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Proponents of spectrum auctions should be ashamed of themselves. If you pop up a spectrum analyzer anywhere there are people, you'll see loads of traffic jamme

• gruez 6y ago
  >If you have a really good spectrum analyzer, you'll be able to spot the occasional cellular traffic, but by and large the spectrum that has been auctioned off to corporate owners goes almost entirely to waste. Just because you don't see any usage in your area (rural/suburbs?) doesn't mean it's unused. They could be heavily used major metropolitan centers, for instance.
  • dboreham 6y ago
    If he can't see it where he is then by definition it isn't being used in that location. Use on some other part of the planet isn't relevant because these frequencies don't propagate far.
    • TaylorAlexander 6y ago
      It’s true. However there’s a question of what to do about this. You can’t sell a wireless device to someone in Ohio and expect it not to be used in New York City. And certain emergency frequencies might be rarely utilized but very important when used. That said, I’d like to see more allocation of spectrum for consumer use. It’s very frustrating that cellular companies get more and more spectrum but we can’t feasibly deploy public LTE for example. Perhaps if the wireless device has GPS and network connectivity we could give the government permission to enable and disable extra frequencies depending on location. Though of course this scheme invites suppression of dissent.
      • g_p 6y ago
        The UK now has a "use it or share it" regime for operator spectrum. I can go and get prime operator spectrum if it isn't in use in my local area, and use it at certain agreed power levels. That license is just for one location. There's also dedicated "held back for sharing" spectrum in the N77 5G band (3.8 to 4.2 GHz), which is more widely usable without detailed coordination (but you still need a low cost license) With modern spectrum access systems (see CBRS for example), geolocation of the radio is used to determine via a coordination server what spectrum can be used in a given location. Whether that's at risk of suppressing dissent or not is another discussion however - most radios in cellular networks will have some kind of backhaul and coordination management plane for interference avoidance and management - the threat model in cellular technology is a bit different still, and the communications are there to enable spectrum requests to be made in real-time. Spectrum coordination wouldn't need to be done by government - there's conceivable ways to do sensing and avoidance, but at the risk of tragedy of the commons scenarios.
        • PoachedSausage 6y ago
          What do Ofcom do to enforce it? They used to have a number of spectrum monitoring stations, however they were decommissioned, I know someone that bought bits of it at auction.
          • g_p 6y ago
            I believe any enforcement Ofcom do these days is reactive, and in response to reports from licensed operators. A lot of the new "shared" access licenses do not give guarantees of interference protection though, so I imagine Ofcom enforcement would be on a best-effort basis there.
    • gruez 6y ago
      OP's impression seems to be that because of it's unused, it's being "wasted", and is therefore bad. However, that doesn't factor in that most of the usage occur in urban areas, where most of the country's population lives. The consequence of the spectrum auctions/allocations is that someone living in rural wyoming can't use the 1Ghz to 7Ghz band (numbers made up) for himself, even though nobody else is using it. Is that a shame? I suppose, but only if he's a radio enthusiast. For the vast majority of the population, this unused spectrum doesn't impact their lives. They can still use their 802.11ac 5Ghz routers and get 500 Mb/s transfer speeds in their homes.
      • thatcat 6y ago
        If he could use it, tech that is useful to him would be developed, allowing him greater connectivity at lower costs. Say he owns a ranch and wants to have fully autonomous ranching hardware that benefit from connectivity for example...
      • g_p 6y ago
        When considering whether spectrum is used or fallow, we really need to consider the location as part of the function - if a given block piece of spectrum is only used in large cities (say mid- 2GHz TDD band) for capacity in urban environments, that spectrum is fallow for perhaps 99.9% of a country's landmass, and maybe 70% of its population (depending on their urban city density). With some of the work coming through the pipelines though, in future it will be feasible to deploy your own small cell, either independent of an existing operator, or in partnership with a co-op or other facilitator who provides the mobile core capabilities, and run a mini network in your local area. This is already happening in the UK in various commercial trial projects.
      • im3w1l 6y ago
        My impression is that internet speeds are lower in the rural setting because it's more expensive to lay cable over longer distances. My nomination for unused bands is fast rural internet.
        • dboreham 6y ago
  • reaperducer 6y ago
    Just because you don't see any usage in your area (rural/suburbs?) doesn't mean it's unused. This is absolutely true. Some devices only transmit occasionally. Not everyone is blasting their frequency 24/7. It reminds me of when I worked for a company that had a bunch of super-cool switch 56 linking various radio stations in our network. We'd use them for moving audio around, doing interviews, sports remotes, etc... But we also had a problem with them constantly failing. I was told by our engineer that this was because whenever another company called up Bell Atlantic to get one installed, some tech would listen in to the pairs (presumably with a scope), and when he found one that was silent, that was the one he used for the new company. Often, it was one of ours, so when we would try to use the link the next morning, it wouldn't work. It still "belonged" to us, but because we weren't using it 24/7, someone thought it should be reallocated. Not cool.
