RE: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz - just an FYI
In case people weren't aware...2 somewhat exciting things in the world of Part 101 1. 2' dishes are legal in 11 GHz 2. FCC dropped licensing fees (now costs about $2500 to license a link vs. $3500 a month ago) Additional things that would be helpful (just my personal opinion) 1. Relax the interference resistance requirement for Part 101 (systems today don't need the 90 dB SNR that analogue systems from the 80s required...) 2. Decrease the license grant to 5 years (it's a PITA trying to contact companies that are out of business to see if it's ok to deply 3. 3.9 GHz -Charles ** Join us at the WISPA Reception at 6:30 PM on October the 16th 2007 at ISPCON ** ** ISPCON Fall 2007 - October 16-18 - San Jose, CA www.ispcon.com ** ** THE INTERNET INDUSTRY EVENT ** ** FREE Exhibits and Events Pass available until August 31 ** ** Use Customer Code WSEMF7 when you register online at http://www.ispcon.com/register.php ** WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
Re: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz - just an FYI
On 10/15/07, Charles Wu [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Additional things that would be helpful (just my personal opinion) 1. Relax the interference resistance requirement for Part 101 (systems today don't need the 90 dB SNR that analogue systems from the 80s required...) 2. Decrease the license grant to 5 years (it's a PITA trying to contact companies that are out of business to see if it's ok to deply It would also have the happy side-effect of doubling your license coordination business! But seriously, I see how attempting to contact out-of-business companies is a waste of time - but is it any different from attempting to contact in-business companies? Take the address out of the database and send mail. They reply within thirty days or don't. It's not your responsibility to track them down if they haven't updated the EN table. The one real problem I see with OOB companies is that they can't respond to requests for expedited coordination. Maybe there's a way to look up and weed out closed businesses. 3. 3.9 GHz What's this? Best, -- Dylan Oliver Primaverity, LLC ** Join us at the WISPA Reception at 6:30 PM on October the 16th 2007 at ISPCON ** ** ISPCON Fall 2007 - October 16-18 - San Jose, CA www.ispcon.com ** ** THE INTERNET INDUSTRY EVENT ** ** FREE Exhibits and Events Pass available until August 31 ** ** Use Customer Code WSEMF7 when you register online at http://www.ispcon.com/register.php ** WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
Re: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz
Tom, You disagree - and that's fine - but you disagree WITH WHAT? Please re-read what I and others have written. 1. Nowhere does it say that we shouldn't be discussing ideas, opinions, and feedback. I only stated that IN MY OPINION, I didn't feel this was a priority item for WISPA. If enough people disagree and feel that it IS a priority item, then please go ahead and form a committee. 2. Nowhere does it say we shouldn't share our thoughts or discuss the issue; we've been doing that. 3. Nowhere does it say we don't need to know more. I've already suggested some of the technical questions but your committee is free to decide what technical questions need to be asked - and then to seek the answers from technically-qualified experts. If you'll simply re-read the thread you'll see that both the tone and the content not only support discussion and debate, the thread is filled with discussion and debate. It's only MY opinion that this is not a priority issue and that WISPA has more important issues to deal with. At least two other people feel that it IS a priority issue; you can ask them to volunteer for your committee. If enough people believe this IS a priority issue then your committee will be up and running quickly. It's my opinion that it's NOT appropriate at this time for WISPA to submit comments that reflect an OFFICIAL WISPA position - not until WISPA HAS a common position. Please study the issues, get experienced engineering input, discuss, debate, evaluate, decide and then report back. If your committee reaches consensus THEN report the committee's conclusions and reasoning and ask for a vote. Then there will be a WISPA group-position that can be submitted to the FCC. If your committee doesn't reach consensus, you can still report the technical data, the opinions and the reasoning. Everybody can then make up their own minds and decide to submit their own individual comments to the FCC. We'll all be better informed because of your work. jack (SHEEESH - Why is it 12:40 AM again?) Tom DeReggi wrote: I disagree. The biggest point of this list is that it is a gathering of relevent WISP experts. I want to know the ideas, opinions, and feedback of the members. Whether WISPA comments officially or forms a committee is irrelevent. The membership should share their thoughts, so that those that want to comment individually can have a more informed opinion to comment on. I don't know enough about Licensed, as many of this LIST membership doesn't. We need to know more. This should be an open forum topic. We can sit around and debate the same old arguements day after day, but it gets stale, and we stop growing our knowledge if we do that. We need these fresh new topics, to broaden our minds. Tom DeReggi RapidDSL Wireless, Inc IntAirNet- Fixed Wireless Broadband - Original Message - From: Jack Unger [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: WISPA General List wireless@wispa.org Sent: Friday, March 30, 2007 10:32 AM Subject: Re: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz Brad, The simple answer (IMHO) is for anyone who wishes to comment to do so as an individual. jack Brad Belton wrote: ... I am sure we could setup a committee to work on 11 GHz dish size issues. That's beginning to sound like congress, the true epitome of efficiency. sigh No, I do not believe a committee of engineers is required to study the issue as the RF impact of smaller antennas is largely already known. The simple question was what do we think about it and possibly should we as a group comment on it. Best, Brad -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of John Scrivner Sent: Friday, March 30, 2007 12:27 AM To: WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz The truth is we need qualified RF engineers to speak up if they are here. It is my limited RF engineering knowledge which has always led me to believe that F/D Ratio (Focal Length to Diameter Ratio) which determines the beamwidth of the focused RF beam including the spread of the spurious side lobes in microwave parabolic dish antenna systems. If that is the case then the F/D ratio (not the diameter) should be the root of the discussion. The truth is though that I am NOT an RF engineer and therefore not truly qualified to make any genuine comment on the issue until I hear more from engineers who know. If this group wants to devote resources to this issue I am sure we could setup a committee to work on 11 GHz dish size issues. I am just seeing this as a minor issue. I am sorry to those out there who think this makes me short-sighted. Scriv Jack Unger wrote: Brad, I see how my original comment could have been misinterpreted. There was an element of I don't have time for this. Now that I've taken the time (that I didn't have) and (hopefully) asked the right questions, I think it's
Re: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz
Tom, Now I wish I had read this post of yours first - before I responded to an earlier post that you made. I guess I should learn to always read later posts before responding to earlier ones. If my earlier post comes across a bit too strongly, please accept my apologies. Even in my strongly-worded earlier post, I basically agreed with and I support your belief that we should always welcome open discussion and participation on this list. Respectfully, jack P.S. - If I stay up any later I'm likely to do something really foolish like send the list a copy of my Haiku at 2 AM that I wrote one night while Hurricane Katrina was lashing the Gulf Coast. G'nite Tom DeReggi wrote: Jack, I have to agree fully with your post, from that point of view. Tom DeReggi RapidDSL Wireless, Inc IntAirNet- Fixed Wireless Broadband - Original Message - From: Jack Unger [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: WISPA General List wireless@wispa.org Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2007 2:23 AM Subject: Re: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz Marlon, Just for info... see inline... Marlon K. Schafer wrote: All due respect right back at ya! grin Anyhow, to think that manufacturers all have our best interests at heart is a bit naive I think. What's better for them? A 4' dish sale or a cheap and easy 2' or 1' dish? DISH SIZE - Licensed microwave links are engineered with the proper antenna to deliver the proper amount of fade margin to achieve your desired reliability (for example, 99.9%, 99.99%, 99.995%, 99.999%) over the actual path in the actual rain zone that the link will be operating in. The engineering is all cut and dried. You know before you purchase the system what dish size you need to achieve the reliability that you want. You also know the dish hardware cost, the dish mounting cost, and the largest size dish that the tower can handle at the specific height that the terrain and link distance determine is needed. If the cost is too high (or the tower too small) you can choose to go with a smaller antenna and have less reliability. I'm not willing to get into technical arguments about this issue. The fact is, each link is different. Each tower is different. It should be left up to the local operator to figure out what's best. ESPECIALLY in a licensed band. If they get interference, they can fix it. If they cause interference they have to fix it. INTERFERENCE - Interference is not left up to the local operator. Interference is avoiding by the the company that handles the link licensing, not by the WISP operator. A licensing company will do a proper frequency search and select a frequency that will not cause interference or be interfered with. Freedom from interference is the basic reason for selecting (and paying for) a licensed link. I just don't like the idea of micro managing the pro's in our industry. Keep the interference issues dealt with but let folks use the latest and greatest technologies available to them. MICROMANAGING THE PROS - Nobody in their right mind would micromanage a licensed link design engineer and everybody wants to use the best technology that they can afford. If I want to build a link across the train tracks, 100', there's NO reason for a large dish. Small dishes with lower power radios will do the trick nicely. And if we mandate atpc we can get away with 3 to 5 (or some other such really small number) fade margins too. No need for the typical microwave 30 dB fade margins. SHORT LINKS AND ATPC - Once again, nobody would advocate using a large antenna on a short link because a small antenna that provides the desired reliability will cost a lot less than a large antenna. We're not the experts when it comes to mandating ATPC. How do we know; perhaps ATPC is already in use? If it's not, we're not the fade margin experts who can state unequivocally that ATPC is needed. If ATPC is not in use, what are the costs to redesign a $30,000 licensed microwave link to add ATPC? I'd suggest leaving the issue of ATPC to the experienced microwave equipment design engineers who do this for a living every day. The problem with trying to engineer everything is that the real world often doesn't give a rats behind what the engineers say. I've spend my adult life (such as it is) finding ways to make what works on paper really work in the field. ENGINEERING EVERYTHING - Engineering a real-world microwave link is a science that is at least 60 years old. When you spend $30,000 in hardware costs plus $10,000 in equipment mounting costs for a licensed microwave link, believe me - you want it fully engineered so it will deliver the reliability that you need. An experienced microwave engineer can design a microwave link with whatever reliability you want. That's a lot different than you or me finding a way to make it work. Making it work is nowhere near the same thing as engineering a wireless link
Re: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz
Jack, No problem. But my error, you are right, I didn't say what I disagreed with, leaving a lot of room for misinterpretation. I did not disagree with your posts. When I said disagree, I meant... that going to comment individually may not be the best next step YET, because many who may want to comment because of the importance of the topic to them, may not be ready or knowledgeable enough on the topic yet, to appropriately comment. (Me one of them). More discussion will help that. License and unlicensed bring up two very different strategies for WISPs working with Property owners. In unlicensed, a WISP tends to buy from property owners, rights to broadcast spectrum ranges. With License, the rights are bought from the FCC, and the WISP buys space from property owners. This principle confused Property owners Leasors, because they were always used to selling space to people who owned their licences. When unlicensed came to play, property owners, now needed to learn how to manage spectrum allocation, which is a sifficult job with unlicensed. With Unlicenced there then can become a finite amount of space. The smarter first-in WISPs will lock it up, to protect themselves. Unlicensed WISPs are experienced at that game. The relevence of these comments is that with Licensed, WISPs are not yet so experienced at it. Will a WISP get locked out from getting the licensed spectrum they desire, because a quicker WISP got it first? I do not think there is a good perception yet of how much licensed spectrum is or isn;t available to them, or how easy it is to re-use channels and spectrum at a site, and still get the license to use it? For example, not even considering the cities overall environment, just from a single given roof, how many 11 ghz links could be acheived from a single roof, with the licensed system? Same question with 18Ghz, 60G (unlicensed), 80Ghz? What is the risk that a WISP will get locked out from being able to expand their own cell site? If Telco Licenses several 11Ghz links at my cell site, will there be some 11Ghz left over for me to also use to increase my backhauls when needed? Will I be forced to buyt transport from them? Is there a race to buy and deploy the licens first? There was with Unlicened 5.8Ghz. But having half a system doesn't make a solution. These are the answers I am looking at right now. Can I afford to grow organically and slowly, or will that mean I will miss out on availabilty? What is the current landscape of LICensed BAckhaul in Urban America? What percentage of Licensed requests get DENIED, because interference would occur if more licensed were granted? I rcognize that its impossible to answer those question, as it depends on the location and site. But in general, what are the expectations? Tom DeReggi RapidDSL Wireless, Inc IntAirNet- Fixed Wireless Broadband - Original Message - From: Jack Unger [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: WISPA General List wireless@wispa.org Sent: Saturday, March 31, 2007 3:03 AM Subject: Re: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz Tom, Now I wish I had read this post of yours first - before I responded to an earlier post that you made. I guess I should learn to always read later posts before responding to earlier ones. If my earlier post comes across a bit too strongly, please accept my apologies. Even in my strongly-worded earlier post, I basically agreed with and I support your belief that we should always welcome open discussion and participation on this list. Respectfully, jack P.S. - If I stay up any later I'm likely to do something really foolish like send the list a copy of my Haiku at 2 AM that I wrote one night while Hurricane Katrina was lashing the Gulf Coast. G'nite Tom DeReggi wrote: Jack, I have to agree fully with your post, from that point of view. Tom DeReggi RapidDSL Wireless, Inc IntAirNet- Fixed Wireless Broadband - Original Message - From: Jack Unger [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: WISPA General List wireless@wispa.org Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2007 2:23 AM Subject: Re: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz Marlon, Just for info... see inline... Marlon K. Schafer wrote: All due respect right back at ya! grin Anyhow, to think that manufacturers all have our best interests at heart is a bit naive I think. What's better for them? A 4' dish sale or a cheap and easy 2' or 1' dish? DISH SIZE - Licensed microwave links are engineered with the proper antenna to deliver the proper amount of fade margin to achieve your desired reliability (for example, 99.9%, 99.99%, 99.995%, 99.999%) over the actual path in the actual rain zone that the link will be operating in. The engineering is all cut and dried. You know before you purchase the system what dish size you need to achieve the reliability that you want. You also know the dish hardware cost, the dish mounting cost, and the largest
RE: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz
