Broadband Wireless Internet Access (BWIA) News

Dish Networks Really Wants To Buy Sprint

It's not googleable (shame on WISPA for poor coverage of their own event) but if you listened carefully during Charlie Ergen's talk at WISPAPALOOZA 2011, it was obvious that Dish Networks was going to be getting into some kind of Broadband Internet Access. Charlie was surprisingly open that Dish was seeing the effect of "cord cutting" and inroads of Netflix, and Charlie invited the attendees to "talk to us about what we could do together".

Flash forward a year or so - December 2012, and Dish gets its hands on some spectrum. So, now that they have some spectrum, they're a now a credible player in Broadband Wireless Internet Access... right? Well, um, no. The pro's snickered, knowing it's HARD to build terrestrial wireless infrastructure on a national scale. Oh, and it's expen$ive! Sure, you can just pull out the money gun and point it at the largest tower companies and fire away... but that gets you the SITES. That's all. Then there's all of the backhaul. And the equipment choice(s). And the Installation. And the Maintenance. And the Network Operations Center. And the Security. And.. And... And...

In short, it's really, REALLY different than the "simple"* bent pipe model of 99.9% of what Dish does. Dish transmits up to the satellites, customers passively receive from the satellites. Scaling from 1 to infinite is pretty possible (assuming you can handle getting and keeping the installers, maintaining minimal installation standards (hint - running satellite coax through a rain gutter is a bad idea - true story from my Father-In-Law's latest Dish installation), and of course the billing issues (always a challenge given the recent cord cutting frenzy causing a lot of churn).

So today's announcement of Dish really wanting to buy Sprint makes total sense. In buying Sprint, Dish buys an existing terrestrial Broadband Wireless (Internet Access) infrastructure. They also buy expertise in managing a terrestrial infrastructure. They even buy a footprint of retail stores where they can co-sell wireless phones and satellite television service. And theoretically, they can blend television via satellite and television via Broadband Internet.

Softbank is good, but Charlie Ergen is meaner, hungrier, and a better dealmaker. I'm betting on Charlie to win in the end.

* Yeah, I know. Not really simple at all. But simpler than trying to build and operate a national footprint terrestrial wireless network.

 

By Steve Stroh

Personal note - it's good to be back. I've missed all of you.

Two Great Articles

I wish I had written both of these articles - they're extremely well written, and they'll give you a perspecitve on wireless that you won't get from any of the conventional sources.

I recommend them highly, and I think they're both exactly correct in their assertions.

Harold Feld - My Insanely Long Field Guide To LightSquared v. the GPS Guys. 

Matt Larsen - Rural Broadband, Picture Essay. 

 

Thanks Guys - you've inspired me to get back on the wagon in the saddle.

 

Steve Stroh

 

Vistabeam Achieves 2000 Customers

Matt Larsen, Owner of Wireless Internet Service Provider (WISP) Vistabeam headquartered in Scottsbluff, Nebraska dropped me and a few other friends a note a few days ago modestly mentioning that Vistabeam had hit 2000 active customers.

As Larsen put it so well in his note: The reason that 2000 customers is special is because that is generally regarded in the WISP business as the number of customers needed to be self sufficient and maintainable indefinitely. It is supposed to be like a plane breaking the sound barrier – it gets a lot easier after you get across it.

I agree with Larsen wholeheartedly, and at 2000 active customers, he's definitely crossed into the territory of "Big WISPs", which I wrote about in 2005. Some characteristics of "Big WISPs" that Vistabeam embodies:

• Big WISPs are well capitalized with bank lines of credit, leasing programs, and favorable terms from vendors and resellers.
• Big WISPs have often acquired other ISPs, including dialup and wireless.
• Big WISPs typically have more than ten employees, including dedicated administrative personnel and technical support.
• Big WISPs use built-to-purpose Broadband Wireless Internet Access equipment from major vendors such as Motorola Canopy and Trango Broadband.
• While Big WISPs use systems from major vendors, they retain the ability to build special systems for special requirements.
• Big WISPs consider managing their network extremely thoroughly to be a core competency, and their resulting reliability of their networks is very high.
• Many, but by no means all Big WISPs have active marketing programs to recruit new customers, and regularly engage in proactive Public Relations activity such as Press Releases.
• Some Big WISPs have been able to build out their network sufficiently to bypass the need for using Incumbent Local Exchange Carrier (ILEC) – “phone company” connectivity such as T-1 and T-3 circuits.
• Through favorable pricing and performance and good reputation with customers Big WISPs are maintaining and growing their customer base in spite of competition from DSL and cable modem offerings, including recent aggressive low-cost offerings.
• Big WISPs cannot be generalized about market size – they’re found in rural areas, urban areas, and every size of market in between.
• Unlike Broadband Wireless Service Providers, Big WISPs are very price sensitive about their equipment cost. They will spend what they need to spend to insure reliable performance, but they will not spend lavishly, and demand excellent price/performance from the systems they choose to use.
• Big WISPs make extensive and often exclusive use of license-exempt spectrum, often all three ISM bands – 902-928 MHz, 2.4 GHz, and 5.3/5.7/5.8 GHz. Some Big WISPs have begun using licensed spectrum, especially for high-value customers and backbones. Gigabit links are have become sufficiently affordable for Big WISPs.

