In almost all respects, the FCC made no changes whatsoever to its prior rulings on the 3.65 GHz spectrum. What it did, however, was clarify the rules around its "contention protocol" requirement, which are extremely important for both WiMAX equipment vendors and carriers potentially using this spectrum. The spectrum is still non-exclusive, but does require base station registration and a filing fee for the spectrum by each provider, of which there could be many. This is close to the unlicensed-band approach, aside from the registration and fee. One operator described it to me as a "lightly regulated" band, which seems a very apt characterization.

This band is potentially very important, with a solid block of spectrum (50 MHz) that would carry even more bandwidth per MHz than the 2.5 GHz range. It also boasts a mid-range blend of power allotment (higher than unlicensed spectrum and lower than licensed spectrum) that has a lot of utility, especially for rural providers. Specifically, this is 25 watts per 25 MHz of spectrum for fixed/portable use and 1 watt per 25 MHz of spectrum for mobile use (a much lower power allotment – likely indicating a more commonly fixed/portable approach in the band early on). Non Line of Sight (NLOS) service at modest ranges should be possible with this power allotment.

This would free smaller companies in many locales from competing in a hugely expensive licensed spectrum auction. It should significantly help the deployment of broadband access in underserved areas, at least once equipment is available. Several operators have written me that they are already asking their providers when gear will be available.

What the FCC did was to redefine the contention protocol to include two main sub-classes. These fall into "unrestricted" and "restricted." Unrestricted gear could be used across all 50 MHz, and restricted gear could be used only in the lower 25 MHz of the band. WiMAX falls into the restricted category. An example of an unrestricted protocol would be the CSMA/CA (carrier sense multiple access / collision avoidance) approach that Wi-Fi currently uses. This is very similar to the typical Ethernet computer network method, whereby each device is constantly talking and looking for an opportunity to transmit. Although the polling methods used by WiMAX are much more efficient, they only work within the context of WiMAX-to-WiMAX gear (at least at this time – some vendors are working on protocols that could be extended across both definitions). Thus, the restriction to the lower 25 MHz is designed to prevent WiMAX gear from interfering with unrestricted protocols in the upper 25 MHz.

Certainly other unrestricted contention-avoidance protocols are in development for the 3.65 GHz spectrum. However, the FCC wanted to speed the deployment of currently-available gear to the market for the 3.65 GHz range, specifically the retuning and use of currently available 802.16d fixed WiMAX radios. These are already being shipped internationally for the 3.5 GHz licensed spectrum range, for which 802.16e mobile WiMAX technology should ultimately be deployed also. Shifting to this new frequency will be relatively trivial for vendors.

The FCC declared the entire 50 MHz of spectrum available to be served by unrestricted-type gear, perhaps in part because unrestricted systems would not interfere with the WiMAX or restricted-protocol systems in the bottom 25 MHz, as they incorporate some type of “Listen Before Transmit” approach. However, the restricted systems would probably interfere with the unrestricted ones. So in my view, the FCC essentially segmented the band into WiMAX (or WiMAX-type gear) and Others.

Is this a good thing? Yes, especially in terms of time-to-market. Also, there were few, if any, gear types that were ready for the unrestricted protocol previously defined. This is a huge WiMAX win. We could potentially have gear certified by the FCC for this band next year.