... I am sure we could setup a committee to work on 11 GHz dish size issues. That's beginning to sound like congress, the true epitome of efficiency. sigh No, I do not believe a committee of engineers is required to study the issue as the RF impact of smaller antennas is largely already known. The simple question was what do we think about it and possibly should we as a group comment on it. Best, Brad -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of John Scrivner Sent: Friday, March 30, 2007 12:27 AM To: WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz The truth is we need qualified RF engineers to speak up if they are here. It is my limited RF engineering knowledge which has always led me to believe that F/D Ratio (Focal Length to Diameter Ratio) which determines the beamwidth of the focused RF beam including the spread of the spurious side lobes in microwave parabolic dish antenna systems. If that is the case then the F/D ratio (not the diameter) should be the root of the discussion. The truth is though that I am NOT an RF engineer and therefore not truly qualified to make any genuine comment on the issue until I hear more from engineers who know. If this group wants to devote resources to this issue I am sure we could setup a committee to work on 11 GHz dish size issues. I am just seeing this as a minor issue. I am sorry to those out there who think this makes me short-sighted. Scriv Jack Unger wrote: Brad, I see how my original comment could have been misinterpreted. There was an element of I don't have time for this. Now that I've taken the time (that I didn't have) and (hopefully) asked the right questions, I think it's time for others to follow up if they feel it's an important issue. Personally, I'm not worried at this point about allowing smaller 11 GHz antennas. I don't think it's going to cause us any problems with frequency availability. I think 11 GHz frequencies will be available when they are needed. FiberTower's investors include American Tower, Crown Castle and SpectraSite. I can't believe that those companies would want to do anything to screw up either the availability of frequencies or the sale of vertical real estate on their tower properties. Have a good day, jack Brad Belton wrote: Hello Jack, Good to see you're back on track with, IMO, a proper response to the 11GHz question/concerns. Your initial comment came off as who cares and we don't have time for this. John simply dittoed your comments, so what was the group left to believe? I apologize if I misunderstood your intent. Your questions/response below illustrate the type of post I would have expected from you in the first place. Best, Brad -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Jack Unger Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2007 1:33 AM To: WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz Brad, I think you may be misquoting or misunderstanding me. No good can come from that. Real questions need to be asked and need to be correctly answered before we risk our reputation by filing comments with the FCC that are technically incomplete or technically incorrect. Here's a repost of my original post. ** Begin Original Post * It would be good to know the minimum required dish size now and the changes that FiberTower is proposing before deciding what to do or say. I'm not sure this dish-size issue would impact any WISPs so we may want to ask ourselves if there are more important issues that we need to be focusing on, given the limited time and resources that we have. I think this is an issue that the licensed microwave vendors will probably deal with adequately, without harming our interests. When we decide to purchase a licensed 11 GHz link, we'd be buying it from them anyway. Finally, WISPA doesn't have an engineering staff that can adequately analyze the technical implications and prepare an informed technical response to submit to the FCC. End Original Post * NOWHERE did I say that the licensed frequency bands are not important to WISPS. Licensed backhauls are very important to WISPs. WISPs SHOULD use licensed backhauls wherever interference levels are high, where reliability is crucial, where throughput needs are high, and/or where full duplex links are needed. NOWHERE did I say that the focus of the group should be limited to unlicensed frequencies only. TO BE CRYSTAL CLEAR, I will restate each original paragraph and I will list the questions that each paragraph is implicitly asking. *** PARAGRAPH 1 - It would be good to know the minimum
Re: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz
Brad, The simple answer (IMHO) is for anyone who wishes to comment to do so as an individual. jack Brad Belton wrote: ... I am sure we could setup a committee to work on 11 GHz dish size issues. That's beginning to sound like congress, the true epitome of efficiency. sigh No, I do not believe a committee of engineers is required to study the issue as the RF impact of smaller antennas is largely already known. The simple question was what do we think about it and possibly should we as a group comment on it. Best, Brad -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of John Scrivner Sent: Friday, March 30, 2007 12:27 AM To: WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz The truth is we need qualified RF engineers to speak up if they are here. It is my limited RF engineering knowledge which has always led me to believe that F/D Ratio (Focal Length to Diameter Ratio) which determines the beamwidth of the focused RF beam including the spread of the spurious side lobes in microwave parabolic dish antenna systems. If that is the case then the F/D ratio (not the diameter) should be the root of the discussion. The truth is though that I am NOT an RF engineer and therefore not truly qualified to make any genuine comment on the issue until I hear more from engineers who know. If this group wants to devote resources to this issue I am sure we could setup a committee to work on 11 GHz dish size issues. I am just seeing this as a minor issue. I am sorry to those out there who think this makes me short-sighted. Scriv Jack Unger wrote: Brad, I see how my original comment could have been misinterpreted. There was an element of I don't have time for this. Now that I've taken the time (that I didn't have) and (hopefully) asked the right questions, I think it's time for others to follow up if they feel it's an important issue. Personally, I'm not worried at this point about allowing smaller 11 GHz antennas. I don't think it's going to cause us any problems with frequency availability. I think 11 GHz frequencies will be available when they are needed. FiberTower's investors include American Tower, Crown Castle and SpectraSite. I can't believe that those companies would want to do anything to screw up either the availability of frequencies or the sale of vertical real estate on their tower properties. Have a good day, jack Brad Belton wrote: Hello Jack, Good to see you're back on track with, IMO, a proper response to the 11GHz question/concerns. Your initial comment came off as who cares and we don't have time for this. John simply dittoed your comments, so what was the group left to believe? I apologize if I misunderstood your intent. Your questions/response below illustrate the type of post I would have expected from you in the first place. Best, Brad -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Jack Unger Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2007 1:33 AM To: WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz Brad, I think you may be misquoting or misunderstanding me. No good can come from that. Real questions need to be asked and need to be correctly answered before we risk our reputation by filing comments with the FCC that are technically incomplete or technically incorrect. Here's a repost of my original post. ** Begin Original Post * It would be good to know the minimum required dish size now and the changes that FiberTower is proposing before deciding what to do or say. I'm not sure this dish-size issue would impact any WISPs so we may want to ask ourselves if there are more important issues that we need to be focusing on, given the limited time and resources that we have. I think this is an issue that the licensed microwave vendors will probably deal with adequately, without harming our interests. When we decide to purchase a licensed 11 GHz link, we'd be buying it from them anyway. Finally, WISPA doesn't have an engineering staff that can adequately analyze the technical implications and prepare an informed technical response to submit to the FCC. End Original Post * NOWHERE did I say that the licensed frequency bands are not important to WISPS. Licensed backhauls are very important to WISPs. WISPs SHOULD use licensed backhauls wherever interference levels are high, where reliability is crucial, where throughput needs are high, and/or where full duplex links are needed. NOWHERE did I say that the focus of the group should be limited to unlicensed frequencies only. TO BE CRYSTAL CLEAR, I will restate each original paragraph and I will list the questions that each paragraph is implicitly asking
Re: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz
Brad, Do you care to address my comments about F/D ratios and beam width? I think that is more pertinent in mitigating interference than dish size. If there is one qualified RF engineer in this group who can post a single message here that is thought out about the issues around 11 GHz dish size, F/D ratios, etc. then we can and should consider the possibility of addressing this as a genuine concern of WISPA. If all we have are people saying we should comment on this with no basis of RF fact as to why we should comment then I will stand by my original assertion that it is not an issue we will be addressing here. Are you an engineer Brad? Do you know the actual facts concerning this issue along with the outcomes of supporting or denying support to the petition? I guess we should address this issue since it looks like we are addressing the idea of addressing this over and over again. If this issue is that important to you, Brad, then why don't you Chair this effort yourself and convince us of what the issues are, what the RF facts are supporting the issues and why and how we should comment as WISPA. I am not trying to stop you from helping, quite the contrary. You obviously feel strongly about this issue so please send us what you find so we can make an informed decision on how best to proceed. Scriv Brad Belton wrote: ... I am sure we could setup a committee to work on 11 GHz dish size issues. That's beginning to sound like congress, the true epitome of efficiency. sigh No, I do not believe a committee of engineers is required to study the issue as the RF impact of smaller antennas is largely already known. The simple question was what do we think about it and possibly should we as a group comment on it. Best, Brad -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of John Scrivner Sent: Friday, March 30, 2007 12:27 AM To: WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz The truth is we need qualified RF engineers to speak up if they are here. It is my limited RF engineering knowledge which has always led me to believe that F/D Ratio (Focal Length to Diameter Ratio) which determines the beamwidth of the focused RF beam including the spread of the spurious side lobes in microwave parabolic dish antenna systems. If that is the case then the F/D ratio (not the diameter) should be the root of the discussion. The truth is though that I am NOT an RF engineer and therefore not truly qualified to make any genuine comment on the issue until I hear more from engineers who know. If this group wants to devote resources to this issue I am sure we could setup a committee to work on 11 GHz dish size issues. I am just seeing this as a minor issue. I am sorry to those out there who think this makes me short-sighted. Scriv Jack Unger wrote: Brad, I see how my original comment could have been misinterpreted. There was an element of I don't have time for this. Now that I've taken the time (that I didn't have) and (hopefully) asked the right questions, I think it's time for others to follow up if they feel it's an important issue. Personally, I'm not worried at this point about allowing smaller 11 GHz antennas. I don't think it's going to cause us any problems with frequency availability. I think 11 GHz frequencies will be available when they are needed. FiberTower's investors include American Tower, Crown Castle and SpectraSite. I can't believe that those companies would want to do anything to screw up either the availability of frequencies or the sale of vertical real estate on their tower properties. Have a good day, jack Brad Belton wrote: Hello Jack, Good to see you're back on track with, IMO, a proper response to the 11GHz question/concerns. Your initial comment came off as who cares and we don't have time for this. John simply dittoed your comments, so what was the group left to believe? I apologize if I misunderstood your intent. Your questions/response below illustrate the type of post I would have expected from you in the first place. Best, Brad -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Jack Unger Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2007 1:33 AM To: WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz Brad, I think you may be misquoting or misunderstanding me. No good can come from that. Real questions need to be asked and need to be correctly answered before we risk our reputation by filing comments with the FCC that are technically incomplete or technically incorrect. Here's a repost of my original post. ** Begin Original Post * It would be good to know the minimum required dish size now and the changes that FiberTower is proposing before deciding what to do or say. I'm not sure this dish-size issue would impact
RE: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz
Hello John, Nope, I'm not a RF Engineer and not qualified to make formal comment on the petition. Does the affect of smaller antennas really need to be revisited? Isn't it safe to say smaller antennas result in wider patterns? Wider patterns result in less frequency reuse ability and the basis of the resistance to the petition? The question was; should we as a group care about this? The initial response Jack and you made was misinterpreted as we don't have time for it. I among others commented that we should care and why. Jack clarified his intent was not that he didn't care. I commented no harm no foul. You continue to beat a dead horse by suggesting a committee be formed? What am I missing? grin Best, Brad -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of John Scrivner Sent: Friday, March 30, 2007 12:06 PM To: WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz Brad, Do you care to address my comments about F/D ratios and beam width? I think that is more pertinent in mitigating interference than dish size. If there is one qualified RF engineer in this group who can post a single message here that is thought out about the issues around 11 GHz dish size, F/D ratios, etc. then we can and should consider the possibility of addressing this as a genuine concern of WISPA. If all we have are people saying we should comment on this with no basis of RF fact as to why we should comment then I will stand by my original assertion that it is not an issue we will be addressing here. Are you an engineer Brad? Do you know the actual facts concerning this issue along with the outcomes of supporting or denying support to the petition? I guess we should address this issue since it looks like we are addressing the idea of addressing this over and over again. If this issue is that important to you, Brad, then why don't you Chair this effort yourself and convince us of what the issues are, what the RF facts are supporting the issues and why and how we should comment as WISPA. I am not trying to stop you from helping, quite the contrary. You obviously feel strongly about this issue so please send us what you find so we can make an informed decision on how best to proceed. Scriv Brad Belton wrote: ... I am sure we could setup a committee to work on 11 GHz dish size issues. That's beginning to sound like congress, the true epitome of efficiency. sigh No, I do not believe a committee of engineers is required to study the issue as the RF impact of smaller antennas is largely already known. The simple question was what do we think about it and possibly should we as a group comment on it. Best, Brad -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of John Scrivner Sent: Friday, March 30, 2007 12:27 AM To: WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz The truth is we need qualified RF engineers to speak up if they are here. It is my limited RF engineering knowledge which has always led me to believe that F/D Ratio (Focal Length to Diameter Ratio) which determines the beamwidth of the focused RF beam including the spread of the spurious side lobes in microwave parabolic dish antenna systems. If that is the case then the F/D ratio (not the diameter) should be the root of the discussion. The truth is though that I am NOT an RF engineer and therefore not truly qualified to make any genuine comment on the issue until I hear more from engineers who know. If this group wants to devote resources to this issue I am sure we could setup a committee to work on 11 GHz dish size issues. I am just seeing this as a minor issue. I am sorry to those out there who think this makes me short-sighted. Scriv Jack Unger wrote: Brad, I see how my original comment could have been misinterpreted. There was an element of I don't have time for this. Now that I've taken the time (that I didn't have) and (hopefully) asked the right questions, I think it's time for others to follow up if they feel it's an important issue. Personally, I'm not worried at this point about allowing smaller 11 GHz antennas. I don't think it's going to cause us any problems with frequency availability. I think 11 GHz frequencies will be available when they are needed. FiberTower's investors include American Tower, Crown Castle and SpectraSite. I can't believe that those companies would want to do anything to screw up either the availability of frequencies or the sale of vertical real estate on their tower properties. Have a good day, jack Brad Belton wrote: Hello Jack, Good to see you're back on track with, IMO, a proper response to the 11GHz question/concerns. Your initial comment came off as who cares and we don't have time for this. John simply dittoed your comments, so what was the group left to believe? I apologize if I
Re: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz
I disagree. The biggest point of this list is that it is a gathering of relevent WISP experts. I want to know the ideas, opinions, and feedback of the members. Whether WISPA comments officially or forms a committee is irrelevent. The membership should share their thoughts, so that those that want to comment individually can have a more informed opinion to comment on. I don't know enough about Licensed, as many of this LIST membership doesn't. We need to know more. This should be an open forum topic. We can sit around and debate the same old arguements day after day, but it gets stale, and we stop growing our knowledge if we do that. We need these fresh new topics, to broaden our minds. Tom DeReggi RapidDSL Wireless, Inc IntAirNet- Fixed Wireless Broadband - Original Message - From: Jack Unger [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: WISPA General List wireless@wispa.org Sent: Friday, March 30, 2007 10:32 AM Subject: Re: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz Brad, The simple answer (IMHO) is for anyone who wishes to comment to do so as an individual. jack Brad Belton wrote: ... I am sure we could setup a committee to work on 11 GHz dish size issues. That's beginning to sound like congress, the true epitome of efficiency. sigh No, I do not believe a committee of engineers is required to study the issue as the RF impact of smaller antennas is largely already known. The simple question was what do we think about it and possibly should we as a group comment on it. Best, Brad -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of John Scrivner Sent: Friday, March 30, 2007 12:27 AM To: WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz The truth is we need qualified RF engineers to speak up if they are here. It is my limited RF engineering knowledge which has always led me to believe that F/D Ratio (Focal Length to Diameter Ratio) which determines the beamwidth of the focused RF beam including the spread of the spurious side lobes in microwave parabolic dish antenna systems. If that is the case then the F/D ratio (not the diameter) should be the root of the discussion. The truth is though that I am NOT an RF engineer and therefore not truly qualified to make any genuine comment on the issue until I hear more from engineers who know. If this group wants to devote resources to this issue I am sure we could setup a committee to work on 11 GHz dish size issues. I am just seeing this as a minor issue. I am sorry to those out there who think this makes me short-sighted. Scriv Jack Unger wrote: Brad, I see how my original comment could have been misinterpreted. There was an element of I don't have time for this. Now that I've taken the time (that I didn't have) and (hopefully) asked the right questions, I think it's time for others to follow up if they feel it's an important issue. Personally, I'm not worried at this point about allowing smaller 11 GHz antennas. I don't think it's going to cause us any problems with frequency availability. I think 11 GHz frequencies will be available when they are needed. FiberTower's investors include American Tower, Crown Castle and SpectraSite. I can't believe that those companies would want to do anything to screw up either the availability of frequencies or the sale of vertical real estate on their tower properties. Have a good day, jack Brad Belton wrote: Hello Jack, Good to see you're back on track with, IMO, a proper response to the 11GHz question/concerns. Your initial comment came off as who cares and we don't have time for this. John simply dittoed your comments, so what was the group left to believe? I apologize if I misunderstood your intent. Your questions/response below illustrate the type of post I would have expected from you in the first place. Best, Brad -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Jack Unger Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2007 1:33 AM To: WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz Brad, I think you may be misquoting or misunderstanding me. No good can come from that. Real questions need to be asked and need to be correctly answered before we risk our reputation by filing comments with the FCC that are technically incomplete or technically incorrect. Here's a repost of my original post. ** Begin Original Post * It would be good to know the minimum required dish size now and the changes that FiberTower is proposing before deciding what to do or say. I'm not sure this dish-size issue would impact any WISPs so we may want to ask ourselves if there are more important issues that we need to be focusing on, given the limited time and resources that we have. I think this is an issue that the licensed microwave
