5 ms·

How the wireless spectrum crunch is squeezing carriers and hurting consumers

12 points by ukdm 15y ago

iwwr 15y ago
Is there a resource that details who owns what (and where) of the wireless spectrum (ranging from kHz to GHz).
- ImprovedSilence 15y ago
  It's pretty packed: http://www.mobiletrax.com/Portals/mobiletrax/wheeler%20Oct_United_States_Frequency_Allocations_Chart_2003_-_The_Radio_Spectrum.jpg http://www.mobiletrax.com/Portals/mobiletrax/wheeler%20Oct_U... I also heard Lightsquared (national wireless broadband company) is having spectrum issues as well, as their band is right next to GPS, and there is much lobbying going on now, as the govt is trying to buy back some satellite bands and re-purpose them for terrestrial use.
  - iwwr 15y ago
    What does "fixed" mean in the context of that chart?
    - ImprovedSilence 15y ago
      Fixed wireless (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed_wireless http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed_wireless). It's usually point to point transceivers, probably mostly applicable for business and industrial uses.
      - ImprovedSilence 15y ago
        What? how did I get down voted twice here for being helpful? Did it just get automatically flagged as a flame war because I responded too fast?
guimarin 15y ago
tl,dr; No new information about spectrum allocation just an overview of an observer's perspective on the industry. Loosely conforms to the status quo belief that there is a 'lack of available spectrum' and that this is and will drive higher prices in the future/set the tone of the wireless industry. My issue with these kinds of 'reports' is that more often then not they are little more than scare tactics by the big telcos. This week it's probably from AT&T trying to scare people into accepting their shit merger.
nirvana 15y ago
The tragedy, of course, is that spread spectrum technology could allow these carriers to share bands, and actually operate over a wider band. IF the 700MHz-1GHz range was allocated to cellular and mobile voice and data services, and any player who used spread spectrum could use it... then AT&T, Verizon and Sprint would have all have: 1. Vastly more total bandwidth to use, allowing for faster bitrates. 2. More reliable services as the phones could adjust to the ranges within those bands that have the best signal. 3. A lot lower operating costs due to not having to tie up Billions upon Billions of dollars in spectrum (which means cheaper for everyone else also, due to competition). 4. Standardized equiptment across the carriers, which means cheaper cell towers, cheaper handset components, cheaper infrastructure in general. 5. Brain-dead simple roaming agreements since everyone would be using the same technology, or at least, would be pretty quickly if this scheme had been implemented form the beginning. 6. The opportunity to easily and cost effectively deploy secondary services that don't need the full cellular modem capabilities, like GPS loggers, kindle data feeds and even broadcast technologies we don't have now with the level of regulation they have to operate under. And consumers would win too, because you'd have a lot more regional carriers like Cellular One and Cricket, etc. Companies like Virgin could build out their network by contracting with multiple carriers-- using verizon in new york and AT&T in SF, etc. Apple and Google both could have built out their own networks and provided end to end services, like its clear they wanted to. There'd be a lot more competition, the quality of everything would be cheaper and the prices would be a lot lower. Everybody wins, right? Well, no, the loser would be government. Government takes in Billions from these auctions and that's why they auction of spectrum as if people needed (or could) "own" it. In a time when we're blowing billions a day on pointless wars that isn't really big money, but it is certainly big money for the people involved in the auctions who have favors they can call in industry after they leave government, and it helps the big three that the spectrums were allocated such that there could only be 3 national wireless networks (I remember this being the plan way back in the late 1980s, 1990s... they said "by having three there would be competition!" as if there couldn't be 30 competitors, and that wouldn't be better.) If WiFi can share spectrum with microwave ovens, a lightly regulated cellular industry can share spectrum as well. Spectrum scarcity is artificial, the result of a corrupt process, and keeps prices higher and quality lower for everyone. But it does ensure the dominance of verizon and at&t.

12 points by ukdm 15y ago

iwwr 15y ago

Is there a resource that details who owns what (and where) of the wireless spectrum (ranging from kHz to GHz).

ImprovedSilence 15y ago
It's pretty packed: http://www.mobiletrax.com/Portals/mobiletrax/wheeler%20Oct_United_States_Frequency_Allocations_Chart_2003_-_The_Radio_Spectrum.jpg http://www.mobiletrax.com/Portals/mobiletrax/wheeler%20Oct_U... I also heard Lightsquared (national wireless broadband company) is having spectrum issues as well, as their band is right next to GPS, and there is much lobbying going on now, as the govt is trying to buy back some satellite bands and re-purpose them for terrestrial use.
- iwwr 15y ago
  What does "fixed" mean in the context of that chart?
  - ImprovedSilence 15y ago
    Fixed wireless (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed_wireless http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed_wireless). It's usually point to point transceivers, probably mostly applicable for business and industrial uses.
    - ImprovedSilence 15y ago
      What? how did I get down voted twice here for being helpful? Did it just get automatically flagged as a flame war because I responded too fast?

guimarin 15y ago

tl,dr; No new information about spectrum allocation just an overview of an observer's perspective on the industry. Loosely conforms to the status quo belief that there is a 'lack of available spectrum' and that this is and will drive higher prices in the future/set the tone of the wireless industry. My issue with these kinds of 'reports' is that more often then not they are little more than scare tactics by the big telcos. This week it's probably from AT&T trying to scare people into accepting their shit merger.

nirvana 15y ago

The tragedy, of course, is that spread spectrum technology could allow these carriers to share bands, and actually operate over a wider band. IF the 700MHz-1GHz range was allocated to cellular and mobile voice and data services, and any player who used spread spectrum could use it... then AT&T, Verizon and Sprint would have all have: 1. Vastly more total bandwidth to use, allowing for faster bitrates. 2. More reliable services as the phones could adjust to the ranges within those bands that have the best signal. 3. A lot lower operating costs due to not having to tie up Billions upon Billions of dollars in spectrum (which means cheaper for everyone else also, due to competition). 4. Standardized equiptment across the carriers, which means cheaper cell towers, cheaper handset components, cheaper infrastructure in general. 5. Brain-dead simple roaming agreements since everyone would be using the same technology, or at least, would be pretty quickly if this scheme had been implemented form the beginning. 6. The opportunity to easily and cost effectively deploy secondary services that don't need the full cellular modem capabilities, like GPS loggers, kindle data feeds and even broadcast technologies we don't have now with the level of regulation they have to operate under. And consumers would win too, because you'd have a lot more regional carriers like Cellular One and Cricket, etc. Companies like Virgin could build out their network by contracting with multiple carriers-- using verizon in new york and AT&T in SF, etc. Apple and Google both could have built out their own networks and provided end to end services, like its clear they wanted to. There'd be a lot more competition, the quality of everything would be cheaper and the prices would be a lot lower. Everybody wins, right? Well, no, the loser would be government. Government takes in Billions from these auctions and that's why they auction of spectrum as if people needed (or could) "own" it. In a time when we're blowing billions a day on pointless wars that isn't really big money, but it is certainly big money for the people involved in the auctions who have favors they can call in industry after they leave government, and it helps the big three that the spectrums were allocated such that there could only be 3 national wireless networks (I remember this being the plan way back in the late 1980s, 1990s... they said "by having three there would be competition!" as if there couldn't be 30 competitors, and that wouldn't be better.) If WiFi can share spectrum with microwave ovens, a lightly regulated cellular industry can share spectrum as well. Spectrum scarcity is artificial, the result of a corrupt process, and keeps prices higher and quality lower for everyone. But it does ensure the dominance of verizon and at&t.