Larsen and Vistabeam are two favorites of mine because Larsen and Vistabeam embody the best of what WISPs are, what they can do technically and operationally, and how much impact they can make in smaller communities that are often underserved. I was lucky enough to visit Larsen and Vistabeam in Scottsbluff several years ago, and I was impressed with the professional attitude that Larsen has to his customers and his operation, but also the pride he has in providing a valuable service to the communities he serves.

Larsen is an innovator in the WISP industry. One of his more notable achievements was getting ticked off at outrageous pricing (and typical rapacious legacy telco behavior in their billing practices) of Qwest, and deciding to bypass them for backhaul, and constructing his own 100-mile-plus backhaul link to one of the cities Vistabeam served. Most would say that wasn't doable with a budget less than $100K, and it wasn't doable at all using license-exempt spectrum, but Larsen did it (and remains modest about the achievement). (I was delighted to discover, in researching this article, that Larsen himself had finally documented this achievement.)

Larsen is successful for a number of reasons. He's poured a lot of himself into growing the WISP industry as a whole and was one of the founding members, and current board member, of WISPA - the Wireless Internet Service Providers Association. WISPA has grown into a full-fledged industry representative organization, and their well-done web page offers ample evidence of what WISPs are capable of.

Larsen has done extensive research and testing on the equipment choices he's made and made early and prescient bets on paying a bit more for better equipment that installs "turnkey", judging that the higher cost was justifiable in fewer irritated customers from fewer operational problems and higher reliability. I remember him mentioning casually at one of our meetings at an industry conference that he'd just received "another pallet of radios".

Vistabeam's service area is much greater than Scottsbluff, Nebraska. Vistabeam's coverage is extensive (the map in the link doesn't really give you a sense of scale). One example community served is Laramie, Wyoming, home of the University of Wyoming, and some 160 miles from Scottsbluff. It's instructive that Laramie is also served by a long-time, boisterous rival WISP, and Vistabeam only began serving Laramie at the specific request of potential customers.

Vistabeam's achievements and capabilities vividly illustrate the failings of current Broadband and Telecommunications policy when it comes to providing basic telecommunications services to rural areas. Every telephone customer in rural areas is subsidized by various subsidy programs of the US Government to the tune of hundreds of dollars per month. Yet, many rural areas are denied full participation in the online economy because the telephone companies claim that they cannot cost-effectively provide broadband services. (Satellite doesn't count - it's severely limited in the amount of data that you are allowed to download, it's slow, unreliable, and because of the physics of radio signals making a 44,600 mile round trip - a lot of Internet applications don't work well. And, it's very expensive.) Larsen and other WISPs don't tout this (anymore - they took their lumps), but they've become "stealth phone companies" by their customers using Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) telephony services such as Skype and Vonage over their Broadband Internet services.

While Larsen remains a bit too modest to toot his own horn consistently (he hasn't done that "Big WISP" step of engage in proactive Public Relations activity such as Press Releases, for example), he's getting the word out in his own way, such as creating sufficient interest to merit articles in local press, and now stretching his long-unused Journalism training (he's a Journalism major) in a series of articles titled The Story of Medicine Bow:  A Parable of Rural Broadband (Part 1 is linked) that reads like a long-form article out of Wired Magazine.

For all his achievements, Larsen remains admirably modest. He's happiest when at home with his wife and young son, and remains grateful for the early backing and encouragement of his late father. I'm really proud to call Matt a friend and colleague, and add my voice to the chorus of congratulations at Vistabeam achieving its 2000th customer.

By Steve Stroh

Copyright 2010 by Steven K. Stroh. All rights reserved.
It's OK to excerpt from and link to this article, but please be considerate and don't copy it wholesale without obtaining permission.

Updata:

Apologies - the name of the city is Scottsbluff, not "Scotts Bluff".

Why WiMAX Actually Matters - Augere

There's considerable debate, and ample skepticism about whether Mobile WiMAX will "make it" in competition against wireless telephony technology GSM/HSxPA, CDMA/1xEVDO, and soon, LTE.

I've been waiting for a company to emerge that embraced the "WiMAX Paradigm" to illustrate why (Mobile) WiMAX can not only complete against wireless telephony technologies, but eventually triumph over them.

The first such company has now emerged - Augere.

Simply, Augere is going to deploy WiMAX (unstated whether it will be "fixed" or "Mobile" WiMAX) in developing areas, such as the vast majority of Africa, that effectively don't have any Broadband Internet Access.

