Subject: [NEXTEL-1] A SPECTRUM OF USES FOR PHONES

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Date: Thu, 05 Dec 2002 02:53:33 -0500

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A SPECTRUM OF USES FOR PHONES ; Tech breakthroughs, rethinking of regulation could speed arrival of handsets that can open garages, change channels

Source: Chicago Sun - Times

Publication date: 2002-11-24

Arrival time: 2002-12-04

NEW YORK--It almost sounds too "Star Trek" to be possible: A
multipurpose cell phone that also serves as an FM radio, walkie-
talkie, garage door opener and TV remote control.

And what if every time you made a call with that handset it
increased the performance of other phones already in use--instead of
competing for airwaves with them?

While such wireless wizardry remains a few years off, those days
could be coming faster now, thanks to a rare confluence of
technology breakthroughs and a rethinking of airwave regulation by
the federal government.

"It is kind of an interesting point in time when it comes to
wireless networks," said Dallas Nash, co-founder of Mississippi-
based SIGFX LLC, a player in the impending wireless revolution.

SIGFX figured out how to transmit cell phone calls in a thin part
of the airwave spectrum already used by TV stations. By dramatically
reducing the cost and increasing the range of wireless phone
networks, the invention could bring reliable service to rural areas
and developing countries.

Vanu Bose has big dreams, too: to create that new generation of
radios--that's really all that cell phones and garage-door openers
are--that can move between various functions with an icon click. The
trick is to replace much of the circuitry found in radios with
flexible software.

Bose began working at it in a military-sponsored communications
project at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. After
graduating in 1998, he started his own company, Vanu Inc., to
further develop the technology.

Now Cambridge, Mass.-based Vanu has created an all-software base
station--which relays calls from wireless phones on cellular
networks. Vanu also has built a prototype hand-held computer that
can make calls on different kinds of wireless networks and work as a
walkie-talkie, baby monitor, FM radio--"whatever you want," Bose
said.

The big challenge is that the device is limited to 10 to 20 hours
of battery life. Bose--son of the stereo engineer who founded Bose
Corp.--believes that with more development and improvements in low-
power microprocessors, the device could be the size of a cell phone
and have a much longer battery life.

At the same time, other researchers are making progress in
developing "smart" radio receivers that can, on their own, determine
instantaneously when and where a bit of spectrum is going unused and
switch their communications accordingly to avoid interference. (A
method of doing that is already employed in cellular networks and
cordless phones).

In fact, advocates of an "open spectrum" or a "commons" policy
believe new generations of radio receivers will routinely handle
their own conversations and help relay others at the same time.

"If every radio is both a transmitter and a receiver, as you add
more, you add capacity to the network," said David P. Reed, a former
chief scientist at Lotus Development Corp. and a leader of the "open
spectrum" movement.

"My gut feeling," Reed said, "is that in 10 or 20 years this will
be as big as the Internet."

That may seem a wide-eyed prediction, but ideas like this are not
just grass-roots dreams.

Intel Corp. backs software-defined radio in hopes it will ignite
an explosion of demand for wireless chips. The military's Defense
Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is working on several ways
to "increase spectrum usage by dynamically sensing and adapting in
frequency, time and space."

Researchers at Bell Laboratories, part of Lucent Technologies
Inc., recently announced a breakthrough in their BLAST technology,
which takes advantage of interference on a network to increase the
rates at which data can be sent.

Many technology experts say such breakthroughs should force a
revolution in how we treat the airwaves. Since the 1920s,
electromagnetic spectrum has been handled like real estate. The
government licenses use of slices of spectrum and tightly regulates
what can be done in those bands.

Much of the spectrum is tied up--largely by the military--and
there's only so much room for experimental and innovative new
technologies in unlicensed bands, such as those occupied by cordless
phones and the wireless networking system known as Wi-Fi.

But in what looks like the beginning of a historic policy shift,
the Federal Communications Commission has been listening closely to
the technology crowd--and to cellular carriers that spent tens of
billions of dollars for spectrum licenses and want more freedom to
use or trade them as they see fit.

"We have perhaps the most interesting debate in spectrum
governance taking place in America since the 1930s," said Adam
Thierer, director of telecommunications studies at the Cato
Institute, a libertarian think tank.

This month, a task force appointed by FCC Chairman Michael Powell-
-and headed by the former leader of DARPA's communications research-
-offered a framework for a spectrum policy overhaul expected to
begin next year.

The group said the government should grant wireless carriers more
flexibility with their expensive spectrum licenses so they may lease
portions of the airwaves that go unused at certain times, for
example.

It also endorsed the "commons" concept in some circumstances,
saying new technologies should have more freedom to operate in
regulated bands--as long as they don't interfere with cellular
conversations or radio broadcasts--and in unlicensed parts of the
spectrum as well.

In essence, the FCC finally would be treating spectrum like real
estate in the physical world, where the public has easements and
parks alongside private property, and airplanes can fly overhead.

Such monumental changes probably will provoke some fights in
Washington.

"Certain ossified licensees will inherently be resistant to
change," said Bryan Tramont, Powell's senior legal adviser.

Even parties who are clamoring for change are circumspect.
Wireless phone carriers, for example, praise the FCC's efforts to
modernize spectrum policy. But some say technologies such as
software-defined radio might be too unproven to form the basis of
policy changes.

They also worry that low-power transmissions by rival
technologies on or near already-licensed frequencies could interfere
with wireless phone conversations.

"It's hard to oppose looking at spectrum policy anew," said Doug
Brandon, AT&T Wireless' vice president of federal affairs. But, he
added, eventually, "someone will say, 'My ox just got gored."'

AP

Publication date: 2002-11-24

© 2002, YellowBrix, Inc.

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