tim@thefinalmile.net   www.thefinalmile.net   www.wimaxglobalnews.com

    Hello readers. Thank you for your patience with me over the past month or so. I've blogged none at all. My only excuse is I have been super busy. Lots has been going on of late though. Let me catch you up. I have started maintaining the daily news and weekly newsletter for www.broadband-wireless.com so I hope you find that helpful and enjoyable. I am almost finished with a white paper I was asked to do for the WiMAX Forum titled: "Best Practices", VoIP Delivery over WiMAX Networks. I have interviewed a number of carriers extensively for this piece and learned a lot about VoIP delivery over broadband wireless. One big thing is that the planning process is crucial. Also, the wireless RF aspect is only one part of delivering carrier class voice. Carriers are succeeding however. Hopefully this white paper will be ready soon. And thanks to all of you who participated. I want to talk about some of the news items I think that are especially important. Perhaps first among this is the ongoing debate on Net Neutrality. The warring camps seem to be more entrenched each day. I suspect this topic will NOT be settled soon at all. However, if I had to hazard a guess I would estimate that the major carriers will win the argument. Their arguments have merits. But more importantly, their lobby is just too seasoned and good. I personally question if a tiered Internet is in the public interest. The money will have to come from somewhere, everyone will pass the costs on and ultimately I expect we will all pay more for access. The AWS auction in the (mostly) 1.7 GHz range, when it finally gets off the ground will be BIG for the US. We desperately need the spectrum. However, as usual, bigger companies will mostly warehouse the bands and especially rural markets will see little improvements for years. One firm, M2ZNetworks has proposed the FCC allow it use of 2155 to 2175 MHz without upfront cost in exchange for its building a nationwide broadband network at 384K free to all. It will field a premium network and pay 5 percent of its revenues back to the government as well. John Muleta, the former FCC Wireless Bureau Chief is the CEO and its Chairman is Milo Medin, who founded @Home networks. It is a laudable idea and could actually deliver nationwide free wireless however, the build out requirements of 33 percent in three years and 66 percent in five years and 95 percent in ten years means this company too will have to start in metropolitan area first as well to succeed. Very interesting play. I think it has a decent chance. Clearwire is going public in a $400 million IPO. Most interestingly it disclosed that it had 88,000 customers in its filing per an article I read. That is big news for the industry. Nokia dropping its CDMA joint venture with Sanyo is interesting, particularly as I am hearing anecdotally from friends that it is tougher to get CDMA handsets down in price. Qualcomm quickly launched damage control. But I think this underscores why it has moved strongly into OFDM products of late. The future will happen no matter what. And I don't think Qualcomm plans to be left behind. WiMAX is moving along steadily and 802.16e precursor products are starting to appear. Intel should soon have chipsets for laptops on the market. There is lots more, too much for one blog. I will try much harder to blog a little more steadily on things I find interesting and worthy of comment. Thanks for eading my blog.   Tim Sanders tim@thefinalmile.net   www.thefinalmile.net   www.wimaxglobalnews.com  

    An excellent article in The Wall Street Journal (suscription required) discusses government failures to deliver a wholesome spectrum policy to the marketplace. Some of the statistics cited are very revealing and interesting. The government's outlook towards spectrum as a resource to keep scarce (and pricey) is very anti-competitive in many ways in my opinion too.  We need more and smaller companies with access to licensed spectrum and there is plenty the Federal Government is sitting upon. Nice piece. I always like the way the WSJ treats subjects in depth. You learn a lot. Tim Sanders tim@thefinalmile.net  www.thefinalmile.net  www.wimaxglobalnews.com

    I read a really good article in the Wall Street Journal from April 11th by Amy Schatz and Amol Sharma about the potential change by the FCC to a blind bidding process. WSJ requires a subscription. Here is a link to a different piece. This particular spectrum range appears pretty useful. It was formerly a Defense Department asset. The ranges are: 1710 to 1755 MHz and 2110 to 2155. There are 1122 licenses slated to be auction. So good penetration and good bandwidth capacity. Nice tradeoff. The big talk though is that the FCC will keep blind the names of all bidders through each round—only showing the dollar amounts. Obviously the first goal is to maximize bidding. But theoretically at least, it could prevent cooperation between carriers. Will it work? If there are no leaks maybe? The Federal Government never has leaks does it?

