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Why We Need Unlicensed White-Space Broadband Spectrum
Posted by
timothy
on Fri Oct 31, 2008 08:15 AM
from the 50,000-watt-internet-stations-at-the-border dept.
from the 50,000-watt-internet-stations-at-the-border dept.
pgoldtho writes "PC Mag has a story about why the 'white-space' spectrum that will be freed when TV broadcasts switch to digital should be available for unlicensed use. This would allow it to be used to deliver broadband connectivity in rural areas and create a 'third pipe' alternative to the cable/telco duopoly. The FCC is scheduled to vote on this November 4th. The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) has filed an emergency appeal to block this vote. If the NAB succeeds, the issue will be kicked into next year. Which would mean a new FCC, Congress, and Administration."
Related Stories
[+]
Mobile: Microsoft Questions FCC's 'White Spaces' Decision 142 comments
narramissic writes "Late last month a wireless prototype submitted by Microsoft and other members of the White Spaces Coalition was rejected by the FCC because it interfered with cable channels. Microsoft, though, claims that the device was malfunctioning when the FCC tested it. From the article: 'In a letter to the FCC Monday, Microsoft said the scanner in one of two prototypes was damaged and "operated at a severely degraded level. The damaged scanner accounted for the entire discrepancy between the Microsoft and the FCC bench test data," said Ed Thomas, a consultant for the White Spaces Coalition and a former chief of the FCC's Office of Engineering and Technology.'"
[+]
Hardware: TV White Space & The Future of Wireless Broadband 119 comments
DeviceGuru writes "The unoccupied radio spectrum between broadcast TV channels may soon become a source of low-cost, ubiquitous broadband connectivity. Earlier this month, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission began Phase II testing of 'white space device' prototypes, to determine whether WSDs can operate without interfering with the other wireless devices commonly used in homes, offices, and public locations. A key advantage of white space wireless technology, compared to the combination of WiFI and WiMAX, is its TV-like ability to cover broad areas and penetrate walls and trees, using relatively low power levels."
[+]
Hardware: Google Looks to "White Space" Spectrum 95 comments
Nerdposeur writes "After maneuvering the major carriers into agreeing to open access rules via the recent spectrum auction, Google appears to be looking into a new area of spectrum that could provide internet connectivity. 'In comments filed with the Federal Communications Commission, the Internet leader outlined plans for low-power devices that use local wireless airwaves to access the 'white space' between television channels. A Google executive called the plan 'Wi-Fi 2.0 or Wi-Fi on steroids.' Interestingly, Google has Microsoft, Intel, and others on their side in this one. Was this spectrum their target all along?"
[+]
Mobile: White Spaces Test "Rigged," Says Google Co-Founder Page 323 comments
Davide Marney writes "As reported by the Washington Post, Google co-founder Larry Page claims that an FCC field test of white space wireless devices was 'rigged' to make the test device fail to detect wireless microphone broadcasts. A Google spokesman explained later that testers had hidden the wireless microphones within the same frequency as local television stations, preventing the test device from detecting them."
[+]
News: White Space Debate Intensifies As Vote Approaches 94 comments
Ars Technica reports that the debate between broadcasters and white space supporters has intensified after each side recently made inflammatory comments and suggested that science would vindicate their position. Several organizations are pushing to delay the upcoming white space vote, in part because it takes place on the same day as the US presidential election. We recently discussed Google's claim that a test of this system was rigged to fail. From Ars:
"The broadcasters contend that adjacent channel interference would be significant even at the 40 mW level proposed by Kevin Martin. In fact, they claim that such a device would interfere with digital television signals when the viewer is 25 miles from the television tower and the whitespace device is 10m or less from the TV set. At 50 miles from the television tower, a whitespace device within 50m from a set could allegedly cause interference. The broadcasters also want several safeguard requirements put on the technology that go beyond the new, lower-power transmission levels."