How is Augere deploying WiMAX work better than upgrading the wireless telephony systems already in existence? Basically (and this is, admittedly, a gross oversimplification), because WiMAX technology was designed for the Broadband Internet Access era, where it's assumed that you need a lot of data transferred cost-effectively, that's engineered for the connectionless nature of TCP/IP. Wireless telephony systems, on the other hand, even LTE, are designed for the era of "everything the customer does is a billable event".

With Augere deploying WiMAX systems, a person can go get a modem or device, take it home, and be on the Broadband Internet, mobile, or fixed - doesn't matter. No messing with wirelines, no issues with by the minute billing. When they get on the Augere network, they're on the Internet.

By using WiMAX, Augere's networks will be built for those "excessive uses" that wireless telephony networks are being "abused" by their users - Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP), video downloads (they'll completely bypass the Broadcast Television, Cable Television, and Satellite Television eras; they won't NEED them), peer-to-peer (well, WiMAX will handle that better, anyway), videoconferencing, telemedicine, tele-education, and most of all... all the things we haven't yet dreamed up yet, but that the Internet is able to accommodate.

And getting the rest of the world on the Internet, where their voices can contribute to the global discussion, makes a huge difference in the world.

Bravo, Augere!

By Steve Stroh

Copyright (c) 2009 by Steve Stroh

FCC - Renewed Hope, cont.

Continued from FCC - Renewed Hope

4) Tom Evslin made a great point in one of his articles - No More Landlines. It's not that there's no inherent future or utility in Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS). It's just that the wireline (and wireless) telephony carriers have this sense of entitlement after over a century of a guaranteed rate of return and the ability to hold customers hostage. But increasingly, the math doesn't work with more and more people abandoning landlines in favor of wireless telephones, leaving telephony infrastructure idling. The telephony carriers want to continue to be compensated for their "stranded" investments, but the only way to do that is to soak the remaining customers even more, and a vicious cycle was started years ago with the price of landline service rising, and customers saying "at this price, I really don't need this".

The trouble is... the infrastructure that businesses rely on - T-1 lines, are largely paid for out of revenues by the customers that are abandoning landlines. So, the FCC has a hell of a mess on its hands dealing with the inevitable transition to wireline infrastructure that isn't supported by voice revenues.

5) I'll take Evslin's observation one step further to make the same observation that a lot of customers are going to make the same calculation with cable television services... for the same $50/month or so that they're paying for cable, they can "rent" Netflix on-demand movies, rent television episodes from iTunes, watch free downloadable content from YouTube or the networks, etc. The cable companies are going to find their infrastructure investments largely stranded as people abandon video services and voice services in favor of broadband-only. Expect the cable television industry to come crying to the FCC about "customer abandonment" issues right behind the wireline telephony companies.

6) The US Government wants a national, interoperable, two way radio system that will integrate local, state, federal, all manner of public safety agencies. That's easily done:

• Buy Nextel - there's the US terrestrial network.
• Buy Iridium - there's the US extended-area / worldwide network.
• Buy the iDen and Iridium intellectual property (both from Motorola?) and "open source" it for the purpose of incentivizing other vendors to make access devices to US Government requirements.
• Sunset all the commercial users.
• After the sunset, operate Nextel and Iridium's networks as federally-operated public safety communications systems and very selectively grant access to commercial users that have a good reason to be on them - Red Cross, Salvation Army, tugboat companies, etc. Add an encryption system with a smart card that has to receive an authorizion signal every so often so that stolen / compromised devices are "aged out" of the system. Both systems already have this, but it's probably not that robust and is designed around the requirements of "creating billable events" - the Government's requirements are a bit different.
• Invest the money that you would have spend building yet another two-way radio and satellite communications system into hardening, improving the coverage, improving the reliability, growing the user base, etc.

Do the math and the timeline, FCC. There is no conceivable way the nationwide emergency network the US Goverment wants and needs is going to happen "organically", "incentivized", partnerized, etc. If you do it the way currently envisioned, it will take decades, cost tens of $Billions, and at best will be loosely coupled and never in sync between factions because they're sections of the network are being built piecemeal. Over time, migrate it to P25 standards if that's desired... but it's arguable that P25 scales to nationwide, and Nextel's already figured out how to do that with iDen.

Nextel and Iridium aren't broadband-capable, and can't really evolve to be. If you want / need that, pay Clearwire to put up Mobile WiMAX gear in parallel with developing their network, but the government gear is on a government-only band. Or the government could just buy back all the 2.3 GHz licenses.

To be continued.

By Steve Stroh

This article is Copyright © 2008 by Steve Stroh except for specifically-marked excerpts. Excerpts and links are expressly permitted (and encouraged).

This article was written and posted via Broadband Wireless Internet Access (BWIA) ; Sprint Mobile Broadband service using a Sierra Wireless 595U USB modem - 1xEV-DO Rev. A on a MacBook Pro laptop.

This article is Copyright © 2008 by Steve Stroh except for specifically-marked excerpts. Excerpts and links are expressly permitted (and encouraged).

This article was written and posted via Broadband Wireless Internet Access (BWIA) ; Sprint Mobile Broadband service using a Sierra Wireless 595U USB modem - 1xEV-DO Rev. A on a MacBook Pro laptop.

