FCC Chief: 300MHz More Spectrum By 2015 60
itwbennett writes "On Thursday, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski laid out plans to make 300MHz more spectrum available by 2015. Among the blocks that will be auctioned in the AWS (Advanced Wireless Services) band is a band between 1755MHz and 1780MHz, where a commercial user would share the spectrum with current government users."
Genachowski's full speech (PDF) is available online.
Re:70CM (Score:5, Informative)
I don't normally respond to trolls, but this is a government band and hams have secondary usage of this. It won't happen.
Re:Not in my back yard (Score:4, Informative)
Yup. It's next to impossible for anyone (even a person that knows they're there) to identify the antennas for Verizon's cell site on top of Cornell's Barton Hall.
Of course, the rather distracting Force12 HF antenna belonging to W2CXM helps a bit... But even without the Force12, the Verizon antennas (sector antennas painted to match the stone of the building) are nearly impossible to spot.
In any built-up area it's really easy to hide a cell site.
Re:Why not repurpose the AM Radio band? (Score:4, Informative)
The AM band is very small.
FM VHF isn't very big spectrum either. You don't need a large carrier to move voice signals.
The fact these systems carry a long way works against them too. The line of sight / local bounce propagation from the microwave bands allows for a much higher density of cells that are all synchronized. More transmitters means more bandwidth / spectrum re-use. If the transmitters see each other with stronger signals, your noise floor and interference go up, and your throughput goes down.
Physics is a bitch sometimes.