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FCC move to release 'white spaces' has tech firms dreaming of wireless boom

12 points by pchristensen 16y ago

pchristensen 16y ago
Is it just me or do "wireless microphones" seem like a very narrow application to get dedicated spectrum? Am I underestimating their importance and/or technical needs?
- yock 16y ago
  I would think that the desire for a dedicated spectrum for wireless microphones comes from how interference affects their performance. A crude example might be to compare a wireless microphone to a wireless computer network. Whereas a PC may need to re-broadcast a "message" several times in order for the receiving station to contain a complete copy, this happens at great speed and the repeated messages aren't terribly inconvenient for the user. Imagine if an individual experienced the same complications whilst speaking into a microphone, only to be garbled by interference and requiring re-broadcast. Now imagine the same effect during a concert, where your favorite guitarist's riffs are intermittently garbled into junk because the wireless signal from his guitar is competing for dominance in a crowded spectrum. Someone may come along and correct any or all of this thought, but my basic understanding of spectrum and interference leads me to believe that it's the consequences that are operative here, not mass adoption.
asmithmd1 16y ago
The article is almost content free (what does available frequency have to do with connecting a refrigerator) but the news is big. The FCC is about to allow unlicensed operation on a huge swath of desirable frequencies: http://www.betanews.com/article/FCC-set-to-allow-white-space-broadband-after-twoyear-wait/1284408785 http://www.betanews.com/article/FCC-set-to-allow-white-space... The hold-up was the rules for how a device would know exactly which frequencies were unused in the area. WiFi is crammed into a tiny sliver of undesirable frequencies -- 2.4000–2.4835 GHz -- only available because no one was using it because of all the interference from microwave ovens. But this is the entire range from 54Mhz to 698Mhz. A transmitter using this range instead of 2.4Ghz will transmit father using same power but have a lower data throughput. This is great! We have seen tons of innovation with the current tiny silver WiFi frequencies -- access to a much wider range of frequencies will allow greater power/date rate/cost trade offs.
DanielBMarkham 16y ago
Not the "refrigerator that knows when your bananas go bad" again story. Yikes, I hate that one. It's as worn-out as a "Cyber Pearl Harbor". I imagine if the terrorists ever strike the U.S., the first thing they'll do is take out all the banana-reading refrigerators. Bad examples aside, this has a lot of promise. If they change it, it will be interesting to see how long it takes industry to come up with viable products. 18 months maybe?
- naner 16y ago
  I know, who puts bananas in the refrigerator? Ridiculous.
  - DanielBMarkham 16y ago
    The day bananas go in the refrigerator, the terrorist will have won. (the point being that once you mash together so many generalizations and cliches, you end up with just a silly hash of meaninglessness)

12 points by pchristensen 16y ago

Is it just me or do "wireless microphones" seem like a very narrow application to get dedicated spectrum? Am I underestimating their importance and/or technical needs?

yock 16y ago
I would think that the desire for a dedicated spectrum for wireless microphones comes from how interference affects their performance. A crude example might be to compare a wireless microphone to a wireless computer network. Whereas a PC may need to re-broadcast a "message" several times in order for the receiving station to contain a complete copy, this happens at great speed and the repeated messages aren't terribly inconvenient for the user. Imagine if an individual experienced the same complications whilst speaking into a microphone, only to be garbled by interference and requiring re-broadcast. Now imagine the same effect during a concert, where your favorite guitarist's riffs are intermittently garbled into junk because the wireless signal from his guitar is competing for dominance in a crowded spectrum. Someone may come along and correct any or all of this thought, but my basic understanding of spectrum and interference leads me to believe that it's the consequences that are operative here, not mass adoption.

asmithmd1 16y ago

The article is almost content free (what does available frequency have to do with connecting a refrigerator) but the news is big. The FCC is about to allow unlicensed operation on a huge swath of desirable frequencies: http://www.betanews.com/article/FCC-set-to-allow-white-space-broadband-after-twoyear-wait/1284408785 http://www.betanews.com/article/FCC-set-to-allow-white-space... The hold-up was the rules for how a device would know exactly which frequencies were unused in the area. WiFi is crammed into a tiny sliver of undesirable frequencies -- 2.4000–2.4835 GHz -- only available because no one was using it because of all the interference from microwave ovens. But this is the entire range from 54Mhz to 698Mhz. A transmitter using this range instead of 2.4Ghz will transmit father using same power but have a lower data throughput. This is great! We have seen tons of innovation with the current tiny silver WiFi frequencies -- access to a much wider range of frequencies will allow greater power/date rate/cost trade offs.

DanielBMarkham 16y ago

Not the "refrigerator that knows when your bananas go bad" again story. Yikes, I hate that one. It's as worn-out as a "Cyber Pearl Harbor". I imagine if the terrorists ever strike the U.S., the first thing they'll do is take out all the banana-reading refrigerators. Bad examples aside, this has a lot of promise. If they change it, it will be interesting to see how long it takes industry to come up with viable products. 18 months maybe?

naner 16y ago
I know, who puts bananas in the refrigerator? Ridiculous.
- DanielBMarkham 16y ago
  The day bananas go in the refrigerator, the terrorist will have won. (the point being that once you mash together so many generalizations and cliches, you end up with just a silly hash of meaninglessness)