8 ms·

Government auction of wireless airwaves will shape the future of the Internet

101 points by jgrahamc 10y ago

wyldfire 10y ago
Note that this is in the 600MHz band, in the US only, and will require new frontends and related changes in order for phones to take advantage of this spectrum. I kinda doubt it will "shape the future of the Internet" though.
- jonwachob91 10y ago
  It's making way for 5G service on mobile devices... 4G dragged the internet from our desktops to our phones, forcing business models around the world to change. 5G is sure to have a major impact.
- rplst8 10y ago
  > Note that this is in the 600MHz band, in the US only What's weird is that the article mentions WWTO in Chicago. WWTO is on VHF channel 10 which is around 200 MHz. WWTO was previously on UHF channel 35 which is around the 600MHz band. However, it hasn't used that channel since 2009.
chillydawg 10y ago
Anyone know what the terms of the deal are WRT length of lease, or are these perpetual?
TaylorAlexander 10y ago
It's so upsetting to me that they don't make bands like this available for general public use. If we had clearly defined rules about interoperability we could reserve a band for essentially free low bandwidth cell phone usage, at least for text and basic data. I've imagined that the towers could be open hardware that sell minutes on the fly for bitcoin transferred by the user. But no, instead these corporations pay billions with the expectation that they'll recover that and much more from us who have no free option for mobile wireless. It's really frustrating to me.
- ajosh 10y ago
  That is really the purpose of the amateur service. It is available to the general public with an inexpensive / free license. Business use is prohibited. There are a lot of other rules that you may or may not like but that is the purpose of amateur radio. There are allocations across the spectrum including some bands that are very valuable today (440MHz, 900MHz, 1.2GHz). There are also allocations in bands with interesting properties such as high microwave, MF and short wave. The ITU even recently approved use in long wave bands which hasn't been available for amateur use for over 80 years.
  - mmagin 10y ago
    While that's great for some purposes, I think the GP is suggesting that there is a need for more accessible spectrum for businesses which do not have the financial capabilities or political capabilities as the large telecoms and broadcasters.
    - ac29 10y ago
      How much spectrum? Businesses and individuals can get non-exclusive FCC licences (you don't have exclusive usage rights, but in practice, you can operate 24/7 without interference) for small slices of spectrum (12.5 or 25kHz) for under $1000 for a 10 year licence. If you want 1MHz+ in a desirable band, with exclusive usage rights, well, there's a reason those auctions end up going for millions or billions of dollars.
  - pdelbarba 10y ago
    The most notable restriction being a prohibition on encryption of any kind.
    - kakarot 10y ago
      On what bands is this applicable?
      - pdelbarba 10y ago
bcoates 10y ago
The first channels to relocate will not do so for another 18 months, according to the FCC. And TV stations that are changing channels or will go off the air will be expected to notify their viewers ahead of time with on-screen banners and other guides. I thought digital over the air TV had some sort of channel-mapping that decoupled broadcast frequency from the programming channels the viewer sees, and the relationship between the two post-transition was just a historical artifact. (hence the decimal fraction broadcast channels and occasional need to convince your DTV/adapter to re-scan for metadata) Can't these moving stations just change their frequency and keep their numbers?
- toast0 10y ago
  They'll keep their virtual channel, but viewers will need to do a new channel scan, so if you want to keep your viewers, you probably want to ask them to do it enough times that when the current frequency stops working they'll remember to do the scan.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
Severian 10y ago
There was also 12Mhz of unlicensed spectrum on the old uhf channel 37 guard bands being opened up as well [1]. It's less than the 24-30 MHz advocated for users of 802.11af though. So that's a plus for IoT I guess. Overall this is a good thing. Reshaping the future of the Internet might be hyperbole though. EDIT: I overlooked the byline, and it appears this article is from 2014. I'm not sure if this is the same bands discussed as those from the FCC Public Notice here [2]. [1] http://www.telecompetitor.com/wheeler-sees-limited-unlicensed-spectrum-600-mhz-band/ http://www.telecompetitor.com/wheeler-sees-limited-unlicense... [2] http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2017/db0413/DA-17-314A1.pdf http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2017...
upofadown 10y ago
>... an unprecedented opportunity to acquire enormous amounts of high-value, “beachfront” airwaves. I don't think this is really considered true anymore. This auction only generated something like 80 MHz due to the low interest. T-mobile got the biggest chunk, but that is only enough to provide a total of a gigabit of downlink per cell site. Unfortunately 600 MHz frequencies tend to propagate over longer distances so it is harder to have a lot of closely spaces access points. The real value is in densely wooded rural areas where there are not a lot of subscribers. Few subscribers means little revenue. The current hotness seems to be millimetre waves. That is where the interesting 5G development is happening. In the end there is simply not very much spectrum available below 1 GHz and they are not making any more of it.
sandworm101 10y ago