     I first saw this piece in a Wall Street Journal Article by Don Clark. Here is an MSN link for more info. I don't recall hearing about this suit before. Apparently the Department of Justice alleged that Qualcom violated provisions in the Scott-Rodino act from 2005 designed to prevent anti-competitive activities leading up to a merger. For their part Qualcomm and Flarion deny this but agreed to pay $1.8 million to make it go away. What grabbed me most was supposedly that the DOJ did not believe Qualcomm intended to use Flarion's Flash-OFDM technology in its present form. And so it supposedly wanted to avoid Flarion involvement in deals that could conflcit with its plans and allegely pursuing sales efforts that did not benefit Qualcomm strategy before the deal closed. Now I have no idea if this is the case or not. But if it were so, it brings up interesting questions as to how Qualcomm plans to use this tech. What exactly might they plan to do with it? And where would that leave existing Flarion customers? Fun speculation eh? Tim Sanders tim@thefinalmile.net  www.thefinalmile.net  www.wimaxglobalnews.com

    Granted it is just a subcommittee but this week saw a bill allowing AT&T and Verizon to file for and receive (within 30 days) a national cable franchise, make steady progress to the full Energy and Commerce Committe and possibly, eventually the House floor. The Telcos would prefer that their IP service not be deemed to be a cable franchise. But they appear willing to give ground on that somewhat to get the bill done. This will be a big deal increasingly. Good for consumers I think. Time's they are a changing. Tim Sanders tim@thefinalmile.net  www.thefinalmile.net  www.wimaxglobalnews.com

    I saw another good blurb in the Rural Spectrum Scanner this past week on the 3.65 GHz band. The big issue in this range is a required "contention protocol" that the FCC has mandated. This is an approach not to dissimilar to the approach used in WiFi or ethernet where radios first listen for traffic then talk. The problem is that it is not a very spectrally efficient way to handle radio polling. As you might expect the FCC did not specify what contention protocol companies should use resulting in some confusion. In any event, some comments by industry have asked the FCC to remove this requirement altogether, which is a bit problematic as it was designed to protect the Fixed Satellite Service stations grandfathered in the spectrum. Also, the spectrum is not exactly unlicensed (although the FCC probably intended to lean in this direction) technically. It requires the registration of base stations on a non-exclusive basis. Jeff Thompson at Towerstream likes to call this approach "lightly regulated". In an of itself that is no bad idea. Opinions on what to do with this spectrum are all over the shop. Some favor switching it all to licensed bands. Others say licensed in urban areas, non-exclusive in rural areas. Ultimately the FCC is going to have to re-work its Report and Order to re-define this spectrum a bit. Once accomplished though, it is potentially very valuable spectrum. It would also be very easy (and economical) to re-tune existing 3.5 GHz WiMax gear for this range. Tim Sanders tim@thefinalmile.net  www.thefinalmile.net  www.wimaxglobalnews.com

    There is an excellent piece in Law Firm Bennet & Bennet's Rural Signals newsletter about the upcoming auction of AWS spectrum in the 1.7 GHz and 2.1 GHz range. Here is a chart they offer on the band plan. The first auction is set for June 2006. I highly recommend reading the full analysis. It is complex. Basically though the upshot is that acquiring the spectrum is only part of the cost. There are numerous protective requirements for existing users in the spectrum range as well as others in side bands. Much to know. But potentially very valuable spectrum encompassing 90 MHz of spectrum. The expectation is that 1,122 licenses will be awarded. Voice, video and data are all allowed as is both fixed and mobile broadband. Tim Sanders tim@thefinalmile.net  www.thefinalmile.net  www.wimaxglobalnews.com

    I found this blurb that Moscow-based InfiNet has just gotten its Atheros chipset radios at 5.8 GHz approved for use in the US. This comes on the tails last year of its 4.9 GHz radios meeting approval. This caught my eye because it is the same product that Lee Sparkman and his Enforta company in Russian are using. I am told it is "good kit." InfiNet has a couple of US distributors including Continental Wireless and NXCONN Wireless who recently deployed on Fire Island in NY with success (per press releases anyway). The company plans 3.5 GHz (for Europe) and mesh systems soon. Tim Sanders  tim@thefinalmile.net www.thefinalmile.net www.wimaxglobalnews.com