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Damn Reds. (Score:5, Insightful)
And even if it stands that the space will not be licensed for some other commercial use, the existing bandwidth owners will lobby against it ever being given back to the public, because there is money to be made fencing people in to their existing ownership of the spectrum.
The very idea that the electromagnetic spectrum can be fenced off strikes me as ridiculous. Don't get me wrong - I'm aware of why it needs to be done. But it seems like such a short jump from there to Coca Cola declaring all rights over 'red'.
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I sent a comment to the FCC about this November 4 hearing, and in short I said this: "My channel count will drop from 15 to just 3 channels, if you allow whitespace devices to broadcast on the television band." If my neighbor flips-on her whitespace-enabled Ipod next year, its broadcasts will block any television station further away that 25 miles. So instead of watching Baltimore, Philly, or Harrisburg television like I normally do, I will be limited to just the local DTV stations in little p
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It's good to hear that the FCC is so attuned to the problems of RFI and TVI. Otherwise I'd be really worried about the practice in the Deep South where right-wing broadcasters manage to license frequencies adjacent to NPR stations, and effectively drown them off the air. Since the FCC is so concerned, of course they're going to address this.
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UPS already has Dibs on "Brown"
They can expect a lawsuit from south african spaceman dude any day now..
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Too late. In Qualitex Co. v. Jacobson Products Co. [ladas.com], SCOTUS held that, "sometimes, a color will meet ordinary legal trademark requirements. And, when it does so, no special legal rule prevents color alone from serving as a trademark." They awarded trademark rights to "green-gold" to Qualitex.
But of course, the issues are very different. Even at the physical level - most matter is opaque to the visible spectrum but
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They awarded trademark rights to "green-gold" to Qualitex.
So the Packers pay Qualitex a royalty or somethin' to use the colors?
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The worst part (as mentioned in TFA): the spectrum (like many other things) is AUCTIONED. The rights are only going to end up in the hands of already-rich corporations who seek nothing but profit. No one will ever win.
Yes, the spectrum does need to be regulated - not by money - but by how it will benefit the people that use it.
Exhibit #1 (Score:3, Insightful)
Useful frequency? (Score:5, Interesting)
How useful would these whitespace frequencies be at the home users end if this was used for two way internet? They aren't going to be running huge 50,000 watt towers like the TV broadcasters use. At say 5 watts (whatever/small) for the home connection "last mile" rig, will this work over long distances with hills and trees, or will it be line of sight and not much better than current wifi? I tried a service with motorola canopy wireless and it's still line of sight to a tower, any hills in the way and the signal dergrades fast to barely there or nothing.
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Running at less than half the frequency of WiFi, it will do considerably better at going through obstacles, but it's not LF, it's not going to travel hundreds of miles and skip of the ionosphere... You're ALWAYS going to be constrained by line of sight and the curvature of the earth.
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No, not correct at all.
Whether it will work or not depends on how many degrees of curvature the signal has to disperse across to go "around" the hill in question.
The higher the frequency, the less the signal will "curve" around such obstacles. With UHF being less than half the frequency of WiFi, yo
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A 100 milliwatt WSD will travel about four football fields distance. If the WSD is broadcasting on VHF (channels 2-13), it won't be blocked by trees, but if it's broadcasting on UHF (channels 14-51), then trees will block the signal quite easily.
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The issue of power, distance and line-of-sight are all things that are actually big parts of the debate on this.
For instance, if your internet device is in a valley between two hills, and a TV tower is broadcasting on one hill, with a tv viewer on the other, your device may not be able to determine that they're broadcasting there.
The net result is crap internet for you and you've annihilated the TV signal for the person viewing it on the other side of the valley.
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Oh, and there's a good chance you'll knock out the unlicensed wireless microphone system in the church up the street.
What? (Score:5, Interesting)
flatlands (Score:2, Interesting)
How does that work with the hills and trees in the way? I asked this up above, as I tried such a service and it didn't work, had to go back to dialup. Hills where I live on this farm, not flatlands like Iowa. Sorry but I don't know what frequency that motorola canopy based service was, I forget now, but I will assume it was one of those in your list, and the techs said no line of sight=SOL.