Not "the internet". This is about mobile and then only in the US. That is nowhere near the internet as an entity. And these lower frequencies have limits. There is only so much bandwidth they can now or ever carry. They cannot ever be the backbone for providing serious bandwidth to a large population (without lots of low-power towers but then you would use higher frequencies anyway.) Some people now without internet might in a decade be connected but this auction has no serious impact on the vast magority of users.
- swiley 10y ago
  This is exactly how most people in rural areas connect to the internet /now/. The alternatives are dialup and satilite which are both worse.
Splendor 10y ago
In the case of the current headline "Government" obviously means "US Government".
- mod 10y ago
  If it's obvious, then what purpose does your comment serve?
RichardHeart 10y ago
Germany has terrible internet access because the carriers there overpaid for the rights. The winner should be who can provide a good end service the cheapest, not who will provide the end service at the highest price.
- sitkack 10y ago
  The current system is a reverse-disincentive to screw the customer.
RichardHeart 10y ago
"Epstein went on to add that the auction did what it was supposed to do: Find a meeting point between supply and demand for an increasingly sought-after physical resource." All it did was assign a monopoly to a company that must increase the screwing the customers get, to make back the money they just gave the government. Thus in effect, customers money in the future is being handed to the government today. Whoever can screw the customers the hardest can pay the government the most for the privilege of doing so. Just like for profit prisons, this could work great, IF you included some metrics for the prisoners, or in this case, the customers. If the customers had some interest or say in this at all. Since the public/customers are the parties who matter in the sale of public properties, they should get more say than "well, just don't buy it." Not buying it is getting to cast a vote after the polls have closed, and it doesn't really get counted when it needs to.
MR4D 10y ago
I wonder at what point it will be cheaper to build more cell towers than to buy more spectrum.
jMyles 10y ago
I, for one, don't believe that the state has the moral authority to "auction" the airwaves. What makes 600mhz constitutionally distinct from 400hz? If the answer is "nothing," then it seems that the state can auction the air surrounding my vocal chords, deciding which vibrations are ad are not permissible. If free speech is to mean anything in the information age, it must apply across a broad, useful, reasonable spectrum just as much as the tiny slivers which happen to be visible or audible to human eyes and ears.
- jjaredsimpson 10y ago
  What does this even mean?
  - SolarNet 10y ago
    There are branches of libertarianism that believe resources should not be sold by governments, but rather as commons. Some of them also believe in private property which is always annoying.
  - jMyles 10y ago
    I'm not sure how to make it more clear: that the state does a dis-service by claiming dominion over the entire electromagnetic spectrum. If one needs to pay to transmit at convenient and reasonable frequencies, at reasonable levels of signal strength, then speech on the spectra in question is simply not free. I am very much concerned that, outside the visible and audible spectra, along with slivers of 800Mhz, 2.4Ghz, and 5Ghz, that basic free speech is no longer the default.
    - JumpCrisscross 10y ago
      > the state does a dis-service by claiming dominion over the entire electromagnetic spectrum The alternative is the guy with the loudest transmitter wins.
      - jMyles 10y ago
payne92 10y ago
Spectrum auctioning is really bad policy. Spectrum is like the road network. Why would we sell it to the highest bidder for them to sell it back to us? Instead, spectrum should be public and free, like roads, for those that follow the usage rules.
- creaghpatr 10y ago
  Would you be willing to 'sit in traffic' for your slot of bandwith, so to speak?
- tbihl 10y ago
  I understand what you're saying. And it even does play out with US transportation. But absolutely not with roads! One of the main problems with US roads is our failure to price them correctly, causing everyone to demand usage at peak times. In US transportation, this is seen in how we lost the rail right of ways. We sold them off, and we may never get them back. And it'll be a huge problem if we ever come to our senses and pivot back to trains.
- malchow 10y ago
  Spectrum isn't free because it isn't free. That isn't a tautology, it's a statement of fact: spectrum has a dollar value. In nature. In nature it's got a price. Because men will trade, or pay, or war for it. Therefore, to allocate it efficiently, we should allow it to trade at that value. This is how that spectrum makes the most number of people happy. That may sound like right-wing pablum, but it's a subject that has been well trod by great thinkers for a very, very long time. [1] [1] Coase, to mention just one
  - steinystein 10y ago
    Roads aren't free because they aren't free. That isn't a tautology, it's a statement of fact: Roads have a dollar value. In nature. In nature it's got a price. Because men will trade, or pay, or war for it. Therefore, to allocate it efficiently, we should allow it to trade at that value. This is how roads make the most number of people happy. That may sound like right-wing pablum, but it's a subject that has been well trod by great thinkers for a very, very long time. [1] [1] Coase, to mention just one
calebm 10y ago
Could we crowdsource the purchasing of some of this spectrum for collective use?

