Obama To Nearly Double the Available Broadband Wireless Spectrum

suraj.sun tips news that the Obama administration announced today plans to free up roughly 500MHz of the wireless spectrum for commercial broadband. From the Washington Post: "The commitment backs a proposal by the Federal Communications Commission to auction off broadcasters' and government spectrum to commercial carriers that envision their networks running home appliances, automobile applications, tablet computers and other wireless devices. White House economic adviser Lawrence Summers said in a speech outlining the president's plan that freeing up more spectrum will spur economic growth through auctions of the airwaves and investment in wireless networks and technology. ... The FCC has proposed that 280 megahertz of spectrum come from broadcasters and other sources, 120 of which would come from broadcasters. The other 220 megahertz would come from the federal government's holdings managed by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration."

Charge YOU?

[twoallbeefpatties]

How much are YOU getting charged to auction the spectrum off to the carriers? I don't get it. Especially since there actually is a lot of competition in the wireless market lately - it's worth noting that we're starting to see unlimited data plans on various 4G networks that rival the speeds and monthly costs of landline broadband.

So what are we talking about here, anyways?

[Gazoogleheimer]

One thing that I have found concerning about this and other articles on this topic is that they make no mention of what actual spectrum is on the chopping block to be reassigned. I understand that to most people it means nothing, but I'm relatively both curious (and a little wary) of what exactly they're giving up for this. I guess it's the radio amateur in me that's terrified to lose spectrum (of course, it's not like they're going to be wanting any HF...but 10GHz? 1.2GHz? I think that spectrum might seem a lot more, er, succulent.)

Re:Oh that's nice

[vlm]

I assume this is for the people in rural area's that don't have any internet to speak of.

Plenty of areas with no cablemodems. Rural countryside is great for wireless ISP service.

But wireless ISP service, to the best of my knowledge, is not running out of RF bandwidth.

So, at least for them, more bandwidth is a solution in search of a problem?

Re:Wow... what a worthless article

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't give any specifications about what frequency ranges. 500 Mhz is a lot, if it starts at 0Hz, it's pretty much priceless... if it starts at 60Ghz... not worth very much at all.

??? A 500mHz band has the same data capacity regardless of whether it starts at 0Hz or 60gHz. Or did your comment have to do with range and penetration into buildings? Or practicality of building transmitters & receivers?

I've got some primo YHz frequencies for sale. It's like 15 better than GHz.

Also selling some oceanfront property in Kokomo, Indiana (You hear that Beach Boys song, right? Way down in Kokomo?) and a large San Francisco bridge.

Reply if you are interested.

Re:Oh that's nice

[Chris Mattern]

But yes, you will pay for this spectrum AGAIN, after TV stations vacated it (did they get any money back?)

Since they didn't pay any money for it in the first place, it's difficult to see why they would ever get some back.

Re:Over the Air TV

[SatanicPuppy]

So it's more efficient to put up giant transmitters and blast out a signal that can be accessed clearly from the fricking moon, across a mindbogglingly wide swath of the spectrum, than it is to only send the data to the people who are requesting it?

Maybe efficient isn't the word you were looking for?

Sequential callsign issuance sorta broken

[BenEnglishAtHome]

...call sign is assigned when they get their licence ...

Yes, but.

It bugs me that call signs are re-used. Olaf Pearson (I will not vouch for the spelling) was a friend of my fathers. He was actually employed, as a kid, in Marconi's workshop. His house in Mobile, Alabama had a room that might as well have been a radio museum when I met him some 35 or 40 years ago. He was absolutely ancient even then but it was a delight to watch him light up as he demonstrated a radio he'd built using a 5-gallon Leyden jar; the discharge of that oversized capacitor (just a burst of static, really) was used to send morse. (After a short demo, he let loose an ominous chuckle and said "We probably just knocked out TV and radio reception for a 5-mile radius!")

His call sign was W4NU; I still have one of his cards. Olaf is long since dead and someone else now has that call sign.

It always felt wrong to me that those early call signs weren't retired as the pioneers passed on.

Re:Oh that's nice

[Dunbal]

The public took it back and they can lease it out again.

      Unfortunately "the public" means "the government". So "the government" will auction the spectrum off to the highest bidder among its corporate bedfellows, and the real public "ie you and me" will have 1) absolutely no say in it and b) have to fork up another tax or fee to use "the public" airwaves.

Re:Over the Air TV

[Lunix Nutcase]

TV over the internet cannot be multicast

Bullshit. For example, The BBC does multicast streaming [bbc.co.uk] of both television and radio.

Re:Oh that's nice

[commodore64_love]

>>>after TV stations vacated it (did they get any money back?)

(1) My reading of the article is that this is a NEW taking of spectrum - channels 32 to 51 will be removed and leased to cellphone companies. (2) The TV stations that lost channels 52 to 69 were given new spots, so they didn't lose anything. Some of the poorer "neighborhood" stations received financial handouts to convert from analog to digital but that's it
.

Re:Wow... what a worthless article

[Dan Ost]

A 500mHz band has the same data capacity regardless of whether it starts at 0Hz or 60gHz.

Umm, you know that's not even remotely true, right?

The higher the frequency, the higher the potential data rate. However, the higher the frequency, the further apart the "channels" need to be to prevent them from interfering with each other. Also, different frequencies have different propagation/absorption characteristics.

So a 500MHz band could be extremely valuable or worthless depending on where in the band plan it is.

Re:Oh that's nice

[commodore64_love]

>>>Since they didn't pay any money for it in the first place

-1 Wrong. TV stations pay the FCC over 1 billion *each year* for their frequencies. They are also required to be free-of-charge (i.e. they can't chage you $50 a mont like a cell company, or $1 a month like TNT, USA, et cetera). Providing free service is costly - just ask UPN or WB or CW or NBC. The first two went bankrupt and CW/NBC are on the verge themselves.

Re:Oh that's nice

[commodore64_love]

DSL or Cable is about $20 a month for ~250 gigabytes. Wireless is much, much, much more expensive for equivalent 250 GB service. So how is wireless "great" for rural reidents??? Hell even satellite internet would be a cheaper option.

I have a friend whose dad is stuck on dialup. I looked at wireless but it's beyond his budget (retired). I also looked at satellite - not available. Meanwhile he has perfectly good phone and cable lines running to his house which could be used for internet. The Congress needs to get off its marble ass and MANDATE that he & other rural residents can get their lines upgraded to DSL and Cable internet service. This could happen in just a few months
.

Re:Wow... what a worthless article

[anethema]

Yeah this is a total myth as the other poster said. Water has several peaks of absorption by frequency. The first peak is over 20GHz.

Water does absorb 2.4-2.5GHz but not especially more than any frequency around it.

Here are some charts to stare at for fun, water absorption vs frequency.

http://www.rfcafe.com/references/electrical/images/atm_absorption.gif

or

http://www.e-band.com/get.php?i.72:w.977:h.567