Re: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz
Agreed. But the fight is not to allow smaller dishes in 11Ghz, its to fight from allowing smaller dishes. Tom DeReggi RapidDSL Wireless, Inc IntAirNet- Fixed Wireless Broadband - Original Message - From: Charles Wu [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: WISPA General List wireless@wispa.org Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2007 9:08 PM Subject: RE: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz Hi Bob, Short is relative to rain zone In your world, where rain isn't that much of a problem -- it's nice to have 18 GHz to go 8+ miles on a 2' dish However, go to East TX or LA, and in those rain zones, being able to use something smaller for 5 miles would be nice That said, now that someone has gotten a 2.5' dish accepted for 11 GHz, A fight over 0.5' of antenna, IMO, isn't that big of a deal, a better fight would be to allow 3-4' dishes for 6 GHz -Charles --- WiNOG Wireless Roadshows Coming to a City Near You http://www.winog.com -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Bob Moldashel Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2007 9:21 AM To: WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz 11 Ghz.Short distance hops.NO There is spectrum for short hops. There is spectrum for medium hops. There is even spectrum for long hops. 11 Ghz. is not appropriate for short hops. Not when there is 18, 23, 24, 38, 60 and 80 Ghz. Even smack in the center of NYC I can get higher channels to do what is needed for short hops. There is no reason to use 11 Ghz. period for short hops... -B- -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
Re: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz
Jack, I have to agree fully with your post, from that point of view. Tom DeReggi RapidDSL Wireless, Inc IntAirNet- Fixed Wireless Broadband - Original Message - From: Jack Unger [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: WISPA General List wireless@wispa.org Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2007 2:23 AM Subject: Re: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz Marlon, Just for info... see inline... Marlon K. Schafer wrote: All due respect right back at ya! grin Anyhow, to think that manufacturers all have our best interests at heart is a bit naive I think. What's better for them? A 4' dish sale or a cheap and easy 2' or 1' dish? DISH SIZE - Licensed microwave links are engineered with the proper antenna to deliver the proper amount of fade margin to achieve your desired reliability (for example, 99.9%, 99.99%, 99.995%, 99.999%) over the actual path in the actual rain zone that the link will be operating in. The engineering is all cut and dried. You know before you purchase the system what dish size you need to achieve the reliability that you want. You also know the dish hardware cost, the dish mounting cost, and the largest size dish that the tower can handle at the specific height that the terrain and link distance determine is needed. If the cost is too high (or the tower too small) you can choose to go with a smaller antenna and have less reliability. I'm not willing to get into technical arguments about this issue. The fact is, each link is different. Each tower is different. It should be left up to the local operator to figure out what's best. ESPECIALLY in a licensed band. If they get interference, they can fix it. If they cause interference they have to fix it. INTERFERENCE - Interference is not left up to the local operator. Interference is avoiding by the the company that handles the link licensing, not by the WISP operator. A licensing company will do a proper frequency search and select a frequency that will not cause interference or be interfered with. Freedom from interference is the basic reason for selecting (and paying for) a licensed link. I just don't like the idea of micro managing the pro's in our industry. Keep the interference issues dealt with but let folks use the latest and greatest technologies available to them. MICROMANAGING THE PROS - Nobody in their right mind would micromanage a licensed link design engineer and everybody wants to use the best technology that they can afford. If I want to build a link across the train tracks, 100', there's NO reason for a large dish. Small dishes with lower power radios will do the trick nicely. And if we mandate atpc we can get away with 3 to 5 (or some other such really small number) fade margins too. No need for the typical microwave 30 dB fade margins. SHORT LINKS AND ATPC - Once again, nobody would advocate using a large antenna on a short link because a small antenna that provides the desired reliability will cost a lot less than a large antenna. We're not the experts when it comes to mandating ATPC. How do we know; perhaps ATPC is already in use? If it's not, we're not the fade margin experts who can state unequivocally that ATPC is needed. If ATPC is not in use, what are the costs to redesign a $30,000 licensed microwave link to add ATPC? I'd suggest leaving the issue of ATPC to the experienced microwave equipment design engineers who do this for a living every day. The problem with trying to engineer everything is that the real world often doesn't give a rats behind what the engineers say. I've spend my adult life (such as it is) finding ways to make what works on paper really work in the field. ENGINEERING EVERYTHING - Engineering a real-world microwave link is a science that is at least 60 years old. When you spend $30,000 in hardware costs plus $10,000 in equipment mounting costs for a licensed microwave link, believe me - you want it fully engineered so it will deliver the reliability that you need. An experienced microwave engineer can design a microwave link with whatever reliability you want. That's a lot different than you or me finding a way to make it work. Making it work is nowhere near the same thing as engineering a wireless link to deliver 99,999 out of 100,000 packets error-free 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. If we're going to be going on record with the FCC, we need to be going on record with actual, factual engineering knowledge. IMHO, making it work is just not good enough. jack We need the paper, to be sure. But we also need the flexibility to do what's expedient in the field. marlon - Original Message - From: Jack Unger [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: WISPA General List wireless@wispa.org Sent: Monday, March 26, 2007 10:26 PM Subject: Re: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz Marlon, With all due respect... We need solid engineering arguements if we're going to present
Re: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz
My suggest was, that we should support this but suggest that they mandate atpc. thoughts? marlon - Original Message - From: Brad Belton [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: 'WISPA General List' wireless@wispa.org Sent: Wednesday, March 28, 2007 8:03 PM Subject: RE: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz Hello Marlon, Sure, low power levels may work for those that adhere to the rules. Unfortunately I don't believe this rule change request mentions lowering power levels for smaller antennas. I do believe the band that is best suited for the application should be used and not open up all bands for every application. I can only imagine what a mess that would make of the airwaves. Yes, I agree emissions do not stop at each side of the link and continue beyond, but I'd rather deal with a direct inline issue than one that is several degrees off axis and shouldn't be there in the first place. Again, the point I trying to make is use the correct tool for the job. 11GHz is not the correct tool for a 100' link. Just because you can turn a bolt with a pair of vise grips doesn't mean you are using the right tool for the job. Best, Brad -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Marlon K. Schafer Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2007 10:57 PM To: WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz And exactly HOW do you suppose that a very low power link will somehow screw up the band? Using higher power kills off everything on BOTH ends of the link. The signal doesn't just stop, it continues on past the rec. antenna. Your argument make no sense to me. Not from a frequency reuse standpoint. Also, what should we be pushing? MAXIMUM utilization for all bands. The rules for 11 gig and 6 gig cut down on the utilization and therefore waste a natural resource. I live on the farm. We use every drop of farmable ground. We plant the crops that grow the best out here and are always looking for new ones. Should be the same for wireless spectrum. Use up every drop. THEN, IF there's a problem, figure out how to deal with it. marlon - Original Message - From: Brad Belton [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: 'WISPA General List' wireless@wispa.org Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2007 10:00 AM Subject: RE: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz Marlon, 11GHz is intended for medium to long range links. That is why they require a relatively larger antenna to keep the beam narrow to increase the freq reuse ability. 6GHz requires a 6' minimum antenna and this is a GOOD thing otherwise there would be fewer 6GHz licenses available in any given geographic area. If you have a 100' link then by all means use an 80-90GHz licensed link or even sub-lease a 38GHz license. Or use FOS or 60GHz or 24GHz for 100' links, but 11GHz for a 100' shot is a waste and not a good use of the band. Opening 11GHz to smaller dishes means more chance the band will be used up by short links that could have been achieved with the same (or even better) results by using a higher freq band. Best, Brad -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Marlon K. Schafer (509) 982-2181 Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2007 11:44 AM To: WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz I TOTALLY disagree with that. On two fronts. First, what's wrong with a short licensed link? If that's what I want to use that's up to me. Maybe I want to put a link that requires 100% uptime guarantee and has to be licensed but only has to cross the train tracks. Ever try to push a cable across the tracks or freeway? It'll make Jack's $30,000 link look cheap! Second, how would use of smaller antennas screw anything up? I've been blown offline from interference that came from 30 MILES away. It was only an 11 mile link. They had 6' dishes an had the power cranked all the way up. I think I figured it at a 60 dB fade margin. And there was nothing in the rules that said they couldn't do that! Luckily they turned the power way down and my problem went away. With an ATPC requirement that never would have happened. Just because they mandate antenna sizes in no way means that it's the only, or today, even the best way to maximize frequency reuse. laters, Marlon (509) 982-2181 (408) 907-6910 (Vonage)Consulting services 42846865 (icq)WISP Operator since 1999! [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.odessaoffice.com/wireless www.odessaoffice.com/marlon/cam - Original Message - From: Brad Belton [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: 'WISPA General List' wireless@wispa.org Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2007 6:08 AM Subject: RE: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz I don't think you would select 11GHz to go 100'. That's the whole point...let's hope FCC doesn't screw up 11GHz by allowing it's use for short haul
Re: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz
Brad, Jack and I did not say this is something WISPA should ignore. Read what Jack said and I agreed with. I own an AWS license myself so trust me when I say I believe licensed interests can match our own. I just do not agree with your assessment that this is a big issue for WISPA to devote time, energy and resources to right now UNLESS we have more information about what is at stake, how it effects us, how we can and should work to work on this issue. Brad, the answer here is for YOU or someone else to take this issue on and show us why it is an issue for our involvement. I do not support constant knee-jerk reactionary policy initiatives. We need to have some degree of focus and purpose beyond just slapping comments on top of other people's petitions for changes. Maybe if we start actually studying the issues and making informed and targeted policy initiatives then we can actually start drafting petitions of our own which will become the policy for our industry in the future as opposed to rapid fire commenting on other people's work all the time. Scriv Brad Belton wrote: Agreed. Just getting caught up on some of my email readings and strongly believe Jack and John are off the mark here. 6GHz, 11GHz, 18GHz, 23GHz, 24GHz, 60GHz and 80-90GHz should all be important to us as a group. Any frequency that can be used by fixed wireless operators should be important to the group. For Jack and John to assume the focus as a group should be limited to UL frequencies is short sighted to say the least. Many operations, ours included, are already utilizing licensed spectrum were we can. Best, Brad -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Tom DeReggi Sent: Monday, March 26, 2007 2:10 PM To: WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz Anything related to 11Ghz, should be WISPs concern. It is my belief that all serious unlicensed ISPs will at some point start to migrate to Licensed spectrums for backhauls. 11Ghz is one of the few upgrade options available for WISP's that designed their existing backhaul to 5.8Ghz functionality. (meaning needing 4ft dish 11Ghz to reach equivellent distances of 5.8Ghz 2ft dish links, in practicality). There really aren't very many Long range backhaul spectrum range options out there. Relaxing the rules could result in the inabilty for many WISPs to obtain 11Ghz licenses, because of unavailable spectrum, when they are ready to need it. A 2ft dish beamwidth (9-10 degrees) will cover the width of most of a small city at 10 miles. (Sorry I didn't do the Angle math yet). Compared to that of 4 ft dish beamwidths. As much as I'd like a 2 ft Dish, how would that effect my future abilty to get a license? Thats an important question. Fibertower wants 2ft dishes today because they are ready to buy up the licenses today. Are the rest of the WISPs ready to buy the licenses today? How much license space is available still? I think some propogation data and current saturation data (number of links / potential for more links) would need to be disclosed first to develop a relevant opinion. And how would the rules effect cost? Currently 11Ghz is significantly more expensive to obtain because of dish size. If smaller more advanced dishes were allowed, a 2ft dish that had the characteristics of 3-4ft dishes, would those dishes be more expensive because of their unique better characterisitcs? The truth is, every provider would chose 11Ghz over 18Ghz, if they could get away with a smaller dish. It would likely lead to less use of 18Ghz and 23 Ghz. Is 18Ghz getting saturated? If so it would be relevent to allow 11Ghz to take over the load. But I'd argue that 18Ghz should be near at capacity before 11Ghz be allowed to be more leanent in antenna size. The bigger fight for smaller antennas is to allow 6Ghz to be allowed to use 4 ft dishes. 6ft dish requirement is insane. If 6Ghz was allowed to use 4ft dished, it would then give another option for long range, (within a realistic antenna size for roof tops), then justifying the allowance for 11Ghz to have smaller antennas. The question is, why isn't Fibertower just using 18Ghz in their applications? Can they prove that 18Ghz is to limiting or unavailable for them? Tom DeReggi RapidDSL Wireless, Inc IntAirNet- Fixed Wireless Broadband John Scrivner wrote: Thank you Jack. You said it better than I could have. :-) Scriv Jack Unger wrote: Dylan, It would be good to know the minimum required dish size now and the changes that FiberTower is proposing before deciding what to do or say. I'm not sure this dish-size issue would impact any WISPs so we may want to ask ourselves if there are more important issues that we need to be focusing on, given the limited time and resources that we have. I think this is an issue that the licensed microwave vendors will probably deal
RE: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz
Hello John, Read Jack's follow up and you'll see where I (and possibly a few others) were coming from. It is easily plausible to misunderstand Jack's intent and Jack acknowledged there was an I don't have time for this element to his original post. No harm no foul. grin Best, Brad -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of John Scrivner Sent: Thursday, March 29, 2007 11:54 PM To: WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz Brad, Jack and I did not say this is something WISPA should ignore. Read what Jack said and I agreed with. I own an AWS license myself so trust me when I say I believe licensed interests can match our own. I just do not agree with your assessment that this is a big issue for WISPA to devote time, energy and resources to right now UNLESS we have more information about what is at stake, how it effects us, how we can and should work to work on this issue. Brad, the answer here is for YOU or someone else to take this issue on and show us why it is an issue for our involvement. I do not support constant knee-jerk reactionary policy initiatives. We need to have some degree of focus and purpose beyond just slapping comments on top of other people's petitions for changes. Maybe if we start actually studying the issues and making informed and targeted policy initiatives then we can actually start drafting petitions of our own which will become the policy for our industry in the future as opposed to rapid fire commenting on other people's work all the time. Scriv Brad Belton wrote: Agreed. Just getting caught up on some of my email readings and strongly believe Jack and John are off the mark here. 6GHz, 11GHz, 18GHz, 23GHz, 24GHz, 60GHz and 80-90GHz should all be important to us as a group. Any frequency that can be used by fixed wireless operators should be important to the group. For Jack and John to assume the focus as a group should be limited to UL frequencies is short sighted to say the least. Many operations, ours included, are already utilizing licensed spectrum were we can. Best, Brad -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Tom DeReggi Sent: Monday, March 26, 2007 2:10 PM To: WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz Anything related to 11Ghz, should be WISPs concern. It is my belief that all serious unlicensed ISPs will at some point start to migrate to Licensed spectrums for backhauls. 11Ghz is one of the few upgrade options available for WISP's that designed their existing backhaul to 5.8Ghz functionality. (meaning needing 4ft dish 11Ghz to reach equivellent distances of 5.8Ghz 2ft dish links, in practicality). There really aren't very many Long range backhaul spectrum range options out there. Relaxing the rules could result in the inabilty for many WISPs to obtain 11Ghz licenses, because of unavailable spectrum, when they are ready to need it. A 2ft dish beamwidth (9-10 degrees) will cover the width of most of a small city at 10 miles. (Sorry I didn't do the Angle math yet). Compared to that of 4 ft dish beamwidths. As much as I'd like a 2 ft Dish, how would that effect my future abilty to get a license? Thats an important question. Fibertower wants 2ft dishes today because they are ready to buy up the licenses today. Are the rest of the WISPs ready to buy the licenses today? How much license space is available still? I think some propogation data and current saturation data (number of links / potential for more links) would need to be disclosed first to develop a relevant opinion. And how would the rules effect cost? Currently 11Ghz is significantly more expensive to obtain because of dish size. If smaller more advanced dishes were allowed, a 2ft dish that had the characteristics of 3-4ft dishes, would those dishes be more expensive because of their unique better characterisitcs? The truth is, every provider would chose 11Ghz over 18Ghz, if they could get away with a smaller dish. It would likely lead to less use of 18Ghz and 23 Ghz. Is 18Ghz getting saturated? If so it would be relevent to allow 11Ghz to take over the load. But I'd argue that 18Ghz should be near at capacity before 11Ghz be allowed to be more leanent in antenna size. The bigger fight for smaller antennas is to allow 6Ghz to be allowed to use 4 ft dishes. 6ft dish requirement is insane. If 6Ghz was allowed to use 4ft dished, it would then give another option for long range, (within a realistic antenna size for roof tops), then justifying the allowance for 11Ghz to have smaller antennas. The question is, why isn't Fibertower just using 18Ghz in their applications? Can they prove that 18Ghz is to limiting or unavailable for them? Tom DeReggi RapidDSL Wireless, Inc IntAirNet- Fixed Wireless Broadband John Scrivner wrote: Thank you Jack
Re: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz
The truth is we need qualified RF engineers to speak up if they are here. It is my limited RF engineering knowledge which has always led me to believe that F/D Ratio (Focal Length to Diameter Ratio) which determines the beamwidth of the focused RF beam including the spread of the spurious side lobes in microwave parabolic dish antenna systems. If that is the case then the F/D ratio (not the diameter) should be the root of the discussion. The truth is though that I am NOT an RF engineer and therefore not truly qualified to make any genuine comment on the issue until I hear more from engineers who know. If this group wants to devote resources to this issue I am sure we could setup a committee to work on 11 GHz dish size issues. I am just seeing this as a minor issue. I am sorry to those out there who think this makes me short-sighted. Scriv Jack Unger wrote: Brad, I see how my original comment could have been misinterpreted. There was an element of I don't have time for this. Now that I've taken the time (that I didn't have) and (hopefully) asked the right questions, I think it's time for others to follow up if they feel it's an important issue. Personally, I'm not worried at this point about allowing smaller 11 GHz antennas. I don't think it's going to cause us any problems with frequency availability. I think 11 GHz frequencies will be available when they are needed. FiberTower's investors include American Tower, Crown Castle and SpectraSite. I can't believe that those companies would want to do anything to screw up either the availability of frequencies or the sale of vertical real estate on their tower properties. Have a good day, jack Brad Belton wrote: Hello Jack, Good to see you're back on track with, IMO, a proper response to the 11GHz question/concerns. Your initial comment came off as who cares and we don't have time for this. John simply dittoed your comments, so what was the group left to believe? I apologize if I misunderstood your intent. Your questions/response below illustrate the type of post I would have expected from you in the first place. Best, Brad -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Jack Unger Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2007 1:33 AM To: WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz Brad, I think you may be misquoting or misunderstanding me. No good can come from that. Real questions need to be asked and need to be correctly answered before we risk our reputation by filing comments with the FCC that are technically incomplete or technically incorrect. Here's a repost of my original post. ** Begin Original Post * It would be good to know the minimum required dish size now and the changes that FiberTower is proposing before deciding what to do or say. I'm not sure this dish-size issue would impact any WISPs so we may want to ask ourselves if there are more important issues that we need to be focusing on, given the limited time and resources that we have. I think this is an issue that the licensed microwave vendors will probably deal with adequately, without harming our interests. When we decide to purchase a licensed 11 GHz link, we'd be buying it from them anyway. Finally, WISPA doesn't have an engineering staff that can adequately analyze the technical implications and prepare an informed technical response to submit to the FCC. End Original Post * NOWHERE did I say that the licensed frequency bands are not important to WISPS. Licensed backhauls are very important to WISPs. WISPs SHOULD use licensed backhauls wherever interference levels are high, where reliability is crucial, where throughput needs are high, and/or where full duplex links are needed. NOWHERE did I say that the focus of the group should be limited to unlicensed frequencies only. TO BE CRYSTAL CLEAR, I will restate each original paragraph and I will list the questions that each paragraph is implicitly asking. *** PARAGRAPH 1 - It would be good to know the minimum required dish size now and the changes that FiberTower is proposing before deciding what to do or say. In other words, we need to know the minimum dish size now and we need to know what dish sizes FiberTower is proposing before we can begin to understand if there is any affect on us and before we can formulate our position. QUESTION: SO WHAT ARE THOSE DISH SIZES NOW, BEFORE A RULES CHANGE AND AFTER THE PROPOSED RULES CHANGE? QUESTION: WHAT'S THE TRUE IMPACT, IF ANY, ON US IF THE FCC ALLOWS SMALLER DISH SIZES TO BE USED? QUESTION: ONCE WE UNDERSTAND THE TRUE IMPACT, IF ANY, WHAT POSITION SHOULD WE TAKE BEFORE THE FCC
RE: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz
Hello Marlon, Sure, low power levels may work for those that adhere to the rules. Unfortunately I don't believe this rule change request mentions lowering power levels for smaller antennas. I do believe the band that is best suited for the application should be used and not open up all bands for every application. I can only imagine what a mess that would make of the airwaves. Yes, I agree emissions do not stop at each side of the link and continue beyond, but I'd rather deal with a direct inline issue than one that is several degrees off axis and shouldn't be there in the first place. Again, the point I trying to make is use the correct tool for the job. 11GHz is not the correct tool for a 100' link. Just because you can turn a bolt with a pair of vise grips doesn't mean you are using the right tool for the job. Best, Brad -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Marlon K. Schafer Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2007 10:57 PM To: WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz And exactly HOW do you suppose that a very low power link will somehow screw up the band? Using higher power kills off everything on BOTH ends of the link. The signal doesn't just stop, it continues on past the rec. antenna. Your argument make no sense to me. Not from a frequency reuse standpoint. Also, what should we be pushing? MAXIMUM utilization for all bands. The rules for 11 gig and 6 gig cut down on the utilization and therefore waste a natural resource. I live on the farm. We use every drop of farmable ground. We plant the crops that grow the best out here and are always looking for new ones. Should be the same for wireless spectrum. Use up every drop. THEN, IF there's a problem, figure out how to deal with it. marlon - Original Message - From: Brad Belton [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: 'WISPA General List' wireless@wispa.org Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2007 10:00 AM Subject: RE: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz Marlon, 11GHz is intended for medium to long range links. That is why they require a relatively larger antenna to keep the beam narrow to increase the freq reuse ability. 6GHz requires a 6' minimum antenna and this is a GOOD thing otherwise there would be fewer 6GHz licenses available in any given geographic area. If you have a 100' link then by all means use an 80-90GHz licensed link or even sub-lease a 38GHz license. Or use FOS or 60GHz or 24GHz for 100' links, but 11GHz for a 100' shot is a waste and not a good use of the band. Opening 11GHz to smaller dishes means more chance the band will be used up by short links that could have been achieved with the same (or even better) results by using a higher freq band. Best, Brad -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Marlon K. Schafer (509) 982-2181 Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2007 11:44 AM To: WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz I TOTALLY disagree with that. On two fronts. First, what's wrong with a short licensed link? If that's what I want to use that's up to me. Maybe I want to put a link that requires 100% uptime guarantee and has to be licensed but only has to cross the train tracks. Ever try to push a cable across the tracks or freeway? It'll make Jack's $30,000 link look cheap! Second, how would use of smaller antennas screw anything up? I've been blown offline from interference that came from 30 MILES away. It was only an 11 mile link. They had 6' dishes an had the power cranked all the way up. I think I figured it at a 60 dB fade margin. And there was nothing in the rules that said they couldn't do that! Luckily they turned the power way down and my problem went away. With an ATPC requirement that never would have happened. Just because they mandate antenna sizes in no way means that it's the only, or today, even the best way to maximize frequency reuse. laters, Marlon (509) 982-2181 (408) 907-6910 (Vonage)Consulting services 42846865 (icq)WISP Operator since 1999! [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.odessaoffice.com/wireless www.odessaoffice.com/marlon/cam - Original Message - From: Brad Belton [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: 'WISPA General List' wireless@wispa.org Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2007 6:08 AM Subject: RE: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz I don't think you would select 11GHz to go 100'. That's the whole point...let's hope FCC doesn't screw up 11GHz by allowing it's use for short haul applications. Best, Brad -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Marlon K. Schafer Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2007 1:07 AM To: WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz All due respect right back at ya! grin Anyhow
Re: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz
Marlon, Just for info... see inline... Marlon K. Schafer wrote: All due respect right back at ya! grin Anyhow, to think that manufacturers all have our best interests at heart is a bit naive I think. What's better for them? A 4' dish sale or a cheap and easy 2' or 1' dish? DISH SIZE - Licensed microwave links are engineered with the proper antenna to deliver the proper amount of fade margin to achieve your desired reliability (for example, 99.9%, 99.99%, 99.995%, 99.999%) over the actual path in the actual rain zone that the link will be operating in. The engineering is all cut and dried. You know before you purchase the system what dish size you need to achieve the reliability that you want. You also know the dish hardware cost, the dish mounting cost, and the largest size dish that the tower can handle at the specific height that the terrain and link distance determine is needed. If the cost is too high (or the tower too small) you can choose to go with a smaller antenna and have less reliability. I'm not willing to get into technical arguments about this issue. The fact is, each link is different. Each tower is different. It should be left up to the local operator to figure out what's best. ESPECIALLY in a licensed band. If they get interference, they can fix it. If they cause interference they have to fix it. INTERFERENCE - Interference is not left up to the local operator. Interference is avoiding by the the company that handles the link licensing, not by the WISP operator. A licensing company will do a proper frequency search and select a frequency that will not cause interference or be interfered with. Freedom from interference is the basic reason for selecting (and paying for) a licensed link. I just don't like the idea of micro managing the pro's in our industry. Keep the interference issues dealt with but let folks use the latest and greatest technologies available to them. MICROMANAGING THE PROS - Nobody in their right mind would micromanage a licensed link design engineer and everybody wants to use the best technology that they can afford. If I want to build a link across the train tracks, 100', there's NO reason for a large dish. Small dishes with lower power radios will do the trick nicely. And if we mandate atpc we can get away with 3 to 5 (or some other such really small number) fade margins too. No need for the typical microwave 30 dB fade margins. SHORT LINKS AND ATPC - Once again, nobody would advocate using a large antenna on a short link because a small antenna that provides the desired reliability will cost a lot less than a large antenna. We're not the experts when it comes to mandating ATPC. How do we know; perhaps ATPC is already in use? If it's not, we're not the fade margin experts who can state unequivocally that ATPC is needed. If ATPC is not in use, what are the costs to redesign a $30,000 licensed microwave link to add ATPC? I'd suggest leaving the issue of ATPC to the experienced microwave equipment design engineers who do this for a living every day. The problem with trying to engineer everything is that the real world often doesn't give a rats behind what the engineers say. I've spend my adult life (such as it is) finding ways to make what works on paper really work in the field. ENGINEERING EVERYTHING - Engineering a real-world microwave link is a science that is at least 60 years old. When you spend $30,000 in hardware costs plus $10,000 in equipment mounting costs for a licensed microwave link, believe me - you want it fully engineered so it will deliver the reliability that you need. An experienced microwave engineer can design a microwave link with whatever reliability you want. That's a lot different than you or me finding a way to make it work. Making it work is nowhere near the same thing as engineering a wireless link to deliver 99,999 out of 100,000 packets error-free 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. If we're going to be going on record with the FCC, we need to be going on record with actual, factual engineering knowledge. IMHO, making it work is just not good enough. jack We need the paper, to be sure. But we also need the flexibility to do what's expedient in the field. marlon - Original Message - From: Jack Unger [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: WISPA General List wireless@wispa.org Sent: Monday, March 26, 2007 10:26 PM Subject: Re: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz Marlon, With all due respect... We need solid engineering arguements if we're going to present an official WISPA position to the FCC. If we submit comments based on faulty engineering then it will be obvious to the FCC (the FCC has real engineers on staff) that we don't know what we're talking about. We will lose our hard-earned credibility with the FCC. What's the benefit of losing our credibility? No one here needs to be reminded that we're here to serve
RE: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz
I don't think you would select 11GHz to go 100'. That's the whole point...let's hope FCC doesn't screw up 11GHz by allowing it's use for short haul applications. Best, Brad -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Marlon K. Schafer Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2007 1:07 AM To: WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz All due respect right back at ya! grin Anyhow, to think that manufacturers all have our best interests at heart is a bit naive I think. What's better for them? A 4' dish sale or a cheap and easy 2' or 1' dish? I'm not willing to get into technical arguments about this issue. The fact is, each link is different. Each tower is different. It should be left up to the local operator to figure out what's best. ESPECIALLY in a licensed band. If they get interference, they can fix it. If they cause interference they have to fix it. I just don't like the idea of micro managing the pro's in our industry. Keep the interference issues dealt with but let folks use the latest and greatest technologies available to them. If I want to build a link across the train tracks, 100', there's NO reason for a large dish. Small dishes with lower power radios will do the trick nicely. And if we mandate atpc we can get away with 3 to 5 (or some other such really small number) fade margins too. No need for the typical microwave 30 dB fade margins. The problem with trying to engineer everything is that the real world often doesn't give a rats behind what the engineers say. I've spend my adult life (such as it is) finding ways to make what works on paper really work in the field. We need the paper, to be sure. But we also need the flexibility to do what's expedient in the field. marlon - Original Message - From: Jack Unger [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: WISPA General List wireless@wispa.org Sent: Monday, March 26, 2007 10:26 PM Subject: Re: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz Marlon, With all due respect... We need solid engineering arguements if we're going to present an official WISPA position to the FCC. If we submit comments based on faulty engineering then it will be obvious to the FCC (the FCC has real engineers on staff) that we don't know what we're talking about. We will lose our hard-earned credibility with the FCC. What's the benefit of losing our credibility? No one here needs to be reminded that we're here to serve the interests of the WISP community. We all know that. A few of us have been in this industry since 1993. Some of us first offered WISP service in 1995. Some of us having been unselfishly serving the needs of the WISP community since 1995. The manufacturers are the ones that we are going to be buying our licensed 11 GHz equipment from. Why would their interest in 11 GHz dish size be any different from our interest? Wouldn't it be in their interest to make the best equipment to serve us? If allowing smaller dishes on 11 GHz was bad and if it would lead to fewer licensed links being deployable then wouldn't the equipment manufacturers oppose the proposed changes? Again, with all due respect... I really don't understand what you are trying to say in your post. Can you please state your points more clearly - for everyone's benefit? By the way, thank you for all the energy and the effort that you have put into improving the WISP community since 1999. jack Marlon K. Schafer wrote: Jack, With all due respect We don't need engineers to know what we'd like the rules to be like! WISPA is here to serve the interests of the wisp community. The manufacturers can look after themselves. marlon - Original Message - From: Jack Unger [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: WISPA General List wireless@wispa.org Sent: Saturday, March 24, 2007 10:22 AM Subject: Re: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz Dylan, It would be good to know the minimum required dish size now and the changes that FiberTower is proposing before deciding what to do or say. I'm not sure this dish-size issue would impact any WISPs so we may want to ask ourselves if there are more important issues that we need to be focusing on, given the limited time and resources that we have. I think this is an issue that the licensed microwave vendors will probably deal with adequately, without harming our interests. When we decide to purchase a licensed 11 GHz link, we'd be buying it from them anyway. Finally, WISPA dosn't have an engineering staff that can adequately analyze the technical implications and prepare an informed technical responese to submit to the FCC. jack Dylan Oliver wrote: I recall some past discussion bemoaning the large dish sizes required for licensed links .. I just found this in the latest Rural Spectrum Scanner from Bennett Law (http://www.bennetlaw.com
RE: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz
Hello Jack, Good to see you're back on track with, IMO, a proper response to the 11GHz question/concerns. Your initial comment came off as who cares and we don't have time for this. John simply dittoed your comments, so what was the group left to believe? I apologize if I misunderstood your intent. Your questions/response below illustrate the type of post I would have expected from you in the first place. Best, Brad -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Jack Unger Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2007 1:33 AM To: WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz Brad, I think you may be misquoting or misunderstanding me. No good can come from that. Real questions need to be asked and need to be correctly answered before we risk our reputation by filing comments with the FCC that are technically incomplete or technically incorrect. Here's a repost of my original post. ** Begin Original Post * It would be good to know the minimum required dish size now and the changes that FiberTower is proposing before deciding what to do or say. I'm not sure this dish-size issue would impact any WISPs so we may want to ask ourselves if there are more important issues that we need to be focusing on, given the limited time and resources that we have. I think this is an issue that the licensed microwave vendors will probably deal with adequately, without harming our interests. When we decide to purchase a licensed 11 GHz link, we'd be buying it from them anyway. Finally, WISPA doesn't have an engineering staff that can adequately analyze the technical implications and prepare an informed technical response to submit to the FCC. End Original Post * NOWHERE did I say that the licensed frequency bands are not important to WISPS. Licensed backhauls are very important to WISPs. WISPs SHOULD use licensed backhauls wherever interference levels are high, where reliability is crucial, where throughput needs are high, and/or where full duplex links are needed. NOWHERE did I say that the focus of the group should be limited to unlicensed frequencies only. TO BE CRYSTAL CLEAR, I will restate each original paragraph and I will list the questions that each paragraph is implicitly asking. *** PARAGRAPH 1 - It would be good to know the minimum required dish size now and the changes that FiberTower is proposing before deciding what to do or say. In other words, we need to know the minimum dish size now and we need to know what dish sizes FiberTower is proposing before we can begin to understand if there is any affect on us and before we can formulate our position. QUESTION: SO WHAT ARE THOSE DISH SIZES NOW, BEFORE A RULES CHANGE AND AFTER THE PROPOSED RULES CHANGE? QUESTION: WHAT'S THE TRUE IMPACT, IF ANY, ON US IF THE FCC ALLOWS SMALLER DISH SIZES TO BE USED? QUESTION: ONCE WE UNDERSTAND THE TRUE IMPACT, IF ANY, WHAT POSITION SHOULD WE TAKE BEFORE THE FCC? ** PARAGRAPH 2 - I'm not sure this dish-size issue would impact any WISPs so we may want to ask ourselves if there are more important issues that we need to be focusing on, given the limited time and resources that we have. QUESTION: DOES A REDUCTION IN DISH SIZE REALLY AFFECT US? QUESTION: HOW DOES IT REALLY AFFECT US? ARE 11 GHz FREQUENCIES CURRENTLY IN SHORT SUPPLY IN THE AREAS WHERE MOST WISPs OPERATE? QUESTION: HAS ANY WISP EVER BEEN DENIED A LICENSE FOR AN 11 GHz FREQUENCY? IF SO, WHERE? HOW OFTEN HAS THIS HAPPENED? QUESTION: ARE THERE MORE IMPORTANT ISSUES BEFORE THE FCC THAT WE NEED TO DEVOTE OUR TIME AND ENERGY TO? WHAT ARE THOSE ISSUES? WHITE SPACE? WISPS AS AN INFORMATION SERVICE? FCC's BROADBAND SERVICES SURVEY? CALEA? OTHERS?? * PARAGRAPH 3 - I think this is an issue that the licensed microwave vendors will probably deal with adequately, without harming our interests. When we decide to purchase a licensed 11 GHz link, we'd be buying it from them anyway. QUESTION - IF ALLOWING SMALLER DISH SIZES WAS GOING TO CREATE INTERFERENCE PROBLEMS WOULDN'T THE COMPANIES THAT MAKE 11 GHz EQUIPMENT BE AGAINST THE PROPOSED CHANGES BECAUSE THAT WOULD RESULT IN THEM SELLING FEWER LICENSED 11 GHz LINKS AND HAVING HIGHER CUSTOMER SUPPORT COSTS? *** PARAGRAPH 4 - Finally, WISPA doesn't have an engineering staff that can adequately analyze the technical implications and prepare an informed technical response to submit to the FCC. QUESTION - DO WE HAVE THE ENGINEERING KNOWLEDGE TO REALLY KNOW WHAT THE TRUE EFFECTS OF ALLOWING SMALLER
Re: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz
The FCC already permits two classes of licensed antennas in Part 101.115: Standard A and Standard B. Antennas meeting performance standard A must be used except in areas not subject to frequency congestion (however that is defined). If Standard B antennas are used, the operator must replace them with Standard A antennas if the Standard B antenna would interfere with a new application using Standard A antennas: (c) The Commission shall require the replacement of any antenna or periscope antenna system of a permanent fixed station operating at 932.5 MHz or higher that does not meet performance Standard A specified in paragraph (c) of this section, at the expense of the licensee operating such antenna, upon a showing that said antenna causes or is likely to cause interference to (or receive interference from) any other authorized or applied for station whereas a higher performance antenna is not likely to involve such interference. I don't see why the same process shouldn't be used with a new Standard C for 2' dishes. Best, -- Dylan Oliver Primaverity, LLC -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
Re: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz
- Original Message - From: Jack Unger [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: WISPA General List wireless@wispa.org Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2007 12:23 AM Subject: Re: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz Marlon, Just for info... see inline... Marlon K. Schafer wrote: All due respect right back at ya! grin Anyhow, to think that manufacturers all have our best interests at heart is a bit naive I think. What's better for them? A 4' dish sale or a cheap and easy 2' or 1' dish? DISH SIZE - Licensed microwave links are engineered with the proper antenna to deliver the proper amount of fade margin to achieve your desired reliability (for example, 99.9%, 99.99%, 99.995%, 99.999%) over the actual path in the actual rain zone that the link will be operating in. The engineering is all cut and dried. You know before you purchase the system what dish size you need to achieve the reliability that you want. You also know the dish hardware cost, the dish mounting cost, and the largest size dish that the tower can handle at the specific height that the terrain and link distance determine is needed. If the cost is too high (or the tower too small) you can choose to go with a smaller antenna and have less reliability. And with minimum sizes in the regs you may often HAVE to use a much LARGER dish than was needed. ATPC would allow much higher reliability numbers with LESS likelyhood of interference to others on the other end of the path I'm not willing to get into technical arguments about this issue. The fact is, each link is different. Each tower is different. It should be left up to the local operator to figure out what's best. ESPECIALLY in a licensed band. If they get interference, they can fix it. If they cause interference they have to fix it. INTERFERENCE - Interference is not left up to the local operator. Interference is avoiding by the the company that handles the link licensing, not by the WISP operator. A licensing company will do a proper frequency search and select a frequency that will not cause interference or be interfered with. Freedom from interference is the basic reason for selecting (and paying for) a licensed link. Right. And lower power levels help with interference issues as much, sometimes more than, as tighter antenna beams. I just don't like the idea of micro managing the pro's in our industry. Keep the interference issues dealt with but let folks use the latest and greatest technologies available to them. MICROMANAGING THE PROS - Nobody in their right mind would micromanage a licensed link design engineer and everybody wants to use the best technology that they can afford. I disagree with that in this case Jack. The rules, as they are written dictate the antenna sizes regulatorily not technically. To me, that's micromanaging. Why should anyone have to use a 4' dish to do a link of a few blocks? If I want to build a link across the train tracks, 100', there's NO reason for a large dish. Small dishes with lower power radios will do the trick nicely. And if we mandate atpc we can get away with 3 to 5 (or some other such really small number) fade margins too. No need for the typical microwave 30 dB fade margins. SHORT LINKS AND ATPC - Once again, nobody would advocate using a large antenna on a short link because a small antenna that provides the desired reliability will cost a lot less than a large antenna. We're not the experts when it comes to mandating ATPC. How do we know; perhaps ATPC is already in use? If it's not, we're not the fade margin experts who can state unequivocally that ATPC is needed. If ATPC is not in use, what are the costs to redesign a $30,000 licensed microwave link to add ATPC? I'd suggest leaving the issue of ATPC to the experienced microwave equipment design engineers who do this for a living every day. That's my point Jack. This issue is about removing the mandatory antenna size. OR at least allowing smaller ones. What you are complaining about my claim is what IS in the CURRENT rules. grin The problem with trying to engineer everything is that the real world often doesn't give a rats behind what the engineers say. I've spend my adult life (such as it is) finding ways to make what works on paper really work in the field. ENGINEERING EVERYTHING - Engineering a real-world microwave link is a science that is at least 60 years old. When you spend $30,000 in hardware costs plus $10,000 in equipment mounting costs for a licensed microwave link, believe me - you want it fully engineered so it will deliver the reliability that you need. An experienced microwave engineer can design a microwave link with whatever reliability you want. That's a lot different than you or me finding a way to make it work. Making it work is nowhere near the same thing as engineering a wireless link to deliver 99,999 out of 100,000 packets error-free 24
Re: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz
I TOTALLY disagree with that. On two fronts. First, what's wrong with a short licensed link? If that's what I want to use that's up to me. Maybe I want to put a link that requires 100% uptime guarantee and has to be licensed but only has to cross the train tracks. Ever try to push a cable across the tracks or freeway? It'll make Jack's $30,000 link look cheap! Second, how would use of smaller antennas screw anything up? I've been blown offline from interference that came from 30 MILES away. It was only an 11 mile link. They had 6' dishes an had the power cranked all the way up. I think I figured it at a 60 dB fade margin. And there was nothing in the rules that said they couldn't do that! Luckily they turned the power way down and my problem went away. With an ATPC requirement that never would have happened. Just because they mandate antenna sizes in no way means that it's the only, or today, even the best way to maximize frequency reuse. laters, Marlon (509) 982-2181 (408) 907-6910 (Vonage)Consulting services 42846865 (icq)WISP Operator since 1999! [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.odessaoffice.com/wireless www.odessaoffice.com/marlon/cam - Original Message - From: Brad Belton [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: 'WISPA General List' wireless@wispa.org Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2007 6:08 AM Subject: RE: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz I don't think you would select 11GHz to go 100'. That's the whole point...let's hope FCC doesn't screw up 11GHz by allowing it's use for short haul applications. Best, Brad -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Marlon K. Schafer Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2007 1:07 AM To: WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz All due respect right back at ya! grin Anyhow, to think that manufacturers all have our best interests at heart is a bit naive I think. What's better for them? A 4' dish sale or a cheap and easy 2' or 1' dish? I'm not willing to get into technical arguments about this issue. The fact is, each link is different. Each tower is different. It should be left up to the local operator to figure out what's best. ESPECIALLY in a licensed band. If they get interference, they can fix it. If they cause interference they have to fix it. I just don't like the idea of micro managing the pro's in our industry. Keep the interference issues dealt with but let folks use the latest and greatest technologies available to them. If I want to build a link across the train tracks, 100', there's NO reason for a large dish. Small dishes with lower power radios will do the trick nicely. And if we mandate atpc we can get away with 3 to 5 (or some other such really small number) fade margins too. No need for the typical microwave 30 dB fade margins. The problem with trying to engineer everything is that the real world often doesn't give a rats behind what the engineers say. I've spend my adult life (such as it is) finding ways to make what works on paper really work in the field. We need the paper, to be sure. But we also need the flexibility to do what's expedient in the field. marlon - Original Message - From: Jack Unger [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: WISPA General List wireless@wispa.org Sent: Monday, March 26, 2007 10:26 PM Subject: Re: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz Marlon, With all due respect... We need solid engineering arguements if we're going to present an official WISPA position to the FCC. If we submit comments based on faulty engineering then it will be obvious to the FCC (the FCC has real engineers on staff) that we don't know what we're talking about. We will lose our hard-earned credibility with the FCC. What's the benefit of losing our credibility? No one here needs to be reminded that we're here to serve the interests of the WISP community. We all know that. A few of us have been in this industry since 1993. Some of us first offered WISP service in 1995. Some of us having been unselfishly serving the needs of the WISP community since 1995. The manufacturers are the ones that we are going to be buying our licensed 11 GHz equipment from. Why would their interest in 11 GHz dish size be any different from our interest? Wouldn't it be in their interest to make the best equipment to serve us? If allowing smaller dishes on 11 GHz was bad and if it would lead to fewer licensed links being deployable then wouldn't the equipment manufacturers oppose the proposed changes? Again, with all due respect... I really don't understand what you are trying to say in your post. Can you please state your points more clearly - for everyone's benefit? By the way, thank you for all the energy and the effort that you have put into improving the WISP community since 1999. jack Marlon K. Schafer wrote: Jack, With all due respect We
