Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Commentary: How the Wireless Boom Could Soon Hit The Wall

From: Marcelrf <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 06 Mar 2004 20:03:54 -0500

How the wireless boom could soon hit the wall
 
By David Coursey

 Executive Editor,
AnchorDesk 

March 2, 2004 

There was a time when salt was amongst the world's
most valuable substances. Now you can buy it for only
pennies a pound. Diamonds retain their value, but only
because a cartel makes them artificially scarce. 

I'm thinking about this today because of an excellent article I read in
the online edition of IEEE Spectrum  magazine, written by Gregory Staple
and my friend Kevin Werbach. Entitled "The End of Spectrum Scarcity," it
convincingly presents a view that I'm still not sure I can accept, to
wit: Soon, we will have all the radio frequencies we need for all the
technology we want to implement. 

My immediate reaction to that is, "Keep dreaming." While technology is
both increasing spectrum efficiency and raising the upper limits of the
frequencies we can use, not all frequencies are created equal, and
spectrum efficiency often comes at a price measured in both dollars and
performance. 

All these new technologies must be carefully designed to coexist with
existing uses and users of radio frequencies. For example, I've been
writing lately about the ongoing fight over broadband over power line
(BPL), which could possibly cause worldwide radio interference. 

Likewise, when people talk about ultrawideband, which uses a huge swath
of radio spectrum but no single frequency for long enough to be noticed,
I wonder how many of these systems can coexist without interfering with
whatever is already using those frequencies. Maybe ultrawideband really
is magic, but I'm reminded that rarely is the lunch free. 

Then there are the terrestrial relays used by the satellite radio
companies, Sirius and XM. Those relays have been accused of raising the
noise floor on neighboring frequencies used by Wi-Fi systems. I'm not
sure how well-founded those allegations are, but they're worrisome. 

At the same time, it's possible to fit a lot of information into a
little swath of spectrum. Those satellite radio systems, for example,
are cramming all that programming into a little bit of space - just 25
MHz of bandwidth. The low end of the spectrum from 0 to 25 MHz manages
to contain the AM broadcast band, some radio navigation, all the ham and
shortwave broadcast bands, and almost all the frequencies capable of
global reach. Wi-Fi started out using only 84 MHz of spectrum. 

Technologies like mesh networks (which use a zillion transceivers to
create ad hoc data networks) exploit frequencies beyond 1 GHz. But there
are limitations up there. At those high frequencies, antennas generally
have to be pointed right at one another for communications to take
place. And many of these high frequencies really don't like to travel
very far; windows, the leaves on trees, and passing thunderstorms can
physically block them. 

And you can't ignore the question of power. People often talk about how
little power mesh networking products use. Of course, if you add all the
devices together, the total power output is substantial. Remember that
at high power levels, these frequencies cook things. There have been
suggestions that even at low power (like what your cell phone uses),
such products are capable of causing cancer. 

Now I'm not saying radio frequencies (RF) cause cancer. But I'm very
concerned about living in a world with an unlimited amount of microwave
signals passing through my body. My prediction is that, if we look
closely at this, we'll end up with some fairly strict and perhaps low
limits to RF exposure. That or we need a better cancer cure. 

I'm also concerned about how the radio spectrum is being monetized. Some
genius decided that that best way to assign new frequencies was to
auction them off. (The proceeds from which were supposed to help pay off
the national debt.) 

That didn't work out quite as planned. If we're moving from scarce radio
spectrum to abundance, as the Spectrum  article promises, these
frequencies won't be worth auctioning off. Which means that, instead of
a "marketplace solution," the FCC may actually have to set a regulatory
policy. That scares me, because the FCC is (as I have said before) a
lapdog to monied interests, which it somehow equates to public interest. 

Finally, let me mention the marketplace and public interest, though in a
different context. People seem to think there is a bottomless pot of
money to pay for all this new technology. And there seems to be an
assumption that the public - the marketplace - has the interest and the
ability to pay. I'm not certain that's the case. 

So while we may indeed be moving from scarce spectrum to abundance, it
will take a while (think about the glacial conversion to digital
television). And the benefits of that shift are still, to me, uncertain. 

http://reviews-zdnet.com.com/AnchorDesk/4520-7296_16-5124348.html

-- 
    "NEXTEL-1 IT'S NOT JUST NEXTEL"
  Note The New address 
Subscribe to Nextel-1: http://www.groups.yahoo.com/subscribe/NEXTEL-1

  "NEXTEL2 FOR iDEN SOFTWARE DEVELOPERS"
Subscribe to Nextel2: http://www.groups.yahoo.com/subscribe/NEXTEL2

  "WIRELESS FORUM HOMELAND SECURITY GROUP"
     The Complete Resource for Wireless Homeland Security.
Subscribe to WFHSG:  http://www.groups.yahoo.com/subscribe/WFHSG

Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
     http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEXTEL-1/

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
     [email-masked]

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
     http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/