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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.
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.
"I bless every day that I continue to live, for every day is pure profit."
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.
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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).
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.
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
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.
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.