RE: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz
Marlon, 11GHz is intended for medium to long range links. That is why they require a relatively larger antenna to keep the beam narrow to increase the freq reuse ability. 6GHz requires a 6' minimum antenna and this is a GOOD thing otherwise there would be fewer 6GHz licenses available in any given geographic area. If you have a 100' link then by all means use an 80-90GHz licensed link or even sub-lease a 38GHz license. Or use FOS or 60GHz or 24GHz for 100' links, but 11GHz for a 100' shot is a waste and not a good use of the band. Opening 11GHz to smaller dishes means more chance the band will be used up by short links that could have been achieved with the same (or even better) results by using a higher freq band. Best, Brad -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Marlon K. Schafer (509) 982-2181 Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2007 11:44 AM To: WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz I TOTALLY disagree with that. On two fronts. First, what's wrong with a short licensed link? If that's what I want to use that's up to me. Maybe I want to put a link that requires 100% uptime guarantee and has to be licensed but only has to cross the train tracks. Ever try to push a cable across the tracks or freeway? It'll make Jack's $30,000 link look cheap! Second, how would use of smaller antennas screw anything up? I've been blown offline from interference that came from 30 MILES away. It was only an 11 mile link. They had 6' dishes an had the power cranked all the way up. I think I figured it at a 60 dB fade margin. And there was nothing in the rules that said they couldn't do that! Luckily they turned the power way down and my problem went away. With an ATPC requirement that never would have happened. Just because they mandate antenna sizes in no way means that it's the only, or today, even the best way to maximize frequency reuse. laters, Marlon (509) 982-2181 (408) 907-6910 (Vonage)Consulting services 42846865 (icq)WISP Operator since 1999! [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.odessaoffice.com/wireless www.odessaoffice.com/marlon/cam - Original Message - From: Brad Belton [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: 'WISPA General List' wireless@wispa.org Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2007 6:08 AM Subject: RE: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz I don't think you would select 11GHz to go 100'. That's the whole point...let's hope FCC doesn't screw up 11GHz by allowing it's use for short haul applications. Best, Brad -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Marlon K. Schafer Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2007 1:07 AM To: WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz All due respect right back at ya! grin Anyhow, to think that manufacturers all have our best interests at heart is a bit naive I think. What's better for them? A 4' dish sale or a cheap and easy 2' or 1' dish? I'm not willing to get into technical arguments about this issue. The fact is, each link is different. Each tower is different. It should be left up to the local operator to figure out what's best. ESPECIALLY in a licensed band. If they get interference, they can fix it. If they cause interference they have to fix it. I just don't like the idea of micro managing the pro's in our industry. Keep the interference issues dealt with but let folks use the latest and greatest technologies available to them. If I want to build a link across the train tracks, 100', there's NO reason for a large dish. Small dishes with lower power radios will do the trick nicely. And if we mandate atpc we can get away with 3 to 5 (or some other such really small number) fade margins too. No need for the typical microwave 30 dB fade margins. The problem with trying to engineer everything is that the real world often doesn't give a rats behind what the engineers say. I've spend my adult life (such as it is) finding ways to make what works on paper really work in the field. We need the paper, to be sure. But we also need the flexibility to do what's expedient in the field. marlon - Original Message - From: Jack Unger [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: WISPA General List wireless@wispa.org Sent: Monday, March 26, 2007 10:26 PM Subject: Re: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz Marlon, With all due respect... We need solid engineering arguements if we're going to present an official WISPA position to the FCC. If we submit comments based on faulty engineering then it will be obvious to the FCC (the FCC has real engineers on staff) that we don't know what we're talking about. We will lose our hard-earned credibility with the FCC. What's the benefit of losing our credibility? No one here needs to be reminded that we're here to serve the interests
Re: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz
Marlon, I think you misunderstood Brad's comment. Nowhere does he say not to use a short licensed link. I think his point is that using 11 GHz for a 100-ft link is inappropriate. A higher frequency, like 23 GHz is the proper way to go because lower frequencies go further than higher frequencies therefore using a higher frequency for a short licensed link is more appropriate because it would reduce the possibility of causing interference to someone further away. It's a simple concept. Please give me a phone call when you have a few minutes today. I need to talk with you. Thanks, jack Marlon K. Schafer (509) 982-2181 wrote: I TOTALLY disagree with that. On two fronts. First, what's wrong with a short licensed link? If that's what I want to use that's up to me. Maybe I want to put a link that requires 100% uptime guarantee and has to be licensed but only has to cross the train tracks. Ever try to push a cable across the tracks or freeway? It'll make Jack's $30,000 link look cheap! Second, how would use of smaller antennas screw anything up? I've been blown offline from interference that came from 30 MILES away. It was only an 11 mile link. They had 6' dishes an had the power cranked all the way up. I think I figured it at a 60 dB fade margin. And there was nothing in the rules that said they couldn't do that! Luckily they turned the power way down and my problem went away. With an ATPC requirement that never would have happened. Just because they mandate antenna sizes in no way means that it's the only, or today, even the best way to maximize frequency reuse. laters, Marlon (509) 982-2181 (408) 907-6910 (Vonage)Consulting services 42846865 (icq)WISP Operator since 1999! [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.odessaoffice.com/wireless www.odessaoffice.com/marlon/cam - Original Message - From: Brad Belton [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: 'WISPA General List' wireless@wispa.org Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2007 6:08 AM Subject: RE: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz I don't think you would select 11GHz to go 100'. That's the whole point...let's hope FCC doesn't screw up 11GHz by allowing it's use for short haul applications. Best, Brad -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Marlon K. Schafer Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2007 1:07 AM To: WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz All due respect right back at ya! grin Anyhow, to think that manufacturers all have our best interests at heart is a bit naive I think. What's better for them? A 4' dish sale or a cheap and easy 2' or 1' dish? I'm not willing to get into technical arguments about this issue. The fact is, each link is different. Each tower is different. It should be left up to the local operator to figure out what's best. ESPECIALLY in a licensed band. If they get interference, they can fix it. If they cause interference they have to fix it. I just don't like the idea of micro managing the pro's in our industry. Keep the interference issues dealt with but let folks use the latest and greatest technologies available to them. If I want to build a link across the train tracks, 100', there's NO reason for a large dish. Small dishes with lower power radios will do the trick nicely. And if we mandate atpc we can get away with 3 to 5 (or some other such really small number) fade margins too. No need for the typical microwave 30 dB fade margins. The problem with trying to engineer everything is that the real world often doesn't give a rats behind what the engineers say. I've spend my adult life (such as it is) finding ways to make what works on paper really work in the field. We need the paper, to be sure. But we also need the flexibility to do what's expedient in the field. marlon - Original Message - From: Jack Unger [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: WISPA General List wireless@wispa.org Sent: Monday, March 26, 2007 10:26 PM Subject: Re: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz Marlon, With all due respect... We need solid engineering arguements if we're going to present an official WISPA position to the FCC. If we submit comments based on faulty engineering then it will be obvious to the FCC (the FCC has real engineers on staff) that we don't know what we're talking about. We will lose our hard-earned credibility with the FCC. What's the benefit of losing our credibility? No one here needs to be reminded that we're here to serve the interests of the WISP community. We all know that. A few of us have been in this industry since 1993. Some of us first offered WISP service in 1995. Some of us having been unselfishly serving the needs of the WISP community since 1995. The manufacturers are the ones that we are going to be buying our licensed 11 GHz equipment from. Why would their interest in 11 GHz
Re: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz
Brad, I see how my original comment could have been misinterpreted. There was an element of I don't have time for this. Now that I've taken the time (that I didn't have) and (hopefully) asked the right questions, I think it's time for others to follow up if they feel it's an important issue. Personally, I'm not worried at this point about allowing smaller 11 GHz antennas. I don't think it's going to cause us any problems with frequency availability. I think 11 GHz frequencies will be available when they are needed. FiberTower's investors include American Tower, Crown Castle and SpectraSite. I can't believe that those companies would want to do anything to screw up either the availability of frequencies or the sale of vertical real estate on their tower properties. Have a good day, jack Brad Belton wrote: Hello Jack, Good to see you're back on track with, IMO, a proper response to the 11GHz question/concerns. Your initial comment came off as who cares and we don't have time for this. John simply dittoed your comments, so what was the group left to believe? I apologize if I misunderstood your intent. Your questions/response below illustrate the type of post I would have expected from you in the first place. Best, Brad -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Jack Unger Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2007 1:33 AM To: WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz Brad, I think you may be misquoting or misunderstanding me. No good can come from that. Real questions need to be asked and need to be correctly answered before we risk our reputation by filing comments with the FCC that are technically incomplete or technically incorrect. Here's a repost of my original post. ** Begin Original Post * It would be good to know the minimum required dish size now and the changes that FiberTower is proposing before deciding what to do or say. I'm not sure this dish-size issue would impact any WISPs so we may want to ask ourselves if there are more important issues that we need to be focusing on, given the limited time and resources that we have. I think this is an issue that the licensed microwave vendors will probably deal with adequately, without harming our interests. When we decide to purchase a licensed 11 GHz link, we'd be buying it from them anyway. Finally, WISPA doesn't have an engineering staff that can adequately analyze the technical implications and prepare an informed technical response to submit to the FCC. End Original Post * NOWHERE did I say that the licensed frequency bands are not important to WISPS. Licensed backhauls are very important to WISPs. WISPs SHOULD use licensed backhauls wherever interference levels are high, where reliability is crucial, where throughput needs are high, and/or where full duplex links are needed. NOWHERE did I say that the focus of the group should be limited to unlicensed frequencies only. TO BE CRYSTAL CLEAR, I will restate each original paragraph and I will list the questions that each paragraph is implicitly asking. *** PARAGRAPH 1 - It would be good to know the minimum required dish size now and the changes that FiberTower is proposing before deciding what to do or say. In other words, we need to know the minimum dish size now and we need to know what dish sizes FiberTower is proposing before we can begin to understand if there is any affect on us and before we can formulate our position. QUESTION: SO WHAT ARE THOSE DISH SIZES NOW, BEFORE A RULES CHANGE AND AFTER THE PROPOSED RULES CHANGE? QUESTION: WHAT'S THE TRUE IMPACT, IF ANY, ON US IF THE FCC ALLOWS SMALLER DISH SIZES TO BE USED? QUESTION: ONCE WE UNDERSTAND THE TRUE IMPACT, IF ANY, WHAT POSITION SHOULD WE TAKE BEFORE THE FCC? ** PARAGRAPH 2 - I'm not sure this dish-size issue would impact any WISPs so we may want to ask ourselves if there are more important issues that we need to be focusing on, given the limited time and resources that we have. QUESTION: DOES A REDUCTION IN DISH SIZE REALLY AFFECT US? QUESTION: HOW DOES IT REALLY AFFECT US? ARE 11 GHz FREQUENCIES CURRENTLY IN SHORT SUPPLY IN THE AREAS WHERE MOST WISPs OPERATE? QUESTION: HAS ANY WISP EVER BEEN DENIED A LICENSE FOR AN 11 GHz FREQUENCY? IF SO, WHERE? HOW OFTEN HAS THIS HAPPENED? QUESTION: ARE THERE MORE IMPORTANT ISSUES BEFORE THE FCC THAT WE NEED TO DEVOTE OUR TIME AND ENERGY TO? WHAT ARE THOSE ISSUES? WHITE SPACE? WISPS AS AN INFORMATION SERVICE? FCC's BROADBAND SERVICES SURVEY? CALEA? OTHERS?? * PARAGRAPH 3 - I think
Re: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz
And exactly HOW do you suppose that a very low power link will somehow screw up the band? Using higher power kills off everything on BOTH ends of the link. The signal doesn't just stop, it continues on past the rec. antenna. Your argument make no sense to me. Not from a frequency reuse standpoint. Also, what should we be pushing? MAXIMUM utilization for all bands. The rules for 11 gig and 6 gig cut down on the utilization and therefore waste a natural resource. I live on the farm. We use every drop of farmable ground. We plant the crops that grow the best out here and are always looking for new ones. Should be the same for wireless spectrum. Use up every drop. THEN, IF there's a problem, figure out how to deal with it. marlon - Original Message - From: Brad Belton [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: 'WISPA General List' wireless@wispa.org Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2007 10:00 AM Subject: RE: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz Marlon, 11GHz is intended for medium to long range links. That is why they require a relatively larger antenna to keep the beam narrow to increase the freq reuse ability. 6GHz requires a 6' minimum antenna and this is a GOOD thing otherwise there would be fewer 6GHz licenses available in any given geographic area. If you have a 100' link then by all means use an 80-90GHz licensed link or even sub-lease a 38GHz license. Or use FOS or 60GHz or 24GHz for 100' links, but 11GHz for a 100' shot is a waste and not a good use of the band. Opening 11GHz to smaller dishes means more chance the band will be used up by short links that could have been achieved with the same (or even better) results by using a higher freq band. Best, Brad -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Marlon K. Schafer (509) 982-2181 Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2007 11:44 AM To: WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz I TOTALLY disagree with that. On two fronts. First, what's wrong with a short licensed link? If that's what I want to use that's up to me. Maybe I want to put a link that requires 100% uptime guarantee and has to be licensed but only has to cross the train tracks. Ever try to push a cable across the tracks or freeway? It'll make Jack's $30,000 link look cheap! Second, how would use of smaller antennas screw anything up? I've been blown offline from interference that came from 30 MILES away. It was only an 11 mile link. They had 6' dishes an had the power cranked all the way up. I think I figured it at a 60 dB fade margin. And there was nothing in the rules that said they couldn't do that! Luckily they turned the power way down and my problem went away. With an ATPC requirement that never would have happened. Just because they mandate antenna sizes in no way means that it's the only, or today, even the best way to maximize frequency reuse. laters, Marlon (509) 982-2181 (408) 907-6910 (Vonage)Consulting services 42846865 (icq)WISP Operator since 1999! [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.odessaoffice.com/wireless www.odessaoffice.com/marlon/cam - Original Message - From: Brad Belton [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: 'WISPA General List' wireless@wispa.org Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2007 6:08 AM Subject: RE: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz I don't think you would select 11GHz to go 100'. That's the whole point...let's hope FCC doesn't screw up 11GHz by allowing it's use for short haul applications. Best, Brad -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Marlon K. Schafer Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2007 1:07 AM To: WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz All due respect right back at ya! grin Anyhow, to think that manufacturers all have our best interests at heart is a bit naive I think. What's better for them? A 4' dish sale or a cheap and easy 2' or 1' dish? I'm not willing to get into technical arguments about this issue. The fact is, each link is different. Each tower is different. It should be left up to the local operator to figure out what's best. ESPECIALLY in a licensed band. If they get interference, they can fix it. If they cause interference they have to fix it. I just don't like the idea of micro managing the pro's in our industry. Keep the interference issues dealt with but let folks use the latest and greatest technologies available to them. If I want to build a link across the train tracks, 100', there's NO reason for a large dish. Small dishes with lower power radios will do the trick nicely. And if we mandate atpc we can get away with 3 to 5 (or some other such really small number) fade margins too. No need for the typical microwave 30 dB fade margins. The problem with trying to engineer everything is that the real world often doesn't
