Re: [WISPA] Raining on the whitespaces parade
- Original Message - From: "Mike Hammett" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "WISPA General List" Sent: Sunday, October 26, 2008 7:21 AM Subject: Re: [WISPA] Raining on the whitespaces parade > There is no channel one. ;-) > > To do a little more homework... Oh good grief. It's just an example! grin > > At my house, according to AntennaWeb, I can get channels (now referring to > digital only, since after February, that's all that will remain). > > 12, 13, 16, 19, 23, 27, 29, 31, 36, 38, 41, 42, 43, 45, 50, 51, 52, and 59 > and AntennaWeb says that the list is conservative and that I may be able > to > receive more. Under WISPA's proposal, these channels would be > unavailable: > > 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 22, 23, 24, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, > 31, > 32, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, > 58, > 59, and 60. These would be my usable channels: > > 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 21, 25, 33, 34, 47, 48, 54, 55, 56, and 57. A > total of 114 MHz. I had forgotten but Brian's recent email about how many channels fall into the whitespaces issue is right. It does NOT include all TV channels. Sounds like a couple will be reserved for mics. Some are already set for public safety etc. If he's right then you are down to 10 available channels in your example. Or 60 mhz. Even less than we have at 2.4ghz. It's still much better than nothing. But if we had those adjacent channels you'd have a potential for another 120mhz of spectrum! Jack might be right, it may be technically impossible to ever make devices clean enough to use adjacent channels. But I for one am more that happy to say that the rules should allow for it if the technology can ever get the job done. laters, marlon 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] Raining on the whitespaces parade
There is no channel one. ;-) To do a little more homework... At my house, according to AntennaWeb, I can get channels (now referring to digital only, since after February, that's all that will remain). 12, 13, 16, 19, 23, 27, 29, 31, 36, 38, 41, 42, 43, 45, 50, 51, 52, and 59 and AntennaWeb says that the list is conservative and that I may be able to receive more. Under WISPA's proposal, these channels would be unavailable: 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 22, 23, 24, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 58, 59, and 60. These would be my usable channels: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 21, 25, 33, 34, 47, 48, 54, 55, 56, and 57. A total of 114 MHz. Just to mention, someone mentioned channel size. TV channels are 6 MHz wide, but I believe the IEEE plans for the TV whitespaces include channel bonding, allowing us to do something usable with them. -- Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions http://www.ics-il.com -- From: "Marlon K. Schafer" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Saturday, October 25, 2008 2:23 AM To: "WISPA General List" Subject: Re: [WISPA] Raining on the whitespaces parade >> >> To keep things simple, I'll speak to analog channels. Channels 2, 5, 7, >> 9, >> 11, 26, 32, 44, and 50 are the major Chicago stations. If I try to use >> channel 9 around here with sensing, I deserve to get kicked out. Sensing >> should allow me to be closer to Davenport, IA's channel 6 based on real >> world measurements than what an extremely conservative database would >> permit. The database would take into account worst case actions. The >> sensing would take into account what the radio is actually doing. > > Under the proposal the following stations will be totally off limits to > you > in any licensed lite way. > > 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,25,26,27,31,32,33,43,44,45,49,50, and, finally, > 51. > > No technology improvements would give those channels to you without an FCC > rule update. And we've been working on this issue for what, 4 years now? > > Sure takes a big bite out of what you could have done! > marlon > > > > > 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/ > 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] Raining on the whitespaces parade
> One of the problems with sensing as it is proposed, there are no > provisions > for the sensing to accommodate other unlicensed users in the spectrum, > only > TV stations and other incumbent users. That's a big problem if you are a > WISP and someone fires up their unlicensed gear and takes out your > customers. You bet. That's why I came up with the idea of time sharing as well. Coordinated automatically and on the fly by the AP's themselves. > > The OET report on the testing of the devices still shows a very high > failure > rate of the sensing devices that people claim are working. There is no > public comment period for that report and their conclusion is contrary to > their own data. The sensing will also not work well in areas where a over > the air TV users have to use a big antenna with a pre-amp out on the > fringe > of the TV coverage area. If they can barely pick up signal like that, > these > unlicensed devices will certainly not sense the TV signal and therefore > think they can transmit. Those devices will then easily swamp a mast > mounted > TV preamp and wipe out the signal. As a WISP do you want to deal with > those > types of problems from people who aren't even your customersseems like > a > nightmare to me. To me, we hit the greater good argument with this one. I don't know about your area, but out here almost no one is using over the air TV. It sucks so bad already, that we just get TV via sat. I have the biggest TV antenna