101 points by jgrahamc 10y ago

Note that this is in the 600MHz band, in the US only, and will require new frontends and related changes in order for phones to take advantage of this spectrum. I kinda doubt it will "shape the future of the Internet" though.

jonwachob91 10y ago
It's making way for 5G service on mobile devices... 4G dragged the internet from our desktops to our phones, forcing business models around the world to change. 5G is sure to have a major impact.
rplst8 10y ago
> Note that this is in the 600MHz band, in the US only What's weird is that the article mentions WWTO in Chicago. WWTO is on VHF channel 10 which is around 200 MHz. WWTO was previously on UHF channel 35 which is around the 600MHz band. However, it hasn't used that channel since 2009.

chillydawg 10y ago

Anyone know what the terms of the deal are WRT length of lease, or are these perpetual?

TaylorAlexander 10y ago

It's so upsetting to me that they don't make bands like this available for general public use. If we had clearly defined rules about interoperability we could reserve a band for essentially free low bandwidth cell phone usage, at least for text and basic data. I've imagined that the towers could be open hardware that sell minutes on the fly for bitcoin transferred by the user. But no, instead these corporations pay billions with the expectation that they'll recover that and much more from us who have no free option for mobile wireless. It's really frustrating to me.

ajosh 10y ago
That is really the purpose of the amateur service. It is available to the general public with an inexpensive / free license. Business use is prohibited. There are a lot of other rules that you may or may not like but that is the purpose of amateur radio. There are allocations across the spectrum including some bands that are very valuable today (440MHz, 900MHz, 1.2GHz). There are also allocations in bands with interesting properties such as high microwave, MF and short wave. The ITU even recently approved use in long wave bands which hasn't been available for amateur use for over 80 years.
- mmagin 10y ago
  While that's great for some purposes, I think the GP is suggesting that there is a need for more accessible spectrum for businesses which do not have the financial capabilities or political capabilities as the large telecoms and broadcasters.
  - ac29 10y ago
    How much spectrum? Businesses and individuals can get non-exclusive FCC licences (you don't have exclusive usage rights, but in practice, you can operate 24/7 without interference) for small slices of spectrum (12.5 or 25kHz) for under $1000 for a 10 year licence. If you want 1MHz+ in a desirable band, with exclusive usage rights, well, there's a reason those auctions end up going for millions or billions of dollars.
- pdelbarba 10y ago
  The most notable restriction being a prohibition on encryption of any kind.
  - kakarot 10y ago
    On what bands is this applicable?
    - pdelbarba 10y ago

bcoates 10y ago

The first channels to relocate will not do so for another 18 months, according to the FCC. And TV stations that are changing channels or will go off the air will be expected to notify their viewers ahead of time with on-screen banners and other guides. I thought digital over the air TV had some sort of channel-mapping that decoupled broadcast frequency from the programming channels the viewer sees, and the relationship between the two post-transition was just a historical artifact. (hence the decimal fraction broadcast channels and occasional need to convince your DTV/adapter to re-scan for metadata) Can't these moving stations just change their frequency and keep their numbers?

toast0 10y ago
They'll keep their virtual channel, but viewers will need to do a new channel scan, so if you want to keep your viewers, you probably want to ask them to do it enough times that when the current frequency stops working they'll remember to do the scan.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

Severian 10y ago

There was also 12Mhz of unlicensed spectrum on the old uhf channel 37 guard bands being opened up as well [1]. It's less than the 24-30 MHz advocated for users of 802.11af though. So that's a plus for IoT I guess. Overall this is a good thing. Reshaping the future of the Internet might be hyperbole though. EDIT: I overlooked the byline, and it appears this article is from 2014. I'm not sure if this is the same bands discussed as those from the FCC Public Notice here [2]. [1] http://www.telecompetitor.com/wheeler-sees-limited-unlicensed-spectrum-600-mhz-band/ http://www.telecompetitor.com/wheeler-sees-limited-unlicense... [2] http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2017/db0413/DA-17-314A1.pdf http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2017...

upofadown 10y ago

>... an unprecedented opportunity to acquire enormous amounts of high-value, “beachfront” airwaves. I don't think this is really considered true anymore. This auction only generated something like 80 MHz due to the low interest. T-mobile got the biggest chunk, but that is only enough to provide a total of a gigabit of downlink per cell site. Unfortunately 600 MHz frequencies tend to propagate over longer distances so it is harder to have a lot of closely spaces access points. The real value is in densely wooded rural areas where there are not a lot of subscribers. Few subscribers means little revenue. The current hotness seems to be millimetre waves. That is where the interesting 5G development is happening. In the end there is simply not very much spectrum available below 1 GHz and they are not making any more of it.

sandworm101 10y ago

Not "the internet". This is about mobile and then only in the US. That is nowhere near the internet as an entity. And these lower frequencies have limits. There is only so much bandwidth they can now or ever carry. They cannot ever be the backbone for providing serious bandwidth to a large population (without lots of low-power towers but then you would use higher frequencies anyway.) Some people now without internet might in a decade be connected but this auction has no serious impact on the vast magority of users.

swiley 10y ago
This is exactly how most people in rural areas connect to the internet /now/. The alternatives are dialup and satilite which are both worse.

