3 ms·

Good. Let's see if this actually happens and if Europe follows (I doubt the whole 1200MHz are free here, at least not on paper) The big fuckup of almost every

by nisa 7y ago

Good. Let's see if this actually happens and if Europe follows (I doubt the whole 1200MHz are free here, at least not on paper) The big fuckup of almost every regulatory body around the world was to not unlicence the analogue tv-whitespace in the 600-800MHz band. At this frequency it's possible to build reliable local mesh networks. 802.11 is horrible inefficient through - why not mandating some open new standard with better usage of the bandwidth? It would still be a big win for a lot of communities. But LTE happened and there was a lot of money to be made to sell the spectrum to big corps...

vageli 7y ago
> But LTE happened and there was a lot of money to be made to sell the spectrum to big corps... But isn't the spectrum owned by the government? There is no compelling profit motive for government-provided services. The sale vs granting to the public likely had to do with the revolving door between interest groups and government.
upofadown 7y ago
Nit... "White space" spectrum is where you use the unused TV channels in a particular area. The 600-900 MHz spectrum has no TV in it anymore and and is just regular spectrum that various wireless phone providers have government granted monopolies on. They got exclusive access to that spectrum in return for large financial kickbacks.
tradertef 7y ago
802.11 is inefficient? What are you talking about. It is more efficient than cellular systems in terms of bits/second/Hertz. Unlicensed does not mean inefficient. Europe is targeting 500 MHz towards the end of this year.
- nisa 7y ago
  > 802.11 is inefficient? CSMA/CA basically says: hear a few milliseconds if someone else is sending something and if not send yourself - this is a problem with noise and lot's of networks. LTE assigns timeslots and can omit the problems - there are better solutions now than CSMA/CA like OFDMA¹ https://www.networkworld.com/article/3315056/why-is-ofdma-a-magical-feature-in-the-802-11ax-standard.html https://www.networkworld.com/article/3315056/why-is-ofdma-a-...
sneak 7y ago
I think governments and their industrial buddies greatly prefer the hub-and-spoke model. Mesh networks aren't good for paid prioritization, bandwidth overage charges, arbitrary disconnection on copyright claims, paid peering, or location/origin-based censorship, all of which the current model supports very well. Strongly crosslinked local communities are much harder to centrally govern. The entire US society is built around hub and spoke media.

by nisa 7y ago

vageli 7y ago

> But LTE happened and there was a lot of money to be made to sell the spectrum to big corps... But isn't the spectrum owned by the government? There is no compelling profit motive for government-provided services. The sale vs granting to the public likely had to do with the revolving door between interest groups and government.

upofadown 7y ago

Nit... "White space" spectrum is where you use the unused TV channels in a particular area. The 600-900 MHz spectrum has no TV in it anymore and and is just regular spectrum that various wireless phone providers have government granted monopolies on. They got exclusive access to that spectrum in return for large financial kickbacks.

tradertef 7y ago

802.11 is inefficient? What are you talking about. It is more efficient than cellular systems in terms of bits/second/Hertz. Unlicensed does not mean inefficient. Europe is targeting 500 MHz towards the end of this year.

nisa 7y ago
> 802.11 is inefficient? CSMA/CA basically says: hear a few milliseconds if someone else is sending something and if not send yourself - this is a problem with noise and lot's of networks. LTE assigns timeslots and can omit the problems - there are better solutions now than CSMA/CA like OFDMA¹ https://www.networkworld.com/article/3315056/why-is-ofdma-a-magical-feature-in-the-802-11ax-standard.html https://www.networkworld.com/article/3315056/why-is-ofdma-a-...

sneak 7y ago

I think governments and their industrial buddies greatly prefer the hub-and-spoke model. Mesh networks aren't good for paid prioritization, bandwidth overage charges, arbitrary disconnection on copyright claims, paid peering, or location/origin-based censorship, all of which the current model supports very well. Strongly crosslinked local communities are much harder to centrally govern. The entire US society is built around hub and spoke media.