that I could buy and I could still only get 1 or 2 channels at a time. It used to be much better, back when I was a kid. But something has changed, cheaper TV's different TX properties or something. Mom and dad are less than a mile from me. We put an amp on their system. That didn't work either. And if 2 people want TV and 10 want broadband? And there is an alternative (admitedly not free) for TV and not for broadband? > > If they are wrong and there is a huge production run of these devices that > cause problems, that spectrum will be lost for serious outdoor wireless > use > forever. Those devices will end up being repurposed for things they > weren't > intended or at emission levels that are not what they are type accepted > for. > We know this is the case, it happens in the bands we use now and to be > honest that is how this industry got started. Thing is when allowing that > to > happen, you can't say "we can do it but you can't" to groups that might > start different uses for the equipment that harms your operations. Agreed. > > "Licensed-Lite" if approved will give you some official standing with the > FCC against this problem of unlicensed devices. While you would not be a > primary user or have exclusive rights, you would have protection from the > unlicensed consumer devices. Today you have none of that unless you are > operating in licensed spectrum. Agreed. > >>From the beginning most who have followed the whitespaces issue have > understood that the metro markets have little to gain by this ruling, the > spectrum is that crowded already. This was never supposed to give free > spectrum to the metro markets. There is too much money to be had to do > that > and if there were any amount of spectrum in those markets it would have > been > auctioned, plain and simple. That is reality. The whitespaces was to > provide > opportunity to the rural markets, with underutilized spectrum, to deliver > economical broadband to the low density areas that do not have adequate > service now. > > WISP's in the metro markets unfortunately will not get a lot from > whitespaces. It really was never intended to be that way from day one. That could be. And personally I don't think that's a bad thing. The 5.3 and 5.4 bands should work nicely for high density short range sites. marlon > > > Thank You, > Brian Webster > > -Original Message- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Behalf Of Mike Hammett > Sent: Friday, October 24, 2008 12:11 PM > To: WISPA General List > Subject: Re: [WISPA] Raining on the whitespaces parade > > > The difference between sensing in 5 GHz and sensing in TV spaces is that > the > TV transmitters are published and easily accessed in terms of location, > height, transmitter power, etc. The military radars are supposedly > secret. > Without long term spectrum analysis, you have no way of knowing if > military > radar is in your area... and it may not even be a station activated at > this > time, but still able to be powered on in 3 years, once you've built a big > network around it. > > To keep things simple, I'll speak
Re: [WISPA] Raining on the whitespaces parade
> > To keep things simple, I'll speak to analog channels. Channels 2, 5, 7, > 9, > 11, 26, 32, 44, and 50 are the major Chicago stations. If I try to use > channel 9 around here with sensing, I deserve to get kicked out. Sensing > should allow me to be closer to Davenport, IA's channel 6 based on real > world measurements than what an extremely conservative database would > permit. The database would take into account worst case actions. The > sensing would take into account what the radio is actually doing. Under the proposal the following stations will be totally off limits to you in any licensed lite way. 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,25,26,27,31,32,33,43,44,45,49,50, and, finally, 51. No technology improvements would give those channels to you without an FCC rule update. And we've been working on this issue for what, 4 years now? Sure takes a big bite out of what you could have done! marlon 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] Raining on the whitespaces parade
- Original Message - From: "Forrest W. Christian" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "WISPA General List" Sent: Friday, October 24, 2008 8:58 AM Subject: Re: [WISPA] Raining on the whitespaces parade > I'm going to ignore the first part of your email (since I'm sure others > will discuss), and point out a couple of things you missed: > > Marlon K. Schafer wrote: >> I have MAJOR problems with the stance on adjacent channels. We give up 3 >> for 1 every time a TV channel, or microphone etc. fires up in our area. > The proposal indicates that we give up the channel, plus the adjacent > ones for each DTV channel not microphone users. Microphone users are licensed users of the band. If the TV won't work do you think the mics will > > I'm not sure where it occured, but there was one discussion I > participated in where part of the discussion were that the microphone > users indicated they were perfectly happy in the middle of the adjacent > channels. As a microphone user myself, I know that I'm happy operating > on adjacent channels. > > So, say you have a location where channels 1 and 5 are used. We could > locate on channel 3. The microphone users would end up on channels 2 > and 4, since they would not be limited by the adjacent channel > limitation.The purpose of the microphone users being in the > database, in my mind, is so we know where they are and so we can either > work around or with them... For instance, if they were on channel 3, > we could perhaps work with them to clear out channel 3 for our own use. > > I