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FCC OKs Sweeping Spectrum Frontiers Rules To Open Up Nearly 11 GHz Of Spectrum (fiercewireless.com)
Monica Alleven, reporting for FierceWirelessTech: In one fell swoop, the FCC today put the U.S. in a 5G leadership position, voting 5-0 to approve its Spectrum Frontiers proceeding and make spectrum bands above 24 GHz available for 5G. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, noting his previous remarks on the proceeding, kept his remarks brief to avoid repeating himself. But he summed it up this way before the final vote: "This is a big day for our nation. This is a big day for this agency," he said. "I do believe this is one of the, if not the most, important decision this agency will make this year. By becoming the first nation to identify high-band spectrum, the United States is ushering in the 5G era of high capacity, high-speed, low-latency wireless networks. By not getting involved in the technologies that will use the spectrum, we're turning loose the incredible innovators of this country," he said. The new rules open up nearly 11 GHz of high-frequency spectrum for mobile and fixed wireless broadband -- 3.85 GHz of licensed spectrum and 7 GHz of unlicensed spectrum. The rules create a new Upper Microwave Flexible Use service in the 28 GHz (27.5-28.35 GHz), 37 GHz (37-38.6 GHz) and 39 GHz (38.6-40 GHz) bands, and a new unlicensed band at 64-71 GHz. The FCC will continue to seek comment on bands above 95 GHz.
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Sounds good for outdoor use, but above 10Ghz the signal starts behaving more like infrared than microwave and is going to struggle to get through walls I think.
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Should actually be pretty safe unless the power level is really high because its hardly going to penetrate the skin.
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Seriously you will still get ripped off royally by the cellphone carriers, who will charge you over $100, for a network speed you'll never get with less than 5GB of bandwidth per month. So this means nothing.
The FCC needs to take back control of all spectrum and assign one company (fully regulated) to implement the towers/technology then let the providers lease space on the towers for their customers. They now compete on service and can't play games with throttling streaming competitors.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
Although Summary makes it sound like this is entirely a 5G thing, the unlicensed 64-71 GHz band suffers from high attenuation due to rain and oxygen, and aren't useful for distances more than about 1 mile. So this spectrum is clearly aimed at higher speed wifi (multi-gigabit).
You must work in IT.
If it was LOWER than 2.4GHz then yes.
If instead of selling off *ALL* analog TV channels to the highest bidder
they would have kept ONE channel and made that unlicensed,
NOW THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN EXCITING!
Instead we get frequencies that are block-able by clouds.
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I'd be inclined to agree with you - for thinly populated areas.
You do realize that (for a wide frequency band) the EM spectrum is a shared resource? Like the air we breathe: if I start a fire, that removes oxygen from the air around it. And puts smoke in the air. Smoke that will be visible from a distance, and the combustion products may affect people in a wide area. Therefore (in most populated areas) people are not free to burn stuff out in the open as they please. Such activities may be regulated, and rightfully so.
Above certain EM frequencies (say, IR and up), the physical properties of signals make it pointless to try and regulate things. Below certain frequencies, lack of practical applications make regulation not-needed / pointless. But in between, we're talking about a shared (and limited!) resource. So some government regulation is quite appropriate.
Frequency multipliers and other fancy tricks.
You generate a 10mhz signal, then add it to a 20ghz sine wave. Bingo you've got a 10mhz channel at 20ghz.
That's a simplification of what wifi channels do.
Use a 60GHz diode and amplitude modulate it as one example.
At those wavelengths, aren't the transmitters going to need to output a rediculous amount of power in order to get any reasonable distance, and for that matter, don't the transmitters themsevles get even more inefficient? This on top of the obvious attenuation problem from just about anything, including raindrops?
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
First you have to get it really excited
Europe here. If the choice is to either have net neutrality or 5G, I take net neutrality. Twice. Thrice on weekends. Hell, take 3G while you're at it, too.
In other words, why should I give a shit about how fast my internet is if I'm not the one who gets to decide what this speed is spent on?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
You generate a 10mhz signal, then add it to a 20ghz sine wave.
Actually you MULTIPLY it, which exercises a trigonometric identity that creates two new "sidebands":
- The 10 mHz signal with the frequency of each component of it shifted up by 20gHz (i.e. a component at 10 mHz would appear at 20gHz + 10 mHz, a component at 5mHz would appear at 20gHz + 5mHz, etc.)
- The 10 mHz signal with the frequency of each component of it interpreted as a NEGATIVE frequency (i.e. frequency-inverted) and shifted up by 20gHz (i.e. a component at 10 mHz would appear at 20gHz - 10 mHz, a component at 5mHz would appear at 20gHz - 5mHz, etc.)
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Of course, it won't penetrate a piece of paper, but what the hey?