FCC - Renewed Hope

Kevin (not Ken... can't believe they got this wrong, and it still isn't corrected!) Werbach and Susan Crawford have been named by the Administration-Elect as FCC Review Team Leads.

I can't speak much to Susan Crawford, though she's enthusiastically recommended by people I respect, like David Isenberg.

I can speak enthusiastically about Werbach. He's ex-FCC, and one of those rare lawyers who can think out of the box when it comes to wireless issues, and can grasp that the technology can largely eclipse the legalisms and regulation that was needed when we were still using wireless technology of the 19th century (slightly updated throughout most of the 20th century). It bodes well that Werbach will have a hand in initially shaping the FCC under the Obama administration. I think Werbach would make a terrific FCC commissioner and/or chairman.

What do I think the agenda of the "Obama" FCC should be? Glad you asked :-)

1) Network Neutrality I'm a reluctant convert to this, as I had hoped that the market would create opportunities for new, wireless-based competitors who could compete on the basis of the total cluelessness of the incumbent carriers screwing around with people's bits in transit. But the carriers are waging war in subtle ways, being open only when forced to after years of litigation. They brought it upon themselves, and I think that the only way to insure that the Internet will continue to be useful and innovative is to craft an ironclad "hands off the bits" regulations.

2) Equivalent of the Rural Electrification Act for Broadband Internet Access We've screwed around with this for far too long. We have the Universal Service Fund, but that's restricted, because of intense lobbying by the telcos, to strictly voice telephony. It needs to be opened up to apply to broadband. I think the fairest and sanest way to do this is to provide the equivalent of monthly coupons for ten years of an amount like $50/month for customers in 20% or so most rural areas - lowest population density. You can give your coupon to the provider of your choice - the one that does the best job of broadband bits to the actual customer. I think BWIA will be the sanest way to do this, but rural power co-ops should be enabled to run fiber networks to their power customers. Unlike telephony services, Internet services are a lot like providing power. Just move the bits, maintain the network and bill the customer. It needs to be restricted to reasonable speeds - say 8 Mbps and faster, and low latency (sorry satellite - we really need low latency for VOIP, telepresence, telehealth, teleeducation, etc.). For this idea to work, the control over where the payments are made must remain firmly in the hands of the customer; else "too cozy" arrangements will develop that the incumbents can game.

3) Extend White Spaces concept to BWIA-compatible spectrum We've got incredible amounts of spectrum available in rural areas... not even all the wireless telephony spectrum is in use! Let alone 2.3 GHz WCS, 2.5 GHz, 1.7/2.3 AWS, 700 MHz , etc. If you (provably) aren't using it in a given area (spectrum surveys by credible independent entities), then others should be able to "stake a claim" on "squatting" on that spectrum for a period of, say, a year. Let 'em license-holders yap - if they aren't using it, no one is being harmed by someone else willing to commit resources to using it.

To Be Continued...

By Steve Stroh

This article is Copyright © 2008 by Steve Stroh except for specifically-marked excerpts. Excerpts and links are expressly permitted (and encouraged).

This article was written and posted via Broadband Wireless Internet Access (BWIA) ; Sprint Mobile Broadband service using a Sierra Wireless 595U USB modem - 1xEV-DO Rev. A on a MacBook Pro laptop.

This article is Copyright © 2008 by Steve Stroh except for specifically-marked excerpts. Excerpts and links are expressly permitted (and encouraged).

This article was written and posted via Broadband Wireless Internet Access (BWIA) ; Sprint Mobile Broadband service using a Sierra Wireless 595U USB modem - 1xEV-DO Rev. A on a MacBook Pro laptop.

Whitespaces - We Won

The FCC approved White Spaces yesterday - conservatively.

It looks like the rules haven't been published yet (in the Federal Register?), and that will be the definitive answer to a number of lingering questions, such as actual power levels permitted.

I wish I had been able to view the streaming video from the FCC meeting yesterday, but as one commenter put it "bandwidth is a bit scarce in the DC area today". I guess there was something :-) going on yesterday besides the FCC meeting.

The broadcasters and wireless microphone users won a minor victory in that the FCC, for now, requires geolocation database as part of any white space usage. I didn't appreciate the elegance of that solution for fixing the nagging issue of low-power wireless microphone usage and the often-ignored (except by those of us really paying attention) use of portions of the television spectrum for public safety two-way radio. That is, the wireless microphone users, if they register their usage in "the database" (and this database - administration, access, cost, maintenance hasn't been defined) then they'll be as protected as well as a television broadcast station's usage will be protected. The white spaces devices will check "the database" and if they're near a "protected use", including wireless microphones, they won't be able to use that particular portion of spectrum.

The use of beacons was apparently rejected outright.