think the idea is that you separate "high power", nominally-licensed > users by at least one channel, and then you can let the unlicensed users > use what is left. >> Next, I HATE geolocation as the only mechanism. > Ask many operators in 5.2 and 5.4 about how well they like sensing, and > you'll understand why sensing does not make sense. It's new technology. And the problems with the 5 gig sensing are (as I've been told from more than one manufacturer) mostly related to the fact that they are supposed to sense a signal that they know little about. Remember, 5 gig shares space with top secret military radar Sensing isn't likely to be as much of a problem if you know what you are looking for. And TV bands will be more of a constant use than radar > > I like the proposal, in that it basically says, "broadcasters are > important in this band, and so are the WISP's running licensed lite. > Both of you should be able to put out plenty of power, as long as you > don't interfere with each other Agreed. That's good common sense stuff. > - and since we can define where your > transmitters are, you don't have to use sensing. If you instead want > to operate unlicensed you can do that as well, but you must use lower > power and sensing". I can live with that. I just worry about what happens when the GPS system gets taken offline. If that happens it'll be terrorism and/or war. In such times the ability to communicate will be even more important. Anything that has, as it's only option, a call home system worries me from a security standpoint. > > I agree that unlicensed operation in this band is of interest, but I am > also a firm believer that permitting even 1W using just sensing is never > going to fly, just because of the interference potential - what if a > device with a deaf receiver decides it can't hear anything on a TV > station's channel and fires up running 20W? The way that sensing should be implemented is that ALL devices listen for the incombant signals. All data is then transfered to the AP which must then make a choice. Technology should allow us to build smart networks, not just smart devices. It's important to protect the incombants. > > For high power, we're probably going to have to live with geolocation. > If we have to live with geolocation, why don't we just discard the > sensing since all it will do is reduce reliability of the service? See above secutiry discussion. Also see the any discussions about how real world unreliable the average circle on a map mechanism is when it comes to actual coverage zones. Here's a 3650 example for you. I'm in an exclusion zone. Can't use it out here. Even though the earth station is on the other side of a mountain and I'm at the very edge of the exclusion zone. Oh well, circles on a map. > >> Geolocation should be used until such time as a sensing mechanism can be >> found that will work. > Already in the proposal. Sensing can be used for unlicensed devices. >> Licensed lite is a great idea. There should be NO first in
Re: [WISPA] Raining on the whitespaces parade
- Original Message - From: "John Scrivner" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "WISPA General List" Sent: Friday, October 24, 2008 8:42 AM Subject: Re: [WISPA] Raining on the whitespaces parade >I can tell you myself that I have personally spent hundreds of hours > toward this effort, as has Marlon. As with any group effort there is > no way to please everyone. After exhaustive discussions between > everyone over 3 plus years our FCC committee worked together to > develop a stance. No we didn't. The change from unlicensed to licensed lite was done by the FCC trip crew that did NO colaborating with the rest of the committee. Again, I'm not saying that licensed lite is a bad idea. Not talking about it with the membership before adopting the stance is bad. > I believe that within our committee Marlon is the > only person who does not support the WISPA filing 100%. Again, not quite right. Tom has opposed much of this filing. And Brian has had questions that weren't addressed. > There is no > way to have a vote for everything and frankly we usually see low > turnout for votes or surveys. We didn't even vote for anything at the committee level! > What we do is have open discussions with > everyone and we try to develop a consensus. No we didn't. There was nothing on the committee mailing list about this latest conference call that was brought up. And not everyone was even allowed to volunteer for the last conference call dealing with the "common ground" issue. > This discussion has been > taking place since the beginning of WISPA and nobody has been denied a > chance to speak their wishes regarding this proposed filing. That's not at all true. This filing was NEVER floated to the membership. It was ramrodded through the committee with no votes taken there either. Alternate ideas that gave the same result were rejected outright. > > Please read the plan delivered in the WISPA filing and see what we > have done. We have all developed a plan that EVERYONE except AT&T and > Verizon will support. Sure they will. The broadcasters get 3 for 1 on spectrum out of this! They have NOTHING to loose here. And when they want some of the spectrum back? Just start up a new TV channel and take 3 more channels away from the licensed lite guys. Much easier than trying to take spectrum from someone that paid top dollar in an auction. The only thing better than the WISPA proposal from the broadcaster perspective would be no secondary use. > The only people who cannot live with or should > not support our filing are those who are only happy with having their > own ideas supported exclusively every time. OK, yeah I'll take