Yesterday the FCC received an application for experimental radio license from the Jarvinian Wireless Innovation Fund. Among other activities, the fund is working with Globalstar in its effort to establish a so-called terrestrial low-power service (TLPS). Globalstar petitioned the FCC to create such a service last November. The idea is to take the upper 2.4 GHz unlicensed band that isn’t now available for Wi-Fi, combine it Globalstar’s terrestrial-use spectrum, and create a new service operating on 2473-2495 MHz. This corresponds to IEEE 802.11 (Wi-Fi) channel 14, which can’t be used in the U.S. as it overlaps with Globalstar’s spectrum. Unlike Wi-Fi, TLPS would be managed to control interference.
Recently
A crucial engineering fact I’m not hearing from municipal TV white space proponents
February 11th, 2013Here it is: At 600 MHz, interference travels farther than it does at higher frequencies, all else equal.
Radio interference suspected of causing inauguration Jumbotron problems
January 27th, 2013During the inauguration there were press reports of Jumbotron problems — pixelated video and distorted audio — at the Washington Monument.
Yesterday the Washington Post reported that the problems could have been due to “interference with a microwave signal” that brings video and audio to the Jumbotrons.
Google responds to FCC request for more info about experimental radio project
January 26th, 2013Google’s “confidential” test might be a super-dense LTE network using Clearwire’s spectrum
January 23rd, 2013Google filed an application at the FCC last week seeking permission to conduct testing of an experimental radio system. Portions of the application and accompanying exhibits have been designated confidential and are thus not available to the public. Even the request for confidential treatment has been redacted. Let’s try to infer what’s happening from the information available.
FCC’s 5 GHz spectrum initiative could mean more and wider channels for IEEE 802.11ac
January 10th, 2013FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski yesterday announced an initiative to make 195 MHz of more spectrum available for Wi-Fi in the 5 GHz band.
The last time more spectrum for Wi-Fi was made available in this range was in 2003, when an FCC increased the then 300 MHz bandwidth to 555 MHz. As the document in that last link shows, the 5 GHz band is not as neat as the 2.4 GHz band, with other services, such as radar, requiring protection. These coexistence issues will have to be looked at again.
Deloitte’s mobile-broadband spectrum policy primer
October 15th, 2012Deloitte recently issued a new report on mobile broadband. It positions the U.S. as number-one and offers tips to keep it there, some more useful than others. There’s not much new for the mobile broadband expert. The collection of various mobile-spectrum policy issues into one document, however, could be useful to some, especially to those new to the field. Early on, Deloitte promises suggestions for improving U.S. spectrum policy; the suggestions, however, turn out to be mostly things we’ve heard before. There are a few problems with the report, discussed below, that readers should keep in mind.
Experimental radio applications at the FCC
September 9th, 2012This summarizes a selection of applications for the Experimental Radio Service received by the FCC during July and August, 2012. These are related to medium-frequency communications, meteor radar, space-to-space communications, UAV communications, synthetic aperture radar, TV white space, 600 MHz LTE, disaster communications, cellular content caching, GSM, passive intermodulation distortion, ultra-wideband, TDD, ground-mapping radar, Doppler radar, and ground surveillance radar. The descriptions are sorted by the lowest frequency in the application.
Qualcomm outlines vision of 1000x mobile capacity increases
August 29th, 2012In 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.
Why I doubt FaceTime will crash mobile networks
August 27th, 2012IntoMobile suggests mobile networks could “crash” or “crumple” under the pressure of FaceTime demand. I think they’ll be OK, mainly for cultural reasons.
New Video Compression Standard Doubles Efficiency
August 14th, 2012Ericsson discusses the recent meeting of the Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG), which issued a draft international standard of the new High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) video-compression format. It’s twice as efficient as current standards. Twice as efficient means half the bits, which means half the spectrum capacity is required for the same video quality.
4G Americas Scenario Shows Mobile Data Growth Tapering Off
May 16th, 20124G Americas, a wireless industry trade association representing the 3GPP family of technologies, has released a report looking at broadband devices and applications, and their impact on HSPA and LTE networks. There’s quite a bit of interesting information; here I highlight the discussion on mobile broadband offload and mobile data growth.