But the FCC recognized that spectrum sensing has huge potential that's only been provisionally demonstrated and left the door open for vendors and industry to demonstrate when spectrum sensing is actually ready, but with an unusually "open" process of submission of devices, testing, and certification for use/sale. But there will be a feeding frenzy of vendors to do so because with a spectrum sensing system they can eliminate the expense and bother of the devices having to submit to a geolocation database. It will be a real challenge to sense wireless microphones without beacons, but so be it. DSP technology is up to the challenge of surveying the spectrum for such low-power signals; it will just be expensive at first.

The FCC indicates that this authorization of white spaces will lead to new options for providing Broadband Internet Access. I don't think it will, at least any time soon, at least for primary Broadband Internet Access. The white spaces rules, from what little we know at the moment, weren't that favorable. From what little I've gleaned, the power levels permitted at the moment are way too low for reliable, long-range service such as what will be required in rural areas. For that, I fall back on my Amateur Radio background where 25 watts is considered a reasonable power level for simplex communications in the Amateur UHF band (420-450 MHz) of more than a few miles in terrain that's even a little bit uneven. But the FCC also had language that higher-power operation in white spaces might be permitted in the future.

One interesting tradeoff that will take place in the Wireless ISPs is a tradeoff of antenna size. To make use of the relatively low power, they'll have to use focused / beam antennas. But UHF would require a big panel or dish antenna, so they'll start using yagi beams.

More than a few commenters, including Commissioner Martin, and Google's Larry Page, used the phrase "Wi-Fi on steroids", and that's probably the immediate use. It's easy to imagine a "White Spaces Wider-Fi" access point that will finally cover an entire household... or even cluster of homes that isn't subject to the limitations of 902-928 MHz (good spectrum, but only 26 MHz) or 2.4 GHz (83.5 MHz of spectrum, but too easily blocked by physical obstructions).

The FCC also apparently rejected the idea of "licensed-lite" as advocated by WISPA and some other organizations, of a second tier of registration databases for competing white-space users / usage and mandated sharing and interference resolution. I understand why WISPA wanted that... but in the end I think that the FCC did the right thing in rejecting that approach because there's enough "fraught with peril" for a white spaces device to work around television broadcasting and wireless microphone.

All in all a good day... and I think the voters of the US picked the right person for the leading the US into the next four years. A bonus is that he really gets the importance of the Internet.

By Steve Stroh

This article is Copyright © 2008 by Steve Stroh except for specifically-marked excerpts. Excerpts and links are expressly permitted (and encouraged).

This article was written and posted via Broadband Wireless Internet Access (BWIA) ; Sprint Mobile Broadband service using a Sierra Wireless 595U USB modem - 1xEV-DO Rev. A on a MacBook Pro laptop.

This article is Copyright © 2008 by Steve Stroh except for specifically-marked excerpts. Excerpts and links are expressly permitted (and encouraged).

This article was written and posted via Broadband Wireless Internet Access (BWIA) ; Sprint Mobile Broadband service using a Sierra Wireless 595U USB modem - 1xEV-DO Rev. A on a MacBook Pro laptop.

Ubiquiti Networks Fires The Bullet, A Tiny Inline Outdoor BWIA Radio

Way back in the day, when I first began covering the emergence of BWIA, the smallest Wireless ISPs (WISPs) were hacking up 802.11b radios to add external antenna connectors, long runs of coax, and big external antennas, all because that was the cheapest way to do BWIA, and cheap was the name of the game.

Later all of that evolved into purpose-built BWIA systems - some built on 802.11 silicon, others more purpose-built, and the WISPs decried that all of that was stil too expensive - they needed Customer Premise Equipment (CPE) radios that were less than $100.

Eventually they got that, and more as the technology, competition, and volume continued to evolve.

What's been interesting to watch is that there are companies that are choosing to specialize in the WISP market, which is particularly brutal. WISPs demand low prices, can only buy in small volumes, low prices, they absolutely require solid technical support, low prices, high reliability, and continual evolution of the products to match the evolving nature of delivering Broadband Internet Access. And, oh yes, Low Prices. So it's impressive when a vendor chooses to target the WISP market, and can deliver, such as Tranzeo Wireless Technologies, and emerging in the last couple of years, Ubiquiti Networks.

I thought that Ubiquiti's previous generation of products - PowerStation, NanoStation, PicoStation were very cool and set new performance, capablity, and price points in the WISP market.

But Ubiquiti just announced a real game-changer in the WISP market - a product they call "The Bullet". (Ubiquiti has a very good press section, with good graphics of all their products... except, regrettably "The Bullet"... so I'll have to describe it). The Bullet is an very small, inline BWIA radio. It's cylindrical, perhaps 1" in diameter, perhaps 4-6" long, with a well-protected RJ-45 jack on one end and a Type-N RF connector on the other end. It has an LED bar graph on it for received signal strength for easy alignment in the field. It's designed to live outdoors and connect inline with an external antenna. It's one those dream BWIA products that makes things so simple in deploying BWIA - Ethernet and Power in, RF out, and that's done within inches of the external, outdoor antenna - no feedline loss or expensive, long, difficult runs of coax.