that personally. So be it. It's not right but oh well. > We cannot allow one > person's ideas to control what we file as an organization. We have not > done this with this filing. Our filing represents everyone's ideas as > accurately and fairly as anyone could have ever done. Please re-read the last month's FCC committee posts John. We did not have discussion of alternate ideas. All we did was roll out the support of the broadcasters and/or iFiber (hope I remember that company right). I think those are good goals, I'm just not happy about giving away the farm for it. > > I will never try to downplay Marlon's role, or my own for that matter, > but to say this was not a joint consensus position, as Marlon has > said, is just not right. Every part of this has been given lengthy > discussion, thought and effort and it represents a real way for us to > use this band efficiently and effectively to deliver broadband. It is > superior to "wild west" unlicensed-only policy and has every other > advantage of unlicensed supported. In fact it has provisions for pure > unlicensed represented in the plan. Again, please re-read the posts. No alternative plans were talked through. You had me shouting from the mountain top that there were flaws with this proposal. Tom saying that the WISPA adjacent channel proposal would leave him with no spectrum in his market and Brian asking why the alternatives that I'd tossed out where so bad. Then WISPA filed, with nothing ever making it out to the membership until it was too late to change anything. My biggest bitch here is that we've ended up with a trade association that doesn't give it's membership an input. Again. > > When we get our policies supported in the final FCC Report and Order > of the TV Whitespace then everyone here should know you all played a > strong role in developing what was delivered to the FCC. You should > know that with this policy WISPs will finally be represented fairly in > spectrum policy. I for one hope that most of the WISPA proposals do
Re: [WISPA] Raining on the whitespaces parade
Well, I know of one thing you disagreed with right off John...the word "ubiquitous" on the 2nd page...know how much you love that word. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of John Scrivner Sent: Friday, October 24, 2008 11:43 AM To: WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] Raining on the whitespaces parade I can tell you myself that I have personally spent hundreds of hours toward this effort, as has Marlon. As with any group effort there is no way to please everyone. After exhaustive discussions between everyone over 3 plus years our FCC committee worked together to develop a stance. I believe that within our committee Marlon is the only person who does not support the WISPA filing 100%. There is no way to have a vote for everything and frankly we usually see low turnout for votes or surveys. What we do is have open discussions with everyone and we try to develop a consensus. This discussion has been taking place since the beginning of WISPA and nobody has been denied a chance to speak their wishes regarding this proposed filing. Please read the plan delivered in the WISPA filing and see what we have done. We have all developed a plan that EVERYONE except AT&T and Verizon will support. The only people who cannot live with or should not support our filing are those who are only happy with having their own ideas supported exclusively every time. We cannot allow one person's ideas to control what we file as an organization. We have not done this with this filing. Our filing represents everyone's ideas as accurately and fairly as anyone could have ever done. I will never try to downplay Marlon's role, or my own for that matter, but to say this was not a joint consensus position, as Marlon has said, is just not right. Every part of this has been given lengthy discussion, thought and effort and it represents a real way for us to use this band efficiently and effectively to deliver broadband. It is superior to "wild west" unlicensed-only policy and has every other advantage of unlicensed supported. In fact it has provisions for pure unlicensed represented in the plan. When we get our policies supported in the final FCC Report and Order of the TV Whitespace then everyone here should know you all played a strong role in developing what was delivered to the FCC. You should know that with this policy WISPs will finally be represented fairly in spectrum policy. Please read our filing and let your own decision making process decide whether this filing deserves your support. I know it does even if many of my own ideas were not part of the final filing. It is the plan for our future and we should all support it fully. If there are things you would like to see done differently then by all means speak your mind with your own filing. We have delivered the tools directly to you to allow you to speak your mind with the link to the comment reporting process and instructions on how to do so. Nobody is being denied a voice. I believe it is possible for all of us to say we like this in the WISPA filing and that in the WISPA filing but maybe we wanted to see this added or that changed or this removed. I see nothing to gain in us arguing amongst ourselves about the process which led us to this filing. It is the best filing we have ever made as an organization in form and content and we need to show our support for it. With sincerest respect for all, John Scrivner On Fri, Oct 24, 2008 at 9:44 AM, Mike Hammett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Isn't that what the elected are supposed to do? Make decisions as to > what they feel their constituency wants without