    • dmix 6y ago
      For those who didn't get the "Switch 56" reference, as I didn't (maybe too young?): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switch56 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switch56
• klondike_ 6y ago
  Some parts of the spectrum are only suitable for certain uses. Cell phone providers prefer frequencies in the MHz range because they penetrate buildings well. Higher or lower frequencies wouldn't be suitable for this purpose. In addition, a lot of Tx and Rx equipment moves around. A quiet part of the spectrum in a rural area might be crowded in a city, for example, and poorly designed equipment could be subject to harmful interference
• sinak 6y ago
  The reason the ISM bands look so "hot" or busy on a spectrum analyzer is exactly because they're a "free for all." It's a classic tragedy of the commons: everyone keeps "shouting" at max volume to be heard and there's no coordination between operators and users of different services. Here's an example: in a typical apartment block, each resident runs their WiFi access point at full power. In any one apartment, there's a ton of interference from neighboring units. If everyone coordinated and reduced their WiFi power to just what was necessary to cover their unit, it would result in less interference and higher net data rates for everyone. But no one is incentivized to do take action unilaterally. LTE and 5G networks are very careful planned to limit intracell interference and handover zones between towers. This central planning maximizes the efficiency of the network. It allows your cell phone to connect to a tower 10km away if you're in a rural area, and results in higher spectral efficiency for the overall network by increasing signal-to-noise ratios for all users. With a more sensitive spectrum analyzer, you'll see that the cellular bands are actually extremely busy. In fact, macro networks are almost always at capacity during peak usage. However, all the devices are "speaking" at the lowest volume necessary to be heard.
  • Reason077 6y ago
    > "If everyone coordinated and reduced their WiFi power to just what was necessary to cover their unit, it would result in less interference and higher net data rates for everyone. But no one is incentivized to do take action unilaterally." This is something that needs to be fixed in future WiFi specifications and enforced via device certification. You're lucky if a typical WiFi base station operator understands how to set channels, let alone adjust TX power levels. People expect to be able to plug in a base station and have it "just work", so coordinating with other nearby stations to optimize spectrum usage, minimize TX power, etc is something that needs to be automatic.
    • jcelerier 6y ago
      > People expect to be able to plug in a base station and have it "just work", so coordinating with other nearby stations to optimize spectrum usage, minimize TX power, etc is something that needs to be automatic. ... isn't it ? my internet box is from something like 2014 and is able to choose the less used wifi band automatically.
• femto 6y ago
  The rule of thumb I use is that the utilisation of the spectrum is 5%. This is based on a conference that I went to (20 years ago granted) where an Australian group had actually measured the utilisation of the spectrum. This was in the context of "whitespace" radio, where they were investigating the opportunistic use of licensed but unused spectrum. Their answer was that from a technical perspective it's worth doing as 95% of the spectrum is available for opportunistic use, the main barriers being non-technical. Personally I can't see a problem with a "free for all". As space-time (MIMO) coding comes to dominate, WiFi access points will be increasingly focusing their transmissions on specific spatial regions leading to less interference on average, even if the devices are sharing a frequency. It's in the transmitter's self-interest to maximise channel capacity by focusing as much power as possible on the receiver of interest and not wasting power by spraying it around in an omni-directional manner. This self-interest will avoid a "tragedy of the commons", provided the rules say that everyone has the same maximum power, forcing people to use their radiated power wisely.
  • gruez 6y ago
    >It's in the transmitter's self-interest to maximise channel capacity by focusing as much power as possible on the receiver of interest and not wasting power by spraying it around in an omni-directional manner. This self-interest will avoid a "tragedy of the commons", provided the rules say that everyone has the same maximum power, forcing people to use their radiated power wisely. That breaks down when you factor in that beamforming devices are expensive, so not all devices will opt to use it. The devices that don't use them will still blaring at full power, causing interference to others.
    • femto 6y ago
      But if they are limited the same radiated power (an important caveat placed on the "free for all", in the form of a class license) the MIMO system will be able to get more power focused on its receiver, and within that spatial region overpower the omnidirectional interferer. The omnidirectional transmitter will lose more by not being MIMO than the MIMO system will lose from the interference. MIMO isn't expensive these days with the availability of integrated chip sets, and the cost is only dropping. It will get to the point where apart from broadcasters no one runs a non-MIMO system because the cost of not being MIMO (loss of channel capacity) will exceed the cost of the MIMO hardware.
• schoolornot 6y ago
  Same can be said about the amateur bands.