The ease of deployment alone is sufficiently compelling that Ubiquiti is going to get a lot of takers. But the real game-changer is the price:

US $39.00 MSRP!!!

If Ubiquiti Networks matches The Bullet's performance and reliability with its ease-of-deployment and price...

Keep in mind that this is a product that's "designed" for WISPs and as such it's got some features just for WISPs. One is that Ubiquiti has made it possible to put alternative firmware on its products that alter the usual 802.11 MAC Layer. Another such feature is smaller channel sizes, as small as 5 MHz. Ubiquiti has demonstrated with its previous products that it really understands the WISP market, and "The Bullet" with the features and that incredibly compelling price point...

Imagine for a moment how such an inexpensive, capable product changes things?

What a great time to be a WISP with products like this, the ability to build reliable backhaul links using 3.65 GHz licensed-lite spectrum and carrier-grade WiMAX products, and Ubiquiti products like this for the final mile(s) delivery of Broadband Internet Access.

With this development, Tranzeo must really be feeling the heat of competition.

Now if Ubiqiti can just come out with a version of The Bullet for the 902-928 MHz band.. or (my Amateur Radio heart a' fluttering... 420-450 MHz)... Wow.

By Steve Stroh

This article is Copyright © 2008 by Steve Stroh except for specifically-marked excerpts. Excerpts and links are expressly permitted (and encouraged).

This article was written and posted via Broadband Wireless Internet Access (BWIA) ; Sprint Mobile Broadband service using a Sierra Wireless 595U USB modem - 1xEV-DO Rev. A on a MacBook Pro laptop.

This article is Copyright © 2008 by Steve Stroh except for specifically-marked excerpts. Excerpts and links are expressly permitted (and encouraged).

This article was written and posted via Broadband Wireless Internet Access (BWIA) ; Sprint Mobile Broadband service using a Sierra Wireless 595U USB modem - 1xEV-DO Rev. A on a MacBook Pro laptop.

Shocking - Television Broadcasters Oppose White Spaces

Well... that was a bit of sarcasm - that the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) would oppose license-exempt use of unused portions of the spectrum allocated to television broadcasting ("White Spaces") isn't shocking at all - it's what they do, and this development was utterly predictable and business-as-usual with NAB and MSTV. As I wrote a few days ago, this FCC report is specific to the testing of prototype devices, and validation of the concept of license-exempt White Space devices, that the concept shows sufficient promise to move forward with proposals... which would then be open to comment.

With the release of the FCC's report on their testing of prototype White Spaces devices, NAB is grandstanding by filing an "Emergency Request" with the FCC "because they're concerned".

I had to chuckle when the NAB's press release stated "... unlicensed devices relying         solely on spectrum sensing threaten the viability of clear TV reception." In the decades I've been watching broadcast television, the only time I've had what I'd call "clear TV reception" was in my youth when my mother used a bit of money from an inheritance to pay for the construction of a 40' tower with a ungainly VHF/UHF television antennas to receive signals from Toledo, Ohio. And in the coming years after the DTV conversion is complete, very few people will be able to get by with indoor television antennas because the digital signals require a very high Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) to decode reliably. So, television viewers will require an outdoor antenna (perhaps not the 40' tower of my youth), or "cable" television (or, increasingly, "telephone" television), or direct broadcast satellite dish.

In fighting license-exempt use of White Spaces, NAB is really missing the big picture. License-exempt white space devices provide a perfect ecosystem for continuing television broadcasting - they defer to the broadcasting use of the spectrum, but their presence, in the billions of devices, would deter the tendency to further reduce the television broadcast spectrum for other services like what happened with the 700 MHz bands being created from television broadcast channels 52-69, and the conversion of television broadcast channels 70-83 into wireless telephony decades ago.

By Steve Stroh

This article is Copyright © 2008 by Steve Stroh except for specifically-marked excerpts. Excerpts and links are expressly permitted (and encouraged).

This article was written and posted via Broadband Wireless Internet Access (BWIA) ; Sprint Mobile Broadband service using a Sierra Wireless 595U USB modem - 1xEV-DO Rev. A on a MacBook Pro laptop.

This article is Copyright © 2008 by Steve Stroh except for specifically-marked excerpts. Excerpts and links are expressly permitted (and encouraged).

This article was written and posted via Broadband Wireless Internet Access (BWIA) ; Sprint Mobile Broadband service using a Sierra Wireless 595U USB modem - 1xEV-DO Rev. A on a MacBook Pro laptop.

FCC Report - TV Broadcast White Spaces Devices Work

A few months shy of seven years after I first proposed the idea that has become known as (television broadcast band) "White Spaces", a report by the FCC validates the concept. I'm kind of proud that I was so far ahead of the curve on this particular implementation of Broadband Wireless Internet Access.

I told this story in a previous article, but in a different context, so perhaps it bears "reprinting" here.