directly asking them every time? > If you don't like whomever was voted in, you vote someone in that will > speak more in line with what you desire. > > I would love to hear what others have to say on this issue before I > file my own comments. I was going to file saying "Yup, I agree with > WISPA" until Marlons comments. Now I want to know what others think. > > > -- > Mike Hammett > Intelligent Computing Solutions > http://www.ics-il.com > > > > -- > From: "Marlon K. Schafer" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Sent: Friday, October 24, 2008 1:29 AM > To: "WISPA General List" > Cc: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Subject: [WISPA] Raining on the whitespaces parade > >> Hi All, >> >> As a member of the FCC committee and a long term DC participant >> (first went there as a WISP in 2001 or 2002) I feel I have to point >> out some critical flaws in our proposals. I said much of this at the >> committee level but to no avail. >> >> First, let me say this though. The filing is masterful. It's a >> GREAT document. My heartburn has nothing to do with t
Re: [WISPA] Raining on the whitespaces parade
On Fri, 24 Oct 2008, Mike Hammett wrote: >Isn't that what the elected are supposed to do? Make decisions as >to what they feel their constituency wants without directly asking >them every time? If you don't like whomever was voted in, you vote >someone in that will speak more in line with what you desire. Well, the FCC committee is not an elected body. >I would love to hear what others have to say on this issue before I >file my own comments. I was going to file saying "Yup, I agree >with WISPA" until Marlons comments. Now I want to know what others >think. Did you read what WISPA filed? If not, then you most certainly should. It is a very well written document that is easy to understand. I did not agree 100% with what WISPA filed, however I DID file a comment that supported the WISPA filing and added my own suggestions for the parts I didn't agree with. For the most part, however, I think the approach taken in the WISPA filing really IS the best approach (with some exceptions). -- * Butch Evans * Professional Network Consultation* * http://www.butchevans.com/* Network Engineering * * http://www.wispa.org/ * WISPA Board Member * * http://blog.butchevans.com/ * Wired or Wireless Networks * 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] Raining on the whitespaces parade
Mike Hammett wrote: > The difference between sensing in 5 GHz and sensing in TV spaces is that the > TV transmitters are published and easily accessed in terms of location, > height, transmitter power, etc. But microphone users are not. The sensing proposals indicate that sensing devices *must* get out of the way of the microphones. So, the devices must sense any of dozens of types of microphones. You could have service which works perfectly well, and then the church down the street from your AP decides to turn a microphone on and now you have to move to another channel, if one is available. > To keep things simple, I'll speak to analog channels. Channels 2, 5, 7, 9, > 11, 26, 32, 44, and 50 are the major Chicago stations. If I try to use > channel 9 around here with sensing, I deserve to get kicked out. Sensing > should allow me to be closer to Davenport, IA's channel 6 based on real > world measurements than what an extremely conservative database would > permit. The database would take into account worst case actions. The > sensing would take into account what the radio is actually doing. > I would expect that there would be some future rulemaking if this became an issue to permit engineered AP's within a certain band. The FCC is well aware of geographical and RF engineering issues which permit closer collocation than would be expected by drawing circles on a map. Under the wispa proposal, you would onlyhave access to channels 4, 13-24, 28-30, 46-48, and >51 anyways.. Heck, that's only 114Mhz, or 19 6Mhz channels. With 20W of output power, and very little Part-15 noise you should be able to easily accomplish 50Mb/s/channel, or 950Mb/s aggregate > How much bandwidth can a microphone really use? > Not much. In the dozen(s) of khz range, not Mhz. Some spread spectrum ones use more, but they are also effectively lower power. > I'm actually against any unlicensed use in this band, or if there is, keep > it similar to 5.1 GHz rules... a power so low it's practically useless. Exactly. 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] Raining on the whitespaces parade
One of the problems with sensing as it is proposed, there are no provisions for the sensing to accommodate other unlicensed users in the spectrum, only TV stations and other incumbent users. That's a big problem if you are a WISP and someone fires up their unlicensed gear and takes out your customers. The OET report on the testing of the devices still shows a very high failure rate of the sensing devices that people claim are working. There is no public comment period for that report and their conclusion is contrary to their own data. The sensing will also not work well in areas where a over the air TV users have to use a big antenna with a pre-amp out on the fringe of the TV coverage area. If they can barely pick up signal like that, these unlicensed devices will certainly not sense the TV signal and therefore think they can transmit. Those devices will then easily swamp a mast mounted TV preamp and wipe out the signal. As a WISP do you want to deal with those types of problems from people who aren't even your customersseems like a nightmare to me. If they are wrong and there is a huge production run of these devices that cause problems, that spectrum will be