Archive for the ‘Broadband’ Category

Qualcomm outlines vision of 1000x mobile capacity increases

Wednesday, August 29th, 2012

In the first of a series of webinars, Qualcomm today began reporting on the results of its “1000x Data Challenge,” an initiative to meet what it sees as the need, someday, to increase mobile capacity 1000-times. The webinar, conducted by Rasmus Hellberg, Qualcomm’s Senior Director of Technical Marketing, was an overview. He discussed spectrum, small cells, and other techniques to increase capacity. More-detailed webinars on each of these are forthcoming: spectrum initiatives on  September 18, small cells and heterogeneous networks on October 18, and more efficient networks, applications, and devices on November 14. Today’s webinar should be posted tomorrow, and a white paper should appear in about a week.

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Experimental Radio Applications at the FCC

Sunday, November 6th, 2011

This summarizes a selection from 173 applications for the Experimental Radio Service received by the FCC during August and September 2011. These are related to long-range low-frequency radar, amateur radio, shortwave data, wireless microphones, single-sideband, mine detection, millimeter-wave communications, signal intelligence, automotive radar, satellite feeder links, meteor-burst communications, aircraft telemetry, white space systems, border security radar, 3G and 4G applications, RFID, wind turbine testing, unmanned aerial vehicles, spacecraft telemetry and control, aircraft passenger broadband, and autonomous aircraft landing systems. The descriptions are sorted by the lowest frequency found in the application.

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FCC Gets Some Consensus in Wireless Booster Proceeding

Wednesday, July 27th, 2011

Comments are in on the FCC’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking in WT Docket No. 10-4 to create new technical, operational, and coordination rules for wireless signal boosters in various services. These include the Commercial Mobile Radio Services (CMRS) that are covered by Part 22 (Cellular), Part 24 (Broadband PCS), and Part 27 (AWS & 700 MHz) of the FCC’s Rules. The services covered also include Part 90 (Land Mobile) and Part 95 (Personal Radio).

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Wired versus Wireless

Tuesday, July 19th, 2011

The following is my response to a query on LTE versus wired, and the user experience. It capsulizes my current thinking, which evolves.

To your point, I don’t see LTE being competitive with wired in terms of speed or reliability today or in the future. You take the hit there for the convenience of mobile or portable operation. There’s a notion that if we just add enough base stations and repurpose enough spectrum to LTE, we can replicate the home wired experience in the mobile environment, but I don’t think that’s practical. The throughput from an LTE sector is divided among all users in the sector. If everyone wants to watch the Super Bowl at once on LTE, forget it (unless the LTE broadcasting standard is implemented, which let’s everyone watch the same channel like today’s TV (cough)). On FIOS or cable, the Super Bowl is no problem.

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Experimental Radio Applications at the FCC

Wednesday, April 13th, 2011

This summarizes a selection of applications for the Experimental Radio Service received by the FCC during March 2011. These are related to VHF propagation, satellite communications, TV white space, military communications, radar, software defined radio, aircraft broadband services, adaptive networks, peer-to-peer networks, intermodulation testing, unmanned aircraft systems, maritime broadband communications, border surveillance, target acquisition, and millimeter wave propagation.  The applications are sorted by frequency.

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Blogband: The Critics Rave

Sunday, April 3rd, 2011

Blogband is the FCC’s official blog of the National Broadband Plan. I find many of the posts interesting; I sometimes get more insight on where the Commission is coming from. I posted a comment to one of them a few days ago. It was accepted for moderation, and that was the last I saw of it. Wondering what happened, today I checked the Blogband Moderation Policy; since I expressed a contrary view, I suppose it might have been considered a violation of the “relevant discussion” clause. Otherwise, I think I met the provisions.

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Experimental Radio Applications at the FCC

Wednesday, February 9th, 2011

This summarizes a selection of applications for the Experimental Radio Service received by the FCC during January 2011. These are related to land mobile radio, VHF propagation study, satellite communications, network-centric warfare, TV white space, software defined radio (SDR), military command and control, remotely piloted aircraft, LTE, radio direction finding, OpenBTS, Identification Friend or Foe (IFF), peer-to-peer communications, flight test telemetry, automotive telemetry, WiMAX, surveillance radar, vehicle radar systems, and millimeter-wave communications.

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FCC Seeks Input on Dynamic Spectrum Access

Wednesday, December 15th, 2010

As a prelude to proposing rules, the FCC is seeking comment on many issues related to dynamic spectrum access technologies, including how they can increase spectrum capacity and what the Commission can do to promote their use.

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Experimental Radio Applications at the FCC

Sunday, December 5th, 2010

This summarizes a selection of applications for the Experimental Radio Service received by the FCC during November 2010. These are related to ultra-wideband (UWB), radar, TV white space, millimeter-wave, mobile satellite terminals, UMTS, military networking, microwave interferometry, flight test telemetry, public safety, and seismic data acquisition.

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FCC Takes Further Steps toward Mobile Broadband in TV Spectrum

Thursday, December 2nd, 2010

On November 30, the FCC adopted a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) as a preliminary step toward making the current TV broadcast spectrum available for use by fixed and mobile wireless broadband services. The proposed rules would do three things: 1) make fixed and mobile wireless services co-primary with broadcasting in the FCC’s Table of Frequency Allocations, 2) create a regulatory structure giving two or more TV stations the option to share one 6 MHz channel, and 3) improve VHF TV reception through power increases and adoption of receiver antenna standards. No service rules are being proposed; they’re to come later. Congress has yet to approve incentive auction authority.

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The FCC’s Spectrum Deficit Estimate

Monday, November 22nd, 2010

The FCC’s National Broadband Plan (NBP) recommends that the Commission make available 500 MHz of new spectrum for wireless broadband, including 300 MHz for mobile use. In support of that recommendation, on October 21, the FCC released an FCC Omnibus Broadband Initiative technical paper: Mobile Broadband: The Benefits of Additional Spectrum. The paper concludes that mobile data demand is likely to exceed capacity in the near term and, in particular, that the spectrum deficit is likely to approach 300 MHz by 2014.

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