    There is a really neat little newsletter that I peruse regularly called the Rural Spectrum Scanner from the Bennet and Bennet Law firm in DC. I recommend it. In any event they reported on the efforts of Republican senators Ted Stevens (Ak) and George Allen (VA) to pass bills that would apportion a lot of unlicensed band spectrum in the unassigned spaces in TV channel spectrum ranges. One bill addresses spectrum from 62 MHz to 692 MHz (ch 4 to 51 more or less) and the other 54 MHz to 698 (ch 2 to 51). Rural Broadband being the primary reason for this apparently. I thought this was fascinating as it addresses heretofore lower frequencies than I have ever seen considered for unlicensed band wireless. Why is that so important? The trade off in lower frequencies is lower bandwidth. But the range and penetration capability of these frequencies is excellent, even with unlicensed band power. Line of sight problems are the Numero Uno hassle for unlicensed band operators. Some of the newer modulation techniques could deliver fairly decent bandwidth at pretty healthy ranges that would actually penetrate objects somewhat. Amazing think of that. Tim Sanders   tim@thefinalmile.net  www.thefinalmile.net  www.wimaxglobalnews.com

    This article in the San Jose Mercury News described a misunderstanding between the city of Livermore, CA and AT&T around permits it applied for to do upgrades. It seems the upgrades included cabinetry to support AT&Ts Project Lightspeed upgrade project to support IPTV. The city had not understood that at all. And for that matter was not at all sure it wanted any such. AT&T plans to spend upwards of $4.5 Billion to upgrade its systems to support IPTV. Other towns have been more welcoming. Most are considering offering a second cable franchise. Likely I think that will be more likely the trend than not. Lots more opportunities for the cities. The cablecos are screaming about this of course declaring it must be regulated. I say to them, fair is fair, your VoIP services are heavily cannibalizing Telco voice service everywhere. (I just added a line myself). IPTV is different from simple downstream or even digital cable in that customers can choose programming on a more pro-active basis (although nothing like what is potentially possible as yet). So what does this mean for broadband wireless? I recall a recent discussion with Tim Downs of Shorecliff and the Broadband Wireless World show where we both agreed it was not quite ready for IPTV. But could it be for some more limited versions of download video content? Heck yes. Tim Sanders  tim@thefinalmile.net  www.thefinalmile.net  www.wimaxglobalnews.com

Hello everyone. Thank you for visiting my new site. I appreciate your interest and your reading my blogs. There are a number of new aspects to the site already up as well as others I hope to roll out in the coming months. The first and most important is a regular blog feature for those interested in WiMAX and things Broadband Wireless. The RSS feed for those of you who follow that is: Blog I changed the look and feel of the site using a content management system. I hope you like it better. I am also extremely proud of the podcast I am doing with my associate Tom Parish called WiMax Global News. The RSS feed is www.wimaxglobalnews.com/rss. so please give the show a try. We have an interview series that I especially enjoy with some terrific guests so far ranging from Kelley Dunne to Tim Downs with Shorecliff to Eliot Weinman with WiMax World to Martin Cooper with ArrayComm and others. Our coverage is international as well as US. I have also added support on the front page for clients who only need basic questions answered to call and simply pay by the minute. I added feeds (RSS where available) to the primary news services I work with on the front page. In my opinion these outlets cover the full gamut of broadband wireless. I will hopefully have some informational products available soon. Also, please look here in my blog for upcoming speaking engagements and a new Webinar series I am doing with Juptermedia on the ISP side. My first one was very fun and is about pricing. This is linked on my first page. It is totally free here is the link. I promise to share my frank opinions on things wireless, give readers a heads up on trends I am hearing about (even if I am not at liberty to discuss details), and in general be useful to all. Once again thanks for reading and have a great week. Tim Sanders tim@thefinalmile.net www.TheFinalMile.net www.WiMaxGlobalNews.com