That was ftth (the person) who posted to you, not I.
Elmat,
I've not given the wireless future much thought these past couple of days. Been too busy. I did run across an article about Alaska Power and Telephone article today, however. Rather interesting. AP&T is petitioning for a waiver on spectrum fees, asking if they could use an unlicensed region of spectrum (read as 802.11_), instead. All of which is causing their neighboring competitor to cry foul.
Note exactly a direct fit for our discussion, but it stands along side of it in a way, portending perhaps what we may see as unfolding before long, when voip apps begin to proliferate on nanny nets and beyond. Come to think of it, maybe it's closer fit than I first surmised.
usatoday.com
Airwave battles mount before FCC overhaul
By Paul Davidson, USA TODAY
By Larry Downing, Reuters
FCC chief Michael Powell says there are many creative ways to use airwaves.
In an age when many U.S. consumers can pick from six or more mobile phone services, about 13,000 residents of rural southeast and central Alaska still have none.
Alaska Power & Telephone can't justify shelling out $800,000 at federal auctions for airwaves needed to carry wireless signals for such a tiny audience.
Recently, though, AP&T told the Federal Communications Commission it could offer service using free, unlicensed spectrum if it got a waiver to do voice transmissions on frequencies set aside for data.
But Dobson Communications, a cell phone provider in nearby Fairbanks and Juneau, is crying foul: It paid big bucks for airwave licenses for its service. "A grant of the waiver would undermine the integrity of the competitive bidding process," Dobson says in an FCC filing.
Battles like this one likely will be more frequent in coming months. The FCC is poised to transform how it doles out airwaves to wireless carriers, broadcasters and satellite firms. The agency wants to encourage wider unlicensed sharing of spectrum and relax rules on how companies may use licensed spectrum they buy from the government.
"The government has always had this role of providing spectrum," says FCC Chairman Michael Powell. "But there's a view that the public owns the spectrum. And what's really started to happen is there are many more creative ways" to use it.
Such ideas for reforms swirled for years but have taken on urgency thanks to soaring demand for wireless services. Like a pasture grazed by too many cows, the airwaves are packed. In the past two years, the number of mobile-phone and satellite TV subscribers each has risen about 40%, to 132 million and 18 million, respectively.
The overcrowding has sparked a litany of interference complaints from existing services, such as mobile phones, about new entrants, such as satellite radio.
For decades, the agency has licensed — most recently by auction — specific frequency blocks to certain industries. Congress created the system in 1934 to police interference on the radio dial.
But some experts say the system is an anachronism now that smart antennas can recognize and grab a relevant signal, even when different services use the same frequencies. Devices equipped with such antennas and operating at very low power could share designated frequency bands without needing an FCC license, just as portable phones and garage-door openers do.
A more flexible approach would let airwaves be used more efficiently and innovatively, experts say. That could ease a shortage that has led to spotty cell phone coverage and slowed the rollout of wireless Internet services. It also could bring offerings to rural communities now too costly to serve.
With an unlicensed service, residents of 18 towns in Alaska's forests and tundra could "have connectivity anywhere in town," says Michael Garrett, president of AP&T unit Alaska Telephone. They could not, though, use the low-power service outside their towns.
But incumbent users of the airwaves, such as Dobson, are wary, saying new, less-regulated services would interfere with their networks and devalue their investment in licenses.
Balancing act
The FCC is trying to balance both interests by cautiously moving to a more pliant system while still policing interference. Last month, it appointed a spectrum policy adviser and approved a breakthrough unlicensed service, ultra-wideband. Other proposals are likely to be passed within months.
How the FCC, and possibly Congress, plan to encourage more efficient spectrum use:
Promoting more unlicensed services. New software-based antennas can share frequencies. Many use a technology called "spread spectrum," which disperses a signal across a broad swath of frequencies at low power, minimizing interference. Receivers are coded to pluck out the signal sent by a certain transmitter, filtering out others. The CDMA (code division multiple access) standard used by many mobile-phone firms is based on spread spectrum.
Another technology dodges static by finding open channels and hopping from one to the other. By contrast, current mobile-phone services monopolize entire blocks of channels even when they are not in use. The distinction, experts say, is akin to that between the wired phone network, with customers speaking over specific lines, and the free-form Internet — or railroad tracks vs. highways.
Although some of the technologies are not new, falling equipment prices have made unlicensed frequency sharing more feasible, says New York University law professor Yochai Benkler.
For years, Benkler's academic views got scant notice at the FCC. That changed with the wildfire growth of a technology based on spread spectrum called Wi-Fi (wireless fidelity). Wi-Fi lets providers such as Wayport and Ricochet create unlicensed wireless Internet networks in homes, airports, even cities.
Open to all?
Some experts say the FCC should open virtually all the airwaves to unlicensed services and raise maximum power levels enough to permit mobile-phone networks. "It's definitely possible to operate without interfering with existing networks," because of the low-power emissions, says Dave Beyer, head of wireless routing for Nokia, the biggest maker of mobile handsets. It's rolling out a wireless Internet service to homes using 2.4 gigahertz unlicensed spectrum.