My article, retitled to Wireless Smart Radio, Heavy Lobbying Would Bring Wireless ISP Band and poorly edited, appeared in Boardwatch Magazine Online - then at URL http://www.ispworld.com/boardwatchonline/2002/jan02/technology-wireless.htm. Boardwatch is no more, and Light Reading, the subsequent owner of boardwatch.com removed all the former content, but fortunately this article, at least, is available on the wonderful Internet Archives.

In a sense of Deja Vu... only in the last few months have Wireless ISPs actually begun to rally to this cause, though nowhere near the unified front that I recommended they would need to assume.

Note that my proposal/article, I "start" at Channel 14, since all the Digital Television conversion proposals at the time stated that as part of the transition, Television Broadcast Channels 2-13 would also be surrendered because their spectrum is far more valuable for communications use. Unlike Channels 14 and up, Channels 2-13 are not continuously located in the UHF band. Apparently the Television Broadcasters were able to maneuver themselves into retaining Channels 2-13.

I've subsequently learned that Channels 14-20 are used in some urban areas for public safety two-way radio communications. Such usage would be much more difficult to detect than television broadcasting, so unless the Smart Radio can be made "smart enough" to detect such usage, I may remove Channels 14-20 from consideration for license-exempt sharing. In my research at the time that Channels 52-59 would also be reallocated into the "Lower 700 MHz Band". My last mea culpa is that Channel 37, while allocated, is reserved for Radio Astronomy nationwide and thus no transmissions of any kind are allowed there. So, now my math on the available spectrum is Channels 21-51, minus Channel 37, equals 29 channels, for a total of 174 MHz of Television Broadcasting Spectrum - 512-608 MHz and 614-698 MHz, that is potentially available for license-exempt communications use. That's an incredible amount of spectrum, especially given that most... and often all of that will be available in rural areas where the propagation characteristics of this spectrum will be the most useful.

Below is the text of that article, as it appeared in Boardwatch Magazine Online, January, 2002.

Technology

Wireless Smart Radio, Heavy Lobbying Would Bring Wireless ISP Band 

Operating in the 2.4 GHz band can be a difficult challenge for many ISPs because of interference issues. An oft-mentioned "cure" for such problems is reserved spectrum for wireless ISP (WISP) use. The technology is there, the obstacles are political. Broadcast lobbying forces, such as the National Association of Broadcasters, in Washington would fight the proposal, and it would take a united effort by service providers to push it to fruition.

The idea of a WISP band has merit and is achievable, especially in the context of local ISPs providing a cost-effective service to address the digital divide issue in non-metropolitan areas. The basic idea is to share, strictly on a non-interference basis, unused television broadcasting channels 14 to 59.

Channels 14 to 59 are the 470-746 MHz range and contain 276 MHz of contiguous spectrum reserved for television broadcasting. (Channels 2 to 13 and channels 60 to 69 are already slated for reallocation.) In contrast, the 2.4 GHz band is only 83.5 MHz.

Such a sharing scheme would only be possible with the emergence of a new type of radio - a smart radio. A WISP smart radio (WSR) is programmed to survey the 470-746 MHz spectrum. On any television channel where transmissions are heard, that channel is automatically "locked out" from being used by the radio.

A smart radio can make such a decision (whether or not there is a potential interference problem on a channel) in milliseconds, versus humans making the same decision in weeks, months or years.

One of the prime reasons for trying to make use of 470-746 MHz is that it has good penetration characteristics (trees don't stop signals at this frequency). Reasonable transmission power levels at 470-746 MHz are possible, with reasonable safety. A maximum power limit of 10 watts should be ample.

The technology to build a WSR certainly exists. Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum (FHSS) modulation seems most applicable to WSR, as it can simply "hop over" television broadcast channels that are in use. I further propose that WSR be designed as a consortium, and standardization between manufacturers would insure interoperability and drive down costs.

Generating Revenue and Acceptance

There is a very real expectation that any new use of spectrum must generate some income for the government. A revenue generating approach that seems applicable to WSR is for a one-time "spectrum tax" applied to the final purchase price of each WSR.

The more use made of spectrum (the more units sold), the more government revenue generated. The expense is directly proportional to use, and the expense is incurred only after the additional business is generated.

The main obstacle in developing WSR is not technical. Television broadcasters and their industry organization, the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB; www.nab.org), are powerful forces in Washington, D.C. Any non-broadcasting use of television broadcasting spectrum will be fiercely resisted.

Wireless ISPs could overcome this obstacle with effective representation in Washington, D.C. To accomplish this, the WSR will require time, sustained effort, financial support and experienced lawyers. The Wireless Communications Association International (WCA; www.wcai.org) fulfills many of those requirements, and is an established, effective presence in Washington, D.C., representing wireless broadband service providers and equipment manufacturers.

The WCA certainly doesn't currently have budget to tackle a project as ambitious as WSR, nor the mandate. But if there were a groundswell of wireless ISPs joining WCA, then it could happen. If you are interested is joining the grass-roots effort, contact the WCA and find out how you can contribute.