Splendor 10y ago

In the case of the current headline "Government" obviously means "US Government".

mod 10y ago
If it's obvious, then what purpose does your comment serve?

RichardHeart 10y ago

Germany has terrible internet access because the carriers there overpaid for the rights. The winner should be who can provide a good end service the cheapest, not who will provide the end service at the highest price.

sitkack 10y ago
The current system is a reverse-disincentive to screw the customer.

RichardHeart 10y ago

"Epstein went on to add that the auction did what it was supposed to do: Find a meeting point between supply and demand for an increasingly sought-after physical resource." All it did was assign a monopoly to a company that must increase the screwing the customers get, to make back the money they just gave the government. Thus in effect, customers money in the future is being handed to the government today. Whoever can screw the customers the hardest can pay the government the most for the privilege of doing so. Just like for profit prisons, this could work great, IF you included some metrics for the prisoners, or in this case, the customers. If the customers had some interest or say in this at all. Since the public/customers are the parties who matter in the sale of public properties, they should get more say than "well, just don't buy it." Not buying it is getting to cast a vote after the polls have closed, and it doesn't really get counted when it needs to.

MR4D 10y ago

I wonder at what point it will be cheaper to build more cell towers than to buy more spectrum.

jMyles 10y ago

I, for one, don't believe that the state has the moral authority to "auction" the airwaves. What makes 600mhz constitutionally distinct from 400hz? If the answer is "nothing," then it seems that the state can auction the air surrounding my vocal chords, deciding which vibrations are ad are not permissible. If free speech is to mean anything in the information age, it must apply across a broad, useful, reasonable spectrum just as much as the tiny slivers which happen to be visible or audible to human eyes and ears.

jjaredsimpson 10y ago
What does this even mean?
- SolarNet 10y ago
  There are branches of libertarianism that believe resources should not be sold by governments, but rather as commons. Some of them also believe in private property which is always annoying.
- jMyles 10y ago
  I'm not sure how to make it more clear: that the state does a dis-service by claiming dominion over the entire electromagnetic spectrum. If one needs to pay to transmit at convenient and reasonable frequencies, at reasonable levels of signal strength, then speech on the spectra in question is simply not free. I am very much concerned that, outside the visible and audible spectra, along with slivers of 800Mhz, 2.4Ghz, and 5Ghz, that basic free speech is no longer the default.
  - JumpCrisscross 10y ago
    > the state does a dis-service by claiming dominion over the entire electromagnetic spectrum The alternative is the guy with the loudest transmitter wins.
    - jMyles 10y ago

payne92 10y ago

Spectrum auctioning is really bad policy. Spectrum is like the road network. Why would we sell it to the highest bidder for them to sell it back to us? Instead, spectrum should be public and free, like roads, for those that follow the usage rules.

creaghpatr 10y ago
Would you be willing to 'sit in traffic' for your slot of bandwith, so to speak?
tbihl 10y ago
I understand what you're saying. And it even does play out with US transportation. But absolutely not with roads! One of the main problems with US roads is our failure to price them correctly, causing everyone to demand usage at peak times. In US transportation, this is seen in how we lost the rail right of ways. We sold them off, and we may never get them back. And it'll be a huge problem if we ever come to our senses and pivot back to trains.
malchow 10y ago
Spectrum isn't free because it isn't free. That isn't a tautology, it's a statement of fact: spectrum has a dollar value. In nature. In nature it's got a price. Because men will trade, or pay, or war for it. Therefore, to allocate it efficiently, we should allow it to trade at that value. This is how that spectrum makes the most number of people happy. That may sound like right-wing pablum, but it's a subject that has been well trod by great thinkers for a very, very long time. [1] [1] Coase, to mention just one
- steinystein 10y ago
  Roads aren't free because they aren't free. That isn't a tautology, it's a statement of fact: Roads have a dollar value. In nature. In nature it's got a price. Because men will trade, or pay, or war for it. Therefore, to allocate it efficiently, we should allow it to trade at that value. This is how roads make the most number of people happy. That may sound like right-wing pablum, but it's a subject that has been well trod by great thinkers for a very, very long time. [1] [1] Coase, to mention just one

calebm 10y ago

Could we crowdsource the purchasing of some of this spectrum for collective use?