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i worked with a wISP for a while. 700mhz and 900mhz equipment can handle a surprising amount of foliage and still provide a decent connection.
however, they wont shoot straight through trees, but if foliage is in some of the lower part of the trannsmission field (called a fresnel zone) then the signal is passable.
as you get to higher frequencies, objects are more of a problem (at least as far as the canopy stuff goes). hills....well hills you cant do dick about. theyre very thick and dense, unlike scattered
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>>>So far all practical purposes the only possibility for me getting any sort of broadband
Why don't you call your local phone company and inquire if you can upgrade your line to DSL? They might have some requirement such as, "We need at least 10 subscribers to make it work," at which point you can round-up your neighbors and get them all to agree to join DSL. All the telephone lines are already installed; all you need is the company to install a DSLAM at the central switching office, and you're
And 700bn reasons why you won't get (Score:2)
The current deficit and the $700bn bailout sort of ensures that this will be sold off to get ANY sort of money back into the central pot.
Freeness? (Score:2, Insightful)
When will America get it? Some things, like education, healthcare/health insurance, 911 (police, fire department, ambulance), and the internet should be offered to everyone. They're not assets, they're life essentials. Right now, they're only guaranteed to two of those and one of them (education) is fading fast.
There was once a time when the fire department was a private service - imagine what life would be like if they still had to pay for that (yes, I know we pay taxes anyways, but it's still granted fo
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You are 100% correct. Everybody has a right to healthcare.
Everybody has a right to walk into a doctor's office, say "I'm sick," and expect the doctor to try to heal them.
What they do NOT have a right to do is take the bill and hand-it-off to their neighbors & force the neighbors to pay the bill. That's called theft. It's YOUR bill; YOU pay for it.
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And everyone in the world agrees with that till they get sick.
Till they get sick and look at their bill and realize they are paying $50 for an aspirin pill.
Til
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Why stop there? I mean, for how long are they going to keep life essentials like a personal yacht and 24/7 Swedish hooker from everyone? How about iPods? Fuck!
It's just disgraceful, all those rich fellas ought to contribute back some of their profits to society. ;-)
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Yes, or to put it succinctly:
To each according to their need.
From each according to their ability.
Karl Marx
This is nonsense. (Score:4, Informative)
While I love the idea of free and open internet communication (unlikely if we farm this out to Google and Microsoft), if they plan on using the performances they've seen in FCC tests as the benchmark, you can expect even your cable TV to cut out. I absolutely love the concept, but the simple fact is that current versions of these devices don't work, and Kevin Martin is for sale [wikipedia.org].
I'd put $50 on him ending up at Google or Microsoft within a year of leaving the FCC. Anyone who talks with the people who were at the white-space device tests knows that these devices failed miserably. If you think the iPhone (or any GSM phone, honestly) next to your speakers is annoying, just wait for these puppies.
Wireless Audio Devices (Score:2, Informative)
Stories like this one make my head spin. For some reason, people simply can't seem to get the engineering issues through their heads.
Prototype devices tested by the FCC earlier this summer were shown to be capable of detecting Digital TV stations. However, they were not even close to capable of detecting wireless audio devices such as microphones, in-ear monitors, wireless intercom systems, and IFB devices. You may not realize it, but these devices are all around you, and chances are, they are mission-cr
Examine the premises (Score:3, Informative)
1) Spectrum being freed up.
No. No spectrum is freed up by switching from analog to digital. A digital station takes up 6Mhz, same as an analog station. It's true that the FCC has relaxed adjacent channel restrictions, but any spectrum freed by that is balanced by the loss of channels 52-69, which have already been auctioned off. There's no truly free high-VHF or UHF slot between New York and Baltimore; spectrum's full.