One last suggestion is for manufacturers to build in the capability for WSR to work at 420-450 MHz with some reasonable substitution of components, with instructions on such a modification available only upon presentation of a valid amateur radio license. I, and my fellow 682,218 U.S. amateur radio operators, would greatly appreciate it.

(end of January, 2002 Boardwatch Magazine article)

The unedited version of the article (a bit longer, a bit richer in detail), as I submitted it to Boardwatch, appeared in Issue 004 (PDF) of my newsletter FOCUS On Broadband Wireless Internet Access, titled A Modest Proposal - My Last Boardwatch Column.

Back to late 2008...

The FCC's "TV White Space Phase II Test Report" - Public Notice (PDF), Executive Summary (PDF), and (full) Report (PDF) are now online, as well as eight appendixes to the report, at www.fcc.gov. (Those links will scroll off within weeks; the FCC doesn't do permalinks. I wish they published their main page in blog format with RSS...)

What's most important to understand about the FCC's test results is that they validate the concept of license-exempt, non-interference usage of vacant television broadcast spectrum. The devices tested were purely prototypes, designed to prove to the FCC that the concept that a license-exempt device could reliably detect licensed / higher-priority usage of the television broadcast spectrum and thus "choose" not to transmit on television broadcast channels that are in use, either by wireless microphones or television broadcasting.

While the National Association of Broadcasters, the wireless microphone manufacturers, major users of wireless microphones (Broadway, major sports events, etc.) will raise a hue and cry and question the validity of the FCC's results, to me it's now irrevocable that there will be license-exempt usage of vacant television broadcast channels. The concept has now been proven - not perfectly... but more than well enough.

What comes now is for the FCC to now propose rules for the technical and operational aspects of "white space" (I might was well bow to the popular nomenclature...) devices and systems. The rules will be strict, and onerous, and expensive to implement... at first. And that's OK.

That will get devices out there in the field. There will be glitches. But mostly there will be successes. And over time, two things will happen.

The first is that as volume, and competition, and technology inevitably improves, the performance of white space devices and systems will improve, radically. That's what I've come to call The Darwinian Effect of License-exempt Wireless. The vendors, users, and perhaps by then industry associations will lobby the FCC to relax the rules such as (likely required, at first) geolocation databases. If the devices can reliably detect when they would interfere with a higher priority usage "on the fly", geolocation databases aren't needed.

But the second point is perhaps more radical, but no less irrevocable - that there will be further consolidation of television broadcast spectrum, and eventually a cessation of television broadcasting as we know it. Here's a critical point that the NAB glosses over because it's something that they don't want the public to know - the reason that television "channels" are so "spread out" is that (analog) television receivers were designed so poorly (partly because the "vacuum tube" electronics technology of the 1950's and 1960's, and partly an artifact of making television receivers cheap) that when television broadcasts were transmitted on adjacent channels in the same geographic area, television receivers weren't "selective" enough to receive the transmission on only one channel - there would be "interference" within the television receiver! But with the advent of digital television tuners, and now the much-improved receivers inherent in the conversion to Digital Television Broadcasting, the adjacent channel issue is largely moot... entirely moot for the 90+% of the television viewing population that receives their television signals from cable television, digital television satellite, or... the Internet.

So we'll see yet another round, or two, of reallocation of television broadcast spectrum like with the reallocation of television channels 52-69 into the various "700 MHz" bands (hopefully better effect - that they'll actually get used to provide services instead of the current situation of 700 MHz spectrum being largely "warehoused" ).

But here's an even more radical idea... that the license-exempt usage of white spaces will prove to be so popular... so useful... so intensively used... so economically beneficial, that such the license-exempt usage will eventually "trump" the current "higher priority usages", and the FCC will bow to that reality and the license-exempt usage will become the priority usage when television broadcasting eventually ceases or at least further consolidates into the lower portion of the remaining television broadcast band.

Oh, and don't feel any pity for the wireless microphone manufacturers. They're dragging their heels in moving to far better technology because of their lucrative and demanding current high-profile customers and their comfort with their current (but archaic) technology. They'll eventually be forced to transition to a portion of spectrum and technology that lets the microphone systems themselves coordinate their usage and insure non-interference such as Ultra Wideband or 60 GHz; The Darwinian Effect of License-exempt Wireless applies equally to wireless microphones.

By Steve Stroh

This article is Copyright © 2008 by Steve Stroh except for specifically-marked excerpts. Excerpts and links are expressly permitted (and encouraged).

This article was written and posted via Broadband Wireless Internet Access (BWIA) ; Sprint Mobile Broadband service using a Sierra Wireless 595U USB modem - 1xEV-DO Rev. A on a MacBook Pro laptop.

This article is Copyright © 2008 by Steve Stroh except for specifically-marked excerpts. Excerpts and links are expressly permitted (and encouraged).

This article was written and posted via Broadband Wireless Internet Access (BWIA) ; Sprint Mobile Broadband service using a Sierra Wireless 595U USB modem - 1xEV-DO Rev. A on a MacBook Pro laptop.