Others disagree. "There are often strong differences among engineers about what levels of interference will occur," says Julius Knapp, deputy chief of the FCC's office of engineering and technology. "These sorts of issues are going to be looked at closely."
Mobile-phone giants with costly spectrum licenses say no interference should be tolerated. "Whoever paid billions for that spectrum should not have that right taken," says Steve Berry of the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association (CTIA).
Stanford University law professor Lawrence Lessig says the real point is that obsolete technologies should make way for new ones. "Cars interfered with horses and buggies, but you wouldn't shut down GM. Horses and buggies have to move away. It's the same with spectrum hogs."
Another point in favor of an unlicensed system is that it could foster innovation. Equipment makers typically gear products "to a select handful of license holders" who shy from risks, Beyer says. By contrast, a Nokia unit concocted a wireless Web network in which rooftop antennas communicate with each other instead of a base station because it knew it could sell to a diverse base of unlicensed Internet service providers.
Realistically, there is no chance the FCC will open all the airwaves to unlicensed providers. But the agency may permit unlicensed uses on select licensed bands, raise allowable power levels in existing unlicensed bands and possibly carve out new unlicensed bands.
The FCC took a big step with the ultra-wideband approval last month. The new unlicensed wireless service likely will spawn home wireless video networks and other services. Eventually, experts say, it will be so refined that it can power unlicensed mobile-phone networks on existing licensed spectrum without interfering.
"I think it's simply a matter of time before it can compete with wireless providers," says analyst Rudy Baca of the Precursor Group.
But only if the FCC allows further development of ultra-wideband. And that idea is likely to raise the hackles of mobile-phone giants who fear the devaluing of their multibillion-dollar investment in spectrum. "There's an expectation that the asset you purchased will not be eroded by the government," Berry says. He suggests that companies should pay for the right to use airwaves for unlicensed services.
Politics and money
There are also political hurdles, Baca says. Auctions "are a big moneymaker for politicians."
Benkler blasts the FCC for plans to proceed this year with three more auctions of the little remaining prime spectrum, because that will make future frequency-sharing even thornier. "We need to stop the auctions so we can make these policy decisions," he says.
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., says he's trying to rally lawmakers to support more flexible use of the spectrum.
"The goal of reform," he says, "has to be to maximize efficient use of spectrum, not short-term revenue for the government."
Spectrum sharing is no panacea — too many unlicensed services might bump into each other, even if cordoned off in their own band, says former FCC official Dale Hatfield. But, he adds, "It's very much worth the experiment."
Relaxing rules on spectrum allocation. The FCC has long parceled airwaves in a fairly rigid way.
Specific blocks go to specific industries: mobile phones, fixed wireless, broadcast, satellite and so on. The aim was to grant a fair allotment for each industry and prevent interference.
Also, while licenses can be sold under certain conditions, owners rarely sell, because they might need the spectrum someday. And leasing is all but impossible: The FCC fears losing control over lessees who might cause interference or break rules.
The system's inflexibility was underscored by the recent failures, such as that of mobile satellite provider Iridium. Under the current system, it could not use the licenses for a different service, nor peddle them to others.
Such frustrations, along with more static-resistant new equipment, are prompting change. Future auctions will be open to any industry, officials say. And the FCC is expected to make leasing much easier in a few months.
"The idea is to set basic standards, so you can control interference but not tie their hands," Knapp says. That, he says, "would let the market work, rather than trying to hold back spectrum when there's so much demand."
Help for rural areas
Rural phone companies welcome the proposals, saying auctions are too expensive because they must bid for geographic regions far bigger than their planned service areas.
Central Texas Telephone Cooperative wants to lease airwaves from big carriers to beam phone service to new homes in outlying areas instead of installing new wires.
"It would lower our costs from $10,000 per subscriber to less than $1,000," says CEO Delbert Wilson.
CTIA's Berry, though, is worried. "Why should I be allowed to change my use (such as from wireless to broadcast) if I interfere with somebody else already there?"
Fairly resolving interference disputes. The FCC is refereeing a spate of battles between proposed or new wireless services and incumbents claiming interference. They include: satellite radio services vs. mobile-phone carriers, mobile-phone carriers vs. police and fire radios, and a wireless TV service vs. direct broadcast satellite (DBS) services.
Typically, new services use modern transmitters that minimize disruption and incumbents have older, more sensitive equipment.
Who pays for progress?
The FCC seems inclined to permit the new services while guarding against interference.
But it must answer some vexing questions:
Who pays for incumbents to buy new equipment or move to other channels? Entrants, incumbents or both?
And how much interference is tolerable?
Powell's senior legal adviser, Peter Tenhula, offers this analogy: "Do you mitigate airplane noise based on the guy who goes to his back yard to read? Or do you assume people will be in houses?" |