2) WSDs being able to detect stations
For a WSD to reliably detect another transmitter, it would have to be as sensitive and have as good an antenna as the intended reciever. What are the chances of that, particularly in a portable device? Sure, your little iAndroZune with its 2" stub can't detect the channel, but my purpose-built TV tuner with a 10dBi antenna could pick it up fine... or it could, until the iAndroZune started stepping all over it.
3) Won't interfere even assuming it finds a white space
The front-end filters on TV tuners have about a 5-channel passband. A strong signal anywhere in there can cause the RF amp to overload or force the AGC to cut in and thus desensitize the tuner. One of the FCCs own studies showed it could be cause up to 70dB of sensitivity loss on adjecent channels, which makes the difference between very good reception and none at all. Furthermore, those of us using a pre-amp to receive weaker stations don't have the benefit of front-end filtering; a white space device anywhere in the band can cause problems throughout the band. Note that some of those little USB stick tuners don't have front-end filtering either.
License = limited monopoly (Score:3, Interesting)
imagine roads were privatized. imagine 10 companies bought roads, and used them as they wished, and charged anyone using them anything they wished.
do you think we would be in the level we are today as a civilization ?
we wouldnt.
there are some things, venues that need to be open to everyone, for anything, SO THAT competition, free market CAN happen.
FCC should vote totally in favor of this free spectrum. its necessary for betterment of mankind, leave aside internet access in a few locales.
Re:Upload? (Score:5, Insightful)
While you are right, I think you are emotionally wrong. If Google puts up a nationwide 3 channel white space network, paying for it with ad revenue, then yes, you do pay for it, but you don't pay for it, if you understand what I mean.
One might also argue that nothing worth having is truly free. You have to pay for it at some point, and in some way.
Besides, won't someone think of the terrorists? They need communications too!
On a lighter note, there are many situations that justify a socialistic payment plan. Imagine that everyone has Internet access, pizza and emergency services are routinely ordered via the Internet. It is so common that an entire generation has grown up using it. Now, imagine that this is only for people who can afford it. When we decide to make this pay for play forever, it ends up being the same as pay for play electricity. Perhaps not everyone can afford it, but no one can NOT afford to pay for it. The Internet is becoming something that is not really optional anymore. Sure, you can say you can live without it, but you won't be competitive, you won't be effective in society. There is a point where services become necessary rather than luxuries. The USA is at the point where Internet service is a necessity rather than a luxury.
The White Space networking plan is a good one. There is space there for controlled usage. The fear mongers are trying to sell their own services. Musicians who worry that their wireless microphones will stop working are selling fear, and blatantly so. It amazes me, musicians, like the rest of the population will have some very small percentage who are smart and who understand telecommunications, so why do we listen to all of them like they are special?
Moving on... Why should you pay for it? Simple. For the same reasons that the Federal Government tries to regulate the financial markets. It's supposed to be good for growth and prosperity of the whole country, not just for one or two people. (Even though that seems to be what is happening under the current government) when other parts of the country/economy grow, you benefit as well. The point is that tax payer dollars spent on white space networks with open access is good for the economy, and thus good for you and me. If no tax dollars are spent on it, that's even better.
Parent
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Thanks. But nobody answered the first question.
And like it or not, but those telephone poles weren't put up by the phone company on their dime.
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naturally municipal WiFi/WiMax deployment would be handled by the municipal government.
having an unlicensed white-space broadband spectrum simply allows wireless broadband equipment manufacturers to use the white-space spectrum, which is currently monopolized by TV broadcasters and the occasional wireless microphone user. opening up the white-space spectrum to a more broadly useful (and increasingly vital) application has nothing to do with making you pay for someone else's internet access.
regardless of how
Re:Upload? (Score:4, Insightful)
While the regulation and control of airwaves seems absurd from some viewing angles, if you think about it, someone making sure that no one interferes with anyone else is a good thing. I'm not necessarily saying that the FCC has always done a superb job, or that laws are enacted without prejudice. I'm just saying the principle is sound and good. Since airwaves do not stop at state borders, a federal agency for such is necessary. Having said that, I agree with your sentiment but also understand that Joe the plumber down the street doesn't necessarily give a shit what my reception is like so it's good to have someone to go to for mediation of conflicts. Laws help with that mediation.