RE: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz
Agreed. Just getting caught up on some of my email readings and strongly believe Jack and John are off the mark here. 6GHz, 11GHz, 18GHz, 23GHz, 24GHz, 60GHz and 80-90GHz should all be important to us as a group. Any frequency that can be used by fixed wireless operators should be important to the group. For Jack and John to assume the focus as a group should be limited to UL frequencies is short sighted to say the least. Many operations, ours included, are already utilizing licensed spectrum were we can. Best, Brad -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Tom DeReggi Sent: Monday, March 26, 2007 2:10 PM To: WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz Anything related to 11Ghz, should be WISPs concern. It is my belief that all serious unlicensed ISPs will at some point start to migrate to Licensed spectrums for backhauls. 11Ghz is one of the few upgrade options available for WISP's that designed their existing backhaul to 5.8Ghz functionality. (meaning needing 4ft dish 11Ghz to reach equivellent distances of 5.8Ghz 2ft dish links, in practicality). There really aren't very many Long range backhaul spectrum range options out there. Relaxing the rules could result in the inabilty for many WISPs to obtain 11Ghz licenses, because of unavailable spectrum, when they are ready to need it. A 2ft dish beamwidth (9-10 degrees) will cover the width of most of a small city at 10 miles. (Sorry I didn't do the Angle math yet). Compared to that of 4 ft dish beamwidths. As much as I'd like a 2 ft Dish, how would that effect my future abilty to get a license? Thats an important question. Fibertower wants 2ft dishes today because they are ready to buy up the licenses today. Are the rest of the WISPs ready to buy the licenses today? How much license space is available still? I think some propogation data and current saturation data (number of links / potential for more links) would need to be disclosed first to develop a relevant opinion. And how would the rules effect cost? Currently 11Ghz is significantly more expensive to obtain because of dish size. If smaller more advanced dishes were allowed, a 2ft dish that had the characteristics of 3-4ft dishes, would those dishes be more expensive because of their unique better characterisitcs? The truth is, every provider would chose 11Ghz over 18Ghz, if they could get away with a smaller dish. It would likely lead to less use of 18Ghz and 23 Ghz. Is 18Ghz getting saturated? If so it would be relevent to allow 11Ghz to take over the load. But I'd argue that 18Ghz should be near at capacity before 11Ghz be allowed to be more leanent in antenna size. The bigger fight for smaller antennas is to allow 6Ghz to be allowed to use 4 ft dishes. 6ft dish requirement is insane. If 6Ghz was allowed to use 4ft dished, it would then give another option for long range, (within a realistic antenna size for roof tops), then justifying the allowance for 11Ghz to have smaller antennas. The question is, why isn't Fibertower just using 18Ghz in their applications? Can they prove that 18Ghz is to limiting or unavailable for them? Tom DeReggi RapidDSL Wireless, Inc IntAirNet- Fixed Wireless Broadband John Scrivner wrote: Thank you Jack. You said it better than I could have. :-) Scriv Jack Unger wrote: Dylan, It would be good to know the minimum required dish size now and the changes that FiberTower is proposing before deciding what to do or say. I'm not sure this dish-size issue would impact any WISPs so we may want to ask ourselves if there are more important issues that we need to be focusing on, given the limited time and resources that we have. I think this is an issue that the licensed microwave vendors will probably deal with adequately, without harming our interests. When we decide to purchase a licensed 11 GHz link, we'd be buying it from them anyway. Finally, WISPA dosn't have an engineering staff that can adequately analyze the technical implications and prepare an informed technical responese to submit to the FCC. jack Dylan Oliver wrote: I recall some past discussion bemoaning the large dish sizes required for licensed links .. I just found this in the latest Rural Spectrum Scanner from Bennett Law (http://www.bennetlaw.com/rss.php?vol=13issue=12). Should WISPA endorse this? I'm not familiar with the details of 11 GHz regulation. *FCC Seeks Comment on the Use of Smaller Antennas in the 11 GHz Band* The FCC has released a *Public Notice* announcing that it has adopted a *Notice of Proposed Rulemaking* seeking comment on whether to permit the installation of smaller antennas by Fixed Service (FS) operators in the 10.7-11.7 GHz band. The FCC initiated the rulemaking pursuant to a Petition for Rulemaking filed by FiberTower, Inc., a wireless backhaul provider, proposing to change
Re: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz
Marlon, With all due respect... We need solid engineering arguements if we're going to present an official WISPA position to the FCC. If we submit comments based on faulty engineering then it will be obvious to the FCC (the FCC has real engineers on staff) that we don't know what we're talking about. We will lose our hard-earned credibility with the FCC. What's the benefit of losing our credibility? No one here needs to be reminded that we're here to serve the interests of the WISP community. We all know that. A few of us have been in this industry since 1993. Some of us first offered WISP service in 1995. Some of us having been unselfishly serving the needs of the WISP community since 1995. The manufacturers are the ones that we are going to be buying our licensed 11 GHz equipment from. Why would their interest in 11 GHz dish size be any different from our interest? Wouldn't it be in their interest to make the best equipment to serve us? If allowing smaller dishes on 11 GHz was bad and if it would lead to fewer licensed links being deployable then wouldn't the equipment manufacturers oppose the proposed changes? Again, with all due respect... I really don't understand what you are trying to say in your post. Can you please state your points more clearly - for everyone's benefit? By the way, thank you for all the energy and the effort that you have put into improving the WISP community since 1999. jack Marlon K. Schafer wrote: Jack, With all due respect We don't need engineers to know what we'd like the rules to be like! WISPA is here to serve the interests of the wisp community. The manufacturers can look after themselves. marlon - Original Message - From: Jack Unger [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: WISPA General List wireless@wispa.org Sent: Saturday, March 24, 2007 10:22 AM Subject: Re: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz Dylan, It would be good to know the minimum required dish size now and the changes that FiberTower is proposing before deciding what to do or say. I'm not sure this dish-size issue would impact any WISPs so we may want to ask ourselves if there are more important issues that we need to be focusing on, given the limited time and resources that we have. I think this is an issue that the licensed microwave vendors will probably deal with adequately, without harming our interests. When we decide to purchase a licensed 11 GHz link, we'd be buying it from them anyway. Finally, WISPA dosn't have an engineering staff that can adequately analyze the technical implications and prepare an informed technical responese to submit to the FCC. jack Dylan Oliver wrote: I recall some past discussion bemoaning the large dish sizes required for licensed links .. I just found this in the latest Rural Spectrum Scanner from Bennett Law (http://www.bennetlaw.com/rss.php?vol=13issue=12). Should WISPA endorse this? I'm not familiar with the details of 11 GHz regulation. *FCC Seeks Comment on the Use of Smaller Antennas in the 11 GHz Band* The FCC has released a *Public Notice* announcing that it has adopted a *Notice of Proposed Rulemaking* seeking comment on whether to permit the installation of smaller antennas by Fixed Service (FS) operators in the 10.7-11.7 GHz band. The FCC initiated the rulemaking pursuant to a Petition for Rulemaking filed by FiberTower, Inc., a wireless backhaul provider, proposing to change the technical parameters that would permit the use of smaller FS antennas with reduced mainbeam gain, increased beamwidth, and modified sidelobe suppression in the 11 GHz band. The FCC seeks comment on whether FiberTower, Inc.'s proposals would serve the public interest by facilitating the efficient use of the 11 GHz band while protecting other users in the band from interference due to the use of smaller antennas. The pleading cycle has not yet been established. Best, -- Jack Unger ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) - President, Ask-Wi.Com, Inc. FCC License # PG-12-25133 Serving the Broadband Wireless Industry Since 1993 Author of the WISP Handbook - Deploying License-Free Wireless WANs True Vendor-Neutral Wireless Consulting-Training-Troubleshooting Phone (VoIP Over Broadband Wireless) 818-227-4220 www.ask-wi.com -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ -- Jack Unger ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) - President, Ask-Wi.Com, Inc. FCC License # PG-12-25133 Serving the Broadband Wireless Industry Since 1993 Author of the WISP Handbook - Deploying License-Free Wireless WANs True Vendor-Neutral Wireless Consulting-Training-Troubleshooting Phone (VoIP Over Broadband Wireless) 818-227-4220 www.ask-wi.com -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
Re: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz
All due respect right back at ya! grin Anyhow, to think that manufacturers all have our best interests at heart is a bit naive I think. What's better for them? A 4' dish sale or a cheap and easy 2' or 1' dish? I'm not willing to get into technical arguments about this issue. The fact is, each link is different. Each tower is different. It should be left up to the local operator to figure out what's best. ESPECIALLY in a licensed band. If they get interference, they can fix it. If they cause interference they have to fix it. I just don't like the idea of micro managing the pro's in our industry. Keep the interference issues dealt with but let folks use the latest and greatest technologies available to them. If I want to build a link across the train tracks, 100', there's NO reason for a large dish. Small dishes with lower power radios will do the trick nicely. And if we mandate atpc we can get away with 3 to 5 (or some other such really small number) fade margins too. No need for the typical microwave 30 dB fade margins. The problem with trying to engineer everything is that the real world often doesn't give a rats behind what the engineers say. I've spend my adult life (such as it is) finding ways to make what works on paper really work in the field. We need the paper, to be sure. But we also need the flexibility to do what's expedient in the field. marlon - Original Message - From: Jack Unger [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: WISPA General List wireless@wispa.org Sent: Monday, March 26, 2007 10:26 PM Subject: Re: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz Marlon, With all due respect... We need solid engineering arguements if we're going to present an official WISPA position to the FCC. If we submit comments based on faulty engineering then it will be obvious to the FCC (the FCC has real engineers on staff) that we don't know what we're talking about. We will lose our hard-earned credibility with the FCC. What's the benefit of losing our credibility? No one here needs to be reminded that we're here to serve the interests of the WISP community. We all know that. A few of us have been in this industry since 1993. Some of us first offered WISP service in 1995. Some of us having been unselfishly serving the needs of the WISP community since 1995. The manufacturers are the ones that we are going to be buying our licensed 11 GHz equipment from. Why would their interest in 11 GHz dish size be any different from our interest? Wouldn't it be in their interest to make the best equipment to serve us? If allowing smaller dishes on 11 GHz was bad and if it would lead to fewer licensed links being deployable then wouldn't the equipment manufacturers oppose the proposed changes? Again, with all due respect... I really don't understand what you are trying to say in your post. Can you please state your points more clearly - for everyone's benefit? By the way, thank you for all the energy and the effort that you have put into improving the WISP community since 1999. jack Marlon K. Schafer wrote: Jack, With all due respect We don't need engineers to know what we'd like the rules to be like! WISPA is here to serve the interests of the wisp community. The manufacturers can look after themselves. marlon - Original Message - From: Jack Unger [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: WISPA General List wireless@wispa.org Sent: Saturday, March 24, 2007 10:22 AM Subject: Re: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz Dylan, It would be good to know the minimum required dish size now and the changes that FiberTower is proposing before deciding what to do or say. I'm not sure this dish-size issue would impact any WISPs so we may want to ask ourselves if there are more important issues that we need to be focusing on, given the limited time and resources that we have. I think this is an issue that the licensed microwave vendors will probably deal with adequately, without harming our interests. When we decide to purchase a licensed 11 GHz link, we'd be buying it from them anyway. Finally, WISPA dosn't have an engineering staff that can adequately analyze the technical implications and prepare an informed technical responese to submit to the FCC. jack Dylan Oliver wrote: I recall some past discussion bemoaning the large dish sizes required for licensed links .. I just found this in the latest Rural Spectrum Scanner from Bennett Law (http://www.bennetlaw.com/rss.php?vol=13issue=12). Should WISPA endorse this? I'm not familiar with the details of 11 GHz regulation. *FCC Seeks Comment on the Use of Smaller Antennas in the 11 GHz Band* The FCC has released a *Public Notice* announcing that it has adopted a *Notice of Proposed Rulemaking* seeking comment on whether to permit the installation of smaller antennas by Fixed Service (FS) operators in the 10.7-11.7 GHz band. The FCC initiated the rulemaking
Re: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz
ENGINEERING ANALYSIS FOR US ON THIS ISSUE? QUESTION: WILL THAT ENGINEERING ANALYSIS SHOW THAT THERE IS ANY REAL IMPACT TO OUR ABILITY TO OBTAIN AND USE LICENSED 11 GHz LINKS IF THE FCC ALLOWS SMALLER ANTENNAS TO BE USED? QUESTION: WILL ALLOWING SMALLER ANTENNAS ACTUALLY BENEFIT US BECAUSE OUR COSTS TO DEPLOY LICENSED LINKS WILL BE LOWER? (SMALLER ANTENNAS COST LESS TO BUY AND SMALLER ANTENNAS COST LESS TO MOUNT ON TOWERS). *** That's it, Brad. Your help would be most appreciated to get real answers. If I'm off the mark as you believed, that's OK with me as long as it leads to an understanding of what the real issues are and builds our credibility with the FCC, the manufacturers, and the public at large. Real understanding benefits everybody. Best Regards, jack Brad Belton wrote: Agreed. Just getting caught up on some of my email readings and strongly believe Jack and John are off the mark here. 6GHz, 11GHz, 18GHz, 23GHz, 24GHz, 60GHz and 80-90GHz should all be important to us as a group. Any frequency that can be used by fixed wireless operators should be important to the group. For Jack and John to assume the focus as a group should be limited to UL frequencies is short sighted to say the least. Many operations, ours included, are already utilizing licensed spectrum were we can. Best, Brad -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Tom DeReggi Sent: Monday, March 26, 2007 2:10 PM To: WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz Anything related to 11Ghz, should be WISPs concern. It is my belief that all serious unlicensed ISPs will at some point start to migrate to Licensed spectrums for backhauls. 11Ghz is one of the few upgrade options available for WISP's that designed their existing backhaul to 5.8Ghz functionality. (meaning needing 4ft dish 11Ghz to reach equivellent distances of 5.8Ghz 2ft dish links, in practicality). There really aren't very many Long range backhaul spectrum range options out there. Relaxing the rules could result in the inabilty for many WISPs to obtain 11Ghz licenses, because of unavailable spectrum, when they are ready to need it. A 2ft dish beamwidth (9-10 degrees) will cover the width of most of a small city at 10 miles. (Sorry I didn't do the Angle math yet). Compared to that of 4 ft dish beamwidths. As much as I'd like a 2 ft Dish, how would that effect my future abilty to get a license? Thats an important question. Fibertower wants 2ft dishes today because they are ready to buy up the licenses today. Are the rest of the WISPs ready to buy the licenses today? How much license space is available still? I think some propogation data and current saturation data (number of links / potential for more links) would need to be disclosed first to develop a relevant opinion. And how would the rules effect cost? Currently 11Ghz is significantly more expensive to obtain because of dish size. If smaller more advanced dishes were allowed, a 2ft dish that had the characteristics of 3-4ft dishes, would those dishes be more expensive because of their unique better characterisitcs? The truth is, every provider would chose 11Ghz over 18Ghz, if they could get away with a smaller dish. It would likely lead to less use of 18Ghz and 23 Ghz. Is 18Ghz getting saturated? If so it would be relevent to allow 11Ghz to take over the load. But I'd argue that 18Ghz should be near at capacity before 11Ghz be allowed to be more leanent in antenna size. The bigger fight for smaller antennas is to allow 6Ghz to be allowed to use 4 ft dishes. 6ft dish requirement is insane. If 6Ghz was allowed to use 4ft dished, it would then give another option for long range, (within a realistic antenna size for roof tops), then justifying the allowance for 11Ghz to have smaller antennas. The question is, why isn't Fibertower just using 18Ghz in their applications? Can they prove that 18Ghz is to limiting or unavailable for them? Tom DeReggi RapidDSL Wireless, Inc IntAirNet- Fixed Wireless Broadband John Scrivner wrote: Thank you Jack. You said it better than I could have. :-) Scriv Jack Unger wrote: Dylan, It would be good to know the minimum required dish size now and the changes that FiberTower is proposing before deciding what to do or say. I'm not sure this dish-size issue would impact any WISPs so we may want to ask ourselves if there are more important issues that we need to be focusing on, given the limited time and resources that we have. I think this is an issue that the licensed microwave vendors will probably deal with adequately, without harming our interests. When we decide to purchase a licensed 11 GHz link, we'd be buying it from them anyway. Finally, WISPA dosn't have an engineering staff that can adequately analyze
