redundant"

    3. Re: Innovation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're right, we should just say "they nspired to spy on everyone"

    4. Re:Innovation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/co-conspirator

      then there is also
      http://en.rfwiki.org/wiki/Unindicted_co-conspirator

      It's basic English. When did you decide English was spoken based on popularity? Also, a minor gripe, but you failed to cite your polling methodology for asserting that the word "co-conspirator" is or isn't popular.

    5. Re:Innovation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/subterfuge

      You speak of language used by George Bush Sr.'s son.

      That is
      http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/ironic
      http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/irony

      George Bush Sr and Jr caused a global mess when they choreographed the 9/11 WTC attack.
      http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/fact

    6. Re:Innovation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I conspired with Sally to steal Mike's coffee jar, and on realising it, he conspired with Pete to set fire to my house.

      We were all conspirators. But Sally and I were co-conspirators, and Mike and Pete were co-conspirators. However, Mike and I were not co-conspirators.

      In the original context, saying "corporate conspirators" would have implied they conspired with each other, but it would have been unclear whether their conspiracy included the Govt. As it is, it's unambiguous.

      Do I win the holiday to Florida? :-)

  9. Re: Open Spectrum Blocks by Junta · · Score: 3, Informative

    The things I learn about that I never need to know...

    https://www.ntia.doc.gov/files...

    --
    XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
  10. Re:Open Spectrum Blocks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Parent is ant-ham radio troll! Not both portions of spectrum are allocated to the Amateur service on at least a secondary basis.

  11. Why not use wired connection for remote surgery? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Is there a good reason remote surgery shouldn't be wired?

    Maybe in remote locations of the world, but how likely is it they will have the equipment if they don't have a wire?

  12. Re:Open Spectrum Blocks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yeah, no, fuck you. 420MHz to 450MHz is the amateur 70cm band, and 1.24GHz to 1.3GHz is the amateur 23cm band. Given the pitifully small allocations we have already, there's no reason to take licensed spectrum away to give to corporations.