Parent
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Ask your doctor to decrease the dose.
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>>>>. They will probably make some money for their efforts, but they deserve to make some cash for all that work.
Isn't the same true for the local TV stations broadcasting on channels 2 to 51? Don't you think they deserve the right to have their spectrum free of interference, and therefore free of white-space devices?
Or what about those who have invested ~$300 in antennas, digital converter boxes, and monitors to watch channels 2 to 51? Don't they ALSO deserve to have access to the over-the-a
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God help us all if that post is modded as informative!!
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He responded to a troll in an informative way using the troll's own native dialect. Sounds informative to me.
Re:Need clarification (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
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I also hear that with enough whitespace noise, the dead will arise and walk again. Killing and maiming the living in a never ending, ceasless desire for all to join them. Eventually we will all live in walled cities, praying for a quick death as plauge and starvation consume us from within. All because of little Suzzy's Whitespace Enabled iPod (LSWEP!).
Or maybe that was just some unsubstantiated FUD spread by someone who wanted to scare people into thinking the world was ending.
Who knows.
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>>>Manufacturers don't adhere to specs well enough and make devices that are too powerful
Or else people modify their devices to output more power. It's often as easy as just taking a screwdriver to the operational-amplifier's variable resistor & turning the screw. I've never experienced someone driving-by with the XM/Sirius transmitter turned-on, but yes I can see how that would be annoying.
>>>Why not use some space allocated to UHF mobile radios?
The FCC has already approved whitesp
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There's a lot of assumptions not being declared in your post (e.g. power and bandwidth of whitespace devices). Would you mind pointing me to the tests that determined this?
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Re:Need clarification (Score:5, Informative)
Wouldn't there be huge amounts of interference if the spectrum was unlicensed? Could someone not just make a jammer for the frequencies in question and spoil it for everyone? Or do FCC laws cover that even when it's not formally licensed? IANAEE.
FCC Regulations, Part 15 [wikipedia.org] covers this in great detail.
Here's an excerpt from sub-section 5
If a Part 15 transmitter does cause interference to authorized radio communications, even if the transmitter complies with all of the technical standards and equipment authorization requirements in the FCC rules, then its operator will be required to cease operation, at least until the interference problem is corrected.
Here is a PDF [fcc.gov] from the FCC entitled "UNDERSTANDING THE FCC REGULATIONS FOR LOW-POWER, NON-LICENSED TRANSMITTERS", which is exactly the rules which would be applicable to the hardware used for accessing the White-Space Broadband Spectrum .
Parent
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And how well can we expect that to be enforced?
Right now, there are millions of in-car transmitters out there used for relaying satellite radio to car stereos [current.org]. They cause all sorts of in
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From FCC.gov:
"QUIET SPOTS" (WHITE SPACES) BETWEEN STATIONS ON THE DIAL
The fact that there are locations on a radio or television tuning dial which do not receive a broadcast station does not necessarily indicate that a station can be added on that frequency. A station's signal on the same frequency or an adjacent frequency which is too distant or weak to be picked up by a radio receiver can still cause interference to other broadcast stations. For this reason, the Commission's rules require that stations lo
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It'd be like all the things we already do on unlicensed spectrum. Think 802.11b/g WiFi and 2.4 cordless phones running on overlapping frequncies. So possibly a lot of noise in heavy use areas. However, regulations specifying manufactured capabilities and use of items will still be made by the FCC, so intentional jammers will still be a no-no.
Re:Need clarification (Score:4, Informative)
Perhaps, they just read your post and realized it was mostly unsubstantiated bullshiting in the fine fashion of Microsoft/Neocon/Fox News FUD.
Perhaps, they aren't modding you down because they disagree with you but because you didn't add squat to the discussion.
Parent
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There's something fishy about claims of RF devices interfering with cable signals. For one thing, c