Re: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz
I think we should support that effort. On the condition that any devices that it applies to use automatic transmit power control (ATP). Thoughts? marlon - Original Message - From: Dylan Oliver [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: WISPA General List wireless@wispa.org Sent: Saturday, March 24, 2007 12:05 AM Subject: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz I recall some past discussion bemoaning the large dish sizes required for licensed links .. I just found this in the latest Rural Spectrum Scanner from Bennett Law (http://www.bennetlaw.com/rss.php?vol=13issue=12). Should WISPA endorse this? I'm not familiar with the details of 11 GHz regulation. *FCC Seeks Comment on the Use of Smaller Antennas in the 11 GHz Band* The FCC has released a *Public Notice* announcing that it has adopted a *Notice of Proposed Rulemaking* seeking comment on whether to permit the installation of smaller antennas by Fixed Service (FS) operators in the 10.7-11.7 GHz band. The FCC initiated the rulemaking pursuant to a Petition for Rulemaking filed by FiberTower, Inc., a wireless backhaul provider, proposing to change the technical parameters that would permit the use of smaller FS antennas with reduced mainbeam gain, increased beamwidth, and modified sidelobe suppression in the 11 GHz band. The FCC seeks comment on whether FiberTower, Inc.'s proposals would serve the public interest by facilitating the efficient use of the 11 GHz band while protecting other users in the band from interference due to the use of smaller antennas. The pleading cycle has not yet been established. Best, -- Dylan Oliver Primaverity, LLC -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
Re: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz
On 3/24/07, Marlon K. Schafer [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I think we should support that effort. On the condition that any devices that it applies to use automatic transmit power control (ATP). Thoughts? Can you explain why you want to see ATPC in 11 GHz links with 4' dishes? -- Dylan Oliver Primaverity, LLC -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
Re: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz
Dylan, It would be good to know the minimum required dish size now and the changes that FiberTower is proposing before deciding what to do or say. I'm not sure this dish-size issue would impact any WISPs so we may want to ask ourselves if there are more important issues that we need to be focusing on, given the limited time and resources that we have. I think this is an issue that the licensed microwave vendors will probably deal with adequately, without harming our interests. When we decide to purchase a licensed 11 GHz link, we'd be buying it from them anyway. Finally, WISPA dosn't have an engineering staff that can adequately analyze the technical implications and prepare an informed technical responese to submit to the FCC. jack Dylan Oliver wrote: I recall some past discussion bemoaning the large dish sizes required for licensed links .. I just found this in the latest Rural Spectrum Scanner from Bennett Law (http://www.bennetlaw.com/rss.php?vol=13issue=12). Should WISPA endorse this? I'm not familiar with the details of 11 GHz regulation. *FCC Seeks Comment on the Use of Smaller Antennas in the 11 GHz Band* The FCC has released a *Public Notice* announcing that it has adopted a *Notice of Proposed Rulemaking* seeking comment on whether to permit the installation of smaller antennas by Fixed Service (FS) operators in the 10.7-11.7 GHz band. The FCC initiated the rulemaking pursuant to a Petition for Rulemaking filed by FiberTower, Inc., a wireless backhaul provider, proposing to change the technical parameters that would permit the use of smaller FS antennas with reduced mainbeam gain, increased beamwidth, and modified sidelobe suppression in the 11 GHz band. The FCC seeks comment on whether FiberTower, Inc.'s proposals would serve the public interest by facilitating the efficient use of the 11 GHz band while protecting other users in the band from interference due to the use of smaller antennas. The pleading cycle has not yet been established. Best, -- Jack Unger ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) - President, Ask-Wi.Com, Inc. FCC License # PG-12-25133 Serving the Broadband Wireless Industry Since 1993 Author of the WISP Handbook - Deploying License-Free Wireless WANs True Vendor-Neutral Wireless Consulting-Training-Troubleshooting Phone (VoIP Over Broadband Wireless) 818-227-4220 www.ask-wi.com -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
Re: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz
The statements by Adelstein (*http://tinyurl.com/2jyhdg) *and McDowell (* http://tinyurl.com/2jg3sx) *make it clear that FiberTower's petition is to allow 2' dishes. I'm unclear on minimum dish size, having heard 4' from this list, including a post by Charles Wu. But I just found a 2005 press release (*http://tinyurl.com/274wmy) *by RFS on the availability of a 3' dish meeting the FCC's standards for 10.7-11.7 GHz antennas. The only standard I've seen so far - Part 101 Sec. 101.115 Directional antennas (*http://tinyurl.com/37ummg*) - only specifies maximum beamwidth and minimum gain. If Part 101 talks about dish sizes elsewhere, please let me know. If Part 101 does not state dish size, then the petition boils down to a relaxation of beamwidth / gain concomitant to the characteristics of a 2' dish. Best, -- Dylan Oliver Primaverity, LLC -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
Re: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz
Not familiar with 11 GHz, but what speeds and distances are available with 11 GHz and is the license leasable in different areas? Dylan Oliver wrote: The statements by Adelstein (*http://tinyurl.com/2jyhdg) *and McDowell (* http://tinyurl.com/2jg3sx) *make it clear that FiberTower's petition is to allow 2' dishes. I'm unclear on minimum dish size, having heard 4' from this list, including a post by Charles Wu. But I just found a 2005 press release (*http://tinyurl.com/274wmy) *by RFS on the availability of a 3' dish meeting the FCC's standards for 10.7-11.7 GHz antennas. The only standard I've seen so far - Part 101 Sec. 101.115 Directional antennas (*http://tinyurl.com/37ummg*) - only specifies maximum beamwidth and minimum gain. If Part 101 talks about dish sizes elsewhere, please let me know. If Part 101 does not state dish size, then the petition boils down to a relaxation of beamwidth / gain concomitant to the characteristics of a 2' dish. Best, -- George Rogato Welcome to WISPA www.wispa.org http://signup.wispa.org/ -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
Re: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz
Thank you Jack. You said it better than I could have. :-) Scriv Jack Unger wrote: Dylan, It would be good to know the minimum required dish size now and the changes that FiberTower is proposing before deciding what to do or say. I'm not sure this dish-size issue would impact any WISPs so we may want to ask ourselves if there are more important issues that we need to be focusing on, given the limited time and resources that we have. I think this is an issue that the licensed microwave vendors will probably deal with adequately, without harming our interests. When we decide to purchase a licensed 11 GHz link, we'd be buying it from them anyway. Finally, WISPA dosn't have an engineering staff that can adequately analyze the technical implications and prepare an informed technical responese to submit to the FCC. jack Dylan Oliver wrote: I recall some past discussion bemoaning the large dish sizes required for licensed links .. I just found this in the latest Rural Spectrum Scanner from Bennett Law (http://www.bennetlaw.com/rss.php?vol=13issue=12). Should WISPA endorse this? I'm not familiar with the details of 11 GHz regulation. *FCC Seeks Comment on the Use of Smaller Antennas in the 11 GHz Band* The FCC has released a *Public Notice* announcing that it has adopted a *Notice of Proposed Rulemaking* seeking comment on whether to permit the installation of smaller antennas by Fixed Service (FS) operators in the 10.7-11.7 GHz band. The FCC initiated the rulemaking pursuant to a Petition for Rulemaking filed by FiberTower, Inc., a wireless backhaul provider, proposing to change the technical parameters that would permit the use of smaller FS antennas with reduced mainbeam gain, increased beamwidth, and modified sidelobe suppression in the 11 GHz band. The FCC seeks comment on whether FiberTower, Inc.'s proposals would serve the public interest by facilitating the efficient use of the 11 GHz band while protecting other users in the band from interference due to the use of smaller antennas. The pleading cycle has not yet been established. Best, -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
RE: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz
I think that 3' is small enough, 11Ghz fades in the rain pretty good, so I would think that you would only use 3' dish on links less than 5 Miles. Why now just run High power 18Ghz radios with 2' then? Mike Bushard, Jr Wisper Wireless Solutions, LLC 320-256-WISP (9477) 320-256-9478 Fax -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of George Rogato Sent: Saturday, March 24, 2007 2:24 PM To: WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz Not familiar with 11 GHz, but what speeds and distances are available with 11 GHz and is the license leasable in different areas? Dylan Oliver wrote: The statements by Adelstein (*http://tinyurl.com/2jyhdg) *and McDowell (* http://tinyurl.com/2jg3sx) *make it clear that FiberTower's petition is to allow 2' dishes. I'm unclear on minimum dish size, having heard 4' from this list, including a post by Charles Wu. But I just found a 2005 press release (*http://tinyurl.com/274wmy) *by RFS on the availability of a 3' dish meeting the FCC's standards for 10.7-11.7 GHz antennas. The only standard I've seen so far - Part 101 Sec. 101.115 Directional antennas (*http://tinyurl.com/37ummg*) - only specifies maximum beamwidth and minimum gain. If Part 101 talks about dish sizes elsewhere, please let me know. If Part 101 does not state dish size, then the petition boils down to a relaxation of beamwidth / gain concomitant to the characteristics of a 2' dish. Best, -- George Rogato Welcome to WISPA www.wispa.org http://signup.wispa.org/ -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
Re: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz
The reason that they put large dish requirements on systems has to do with frequency reuse. The fear being that the wider beam will make it more likely to see an interference issue. With apc we can run with VERY low fade margins and only raise the power when the weather gets bad. Theoretically we can keep the frequency reuse with minimal risks. That's my opinion anyway. I'd like to see all new systems require atpc. It's easy nowadays as most gear can already control the power electronically. marlon - Original Message - From: Dylan Oliver [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: WISPA General List wireless@wispa.org Sent: Saturday, March 24, 2007 7:52 AM Subject: Re: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz On 3/24/07, Marlon K. Schafer [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I think we should support that effort. On the condition that any devices that it applies to use automatic transmit power control (ATP). Thoughts? Can you explain why you want to see ATPC in 11 GHz links with 4' dishes? -- Dylan Oliver Primaverity, LLC -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
Re: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz
Jack, With all due respect We don't need engineers to know what we'd like the rules to be like! WISPA is here to serve the interests of the wisp community. The manufacturers can look after themselves. marlon - Original Message - From: Jack Unger [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: WISPA General List wireless@wispa.org Sent: Saturday, March 24, 2007 10:22 AM Subject: Re: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz Dylan, It would be good to know the minimum required dish size now and the changes that FiberTower is proposing before deciding what to do or say. I'm not sure this dish-size issue would impact any WISPs so we may want to ask ourselves if there are more important issues that we need to be focusing on, given the limited time and resources that we have. I think this is an issue that the licensed microwave vendors will probably deal with adequately, without harming our interests. When we decide to purchase a licensed 11 GHz link, we'd be buying it from them anyway. Finally, WISPA dosn't have an engineering staff that can adequately analyze the technical implications and prepare an informed technical responese to submit to the FCC. jack Dylan Oliver wrote: I recall some past discussion bemoaning the large dish sizes required for licensed links .. I just found this in the latest Rural Spectrum Scanner from Bennett Law (http://www.bennetlaw.com/rss.php?vol=13issue=12). Should WISPA endorse this? I'm not familiar with the details of 11 GHz regulation. *FCC Seeks Comment on the Use of Smaller Antennas in the 11 GHz Band* The FCC has released a *Public Notice* announcing that it has adopted a *Notice of Proposed Rulemaking* seeking comment on whether to permit the installation of smaller antennas by Fixed Service (FS) operators in the 10.7-11.7 GHz band. The FCC initiated the rulemaking pursuant to a Petition for Rulemaking filed by FiberTower, Inc., a wireless backhaul provider, proposing to change the technical parameters that would permit the use of smaller FS antennas with reduced mainbeam gain, increased beamwidth, and modified sidelobe suppression in the 11 GHz band. The FCC seeks comment on whether FiberTower, Inc.'s proposals would serve the public interest by facilitating the efficient use of the 11 GHz band while protecting other users in the band from interference due to the use of smaller antennas. The pleading cycle has not yet been established. Best, -- Jack Unger ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) - President, Ask-Wi.Com, Inc. FCC License # PG-12-25133 Serving the Broadband Wireless Industry Since 1993 Author of the WISP Handbook - Deploying License-Free Wireless WANs True Vendor-Neutral Wireless Consulting-Training-Troubleshooting Phone (VoIP Over Broadband Wireless) 818-227-4220 www.ask-wi.com -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
Re: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz
It was not just for freq reuse. It was also to encourage the use of higher freq for short distance links and lower freqs for longer distances. I personally think that the existing antenna requirements should stay as they are. Fibertower wants to use 11 ghz for shorter runs and also so they can install smaller dishes in covert locations such as inside monopole flagpoles and steeples. Bob Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry -Original Message- From: Marlon K. Schafer [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2007 19:02:59 To:WISPA General List wireless@wispa.org Subject: Re: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz The reason that they put large dish requirements on systems has to do with frequency reuse. The fear being that the wider beam will make it more likely to see an interference issue. With apc we can run with VERY low fade margins and only raise the power when the weather gets bad. Theoretically we can keep the frequency reuse with minimal risks. That's my opinion anyway. I'd like to see all new systems require atpc. It's easy nowadays as most gear can already control the power electronically. marlon - Original Message - From: Dylan Oliver [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: WISPA General List wireless@wispa.org Sent: Saturday, March 24, 2007 7:52 AM Subject: Re: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz On 3/24/07, Marlon K. Schafer [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I think we should support that effort. On the condition that any devices that it applies to use automatic transmit power control (ATP). Thoughts? Can you explain why you want to see ATPC in 11 GHz links with 4' dishes? -- Dylan Oliver Primaverity, LLC -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
Re: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz
- Original Message - From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: WISPA General List wireless@wispa.org Sent: Saturday, March 24, 2007 4:47 PM Subject: Re: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz It was not just for freq reuse. It was also to encourage the use of higher freq for short distance links and lower freqs for longer distances. that makes sense. I personally think that the existing antenna requirements should stay as they are. Fibertower wants to use 11 ghz for shorter runs and also so they can install smaller dishes in covert locations such as inside monopole flagpoles and steeples. What's wrong with that? Also, if they do it for 11 gig maybe they would for 6 gig too. The 6' dish requirement in that band makes it almost useless for anything on a smaller tower or down town where there are asthetic issues. marlon Bob Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry -Original Message- From: Marlon K. Schafer [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2007 19:02:59 To:WISPA General List wireless@wispa.org Subject: Re: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz The reason that they put large dish requirements on systems has to do with frequency reuse. The fear being that the wider beam will make it more likely to see an interference issue. With apc we can run with VERY low fade margins and only raise the power when the weather gets bad. Theoretically we can keep the frequency reuse with minimal risks. That's my opinion anyway. I'd like to see all new systems require atpc. It's easy nowadays as most gear can already control the power electronically. marlon - Original Message - From: Dylan Oliver [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: WISPA General List wireless@wispa.org Sent: Saturday, March 24, 2007 7:52 AM Subject: Re: [WISPA] FCC requests comment on smaller dishes for 11 GHz On 3/24/07, Marlon K. Schafer [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I think we should support that effort. On the condition that any devices that it applies to use automatic transmit power control (ATP). Thoughts? Can you explain why you want to see ATPC in 11 GHz links with 4' dishes? -- Dylan Oliver Primaverity, LLC -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