lost for serious outdoor wireless use forever. Those devices will end up being repurposed for things they weren't intended or at emission levels that are not what they are type accepted for. We know this is the case, it happens in the bands we use now and to be honest that is how this industry got started. Thing is when allowing that to happen, you can't say "we can do it but you can't" to groups that might start different uses for the equipment that harms your operations. "Licensed-Lite" if approved will give you some official standing with the FCC against this problem of unlicensed devices. While you would not be a primary user or have exclusive rights, you would have protection from the unlicensed consumer devices. Today you have none of that unless you are operating in licensed spectrum. >From the beginning most who have followed the whitespaces issue have understood that the metro markets have little to gain by this ruling, the spectrum is that crowded already. This was never supposed to give free spectrum to the metro markets. There is too much money to be had to do that and if there were any amount of spectrum in those markets it would have been auctioned, plain and simple. That is reality. The whitespaces was to provide opportunity to the rural markets, with underutilized spectrum, to deliver economical broadband to the low density areas that do not have adequate service now. WISP's in the metro markets unfortunately will not get a lot from whitespaces. It really was never intended to be that way from day one. Thank You, Brian Webster -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Mike Hammett Sent: Friday, October 24, 2008 12:11 PM To: WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] Raining on the whitespaces parade The difference between sensing in 5 GHz and sensing in TV spaces is that the TV transmitters are published and easily accessed in terms of location, height, transmitter power, etc. The military radars are supposedly secret. Without long term spectrum analysis, you have no way of knowing if military radar is in your area... and it may not even be a station activated at this time, but still able to be powered on in 3 years, once you've built a big network around it. To keep things simple, I'll speak to analog channels. Channels 2, 5, 7, 9, 11, 26, 32, 44, and 50 are the major Chicago stations. If I try to use channel 9 around here with sensing, I deserve to get kicked out. Sensing should allow me to be closer to Davenport, IA's channel 6 based on real world measurements than what an extremely conservative database would permit. The database would take into account worst case actions. The sensing would take into account what the radio is actually doing. How much bandwidth can a microphone really use? I'm actually against any unlicensed use in this band, or if there is, keep it similar to 5.1 GHz rules... a power so low it's practically useless. -- Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions http://www.ics-il.com -- From: "Forrest W. Christian" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Friday, October 24, 2008 10:58 AM To: "WISPA General List" Subject: Re: [WISPA] Raining on the whitespaces parade > I'm going to ignore the first part of your email (since I'm sure others > will discuss), and point out a couple of things you missed: > > Marlon K. Schafer wrote: >> I have MAJOR problems with the stance on adjacent channels. We give up 3 >> for 1 every time a TV channel, or microphone etc. fires up in our area. > The proposal indicates that we give up the channel, plus the adjacent > ones
Re: [WISPA] Raining on the whitespaces parade
The difference between sensing in 5 GHz and sensing in TV spaces is that the TV transmitters are published and easily accessed in terms of location, height, transmitter power, etc. The military radars are supposedly secret. Without long term spectrum analysis, you have no way of knowing if military radar is in your area... and it may not even be a station activated at this time, but still able to be powered on in 3 years, once you've built a big network around it. To keep things simple, I'll speak to analog channels. Channels 2, 5, 7, 9, 11, 26, 32, 44, and 50 are the major Chicago stations. If I try to use channel 9 around here with sensing, I deserve to get kicked out. Sensing should allow me to be closer to Davenport, IA's channel 6 based on real world measurements than what an extremely conservative database would permit. The database would take into account worst case actions. The sensing would take into account what the radio is actually doing. How much bandwidth can a microphone really use? I'm actually against any unlicensed use in this band, or if there is, keep it similar to 5.1 GHz rules... a power so low it's practically useless. -- Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions http://www.ics-il.com -- From: "Forrest W. Christian" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Friday, October 24, 2008 10:58 AM To: "WISPA General List" Subject: Re: [WISPA] Raining on the whitespaces parade > I'm going to ignore the first part of your email (since I'm sure others > will discuss), and point out a couple of things you missed: > > Marlon K. Schafer wrote: >> I have MAJOR problems with the stance on adjacent channels. We give up 3 >> for 1 every time a TV channel, or microphone etc. fires up in our area. > The proposal indicates that we give up the channel, plus the adjacent > ones for each DTV channel not microphone users. > > I'm not sure where it occured, but there was one discussion I > participated in where part of the discussion were that the microphone > users indicated they were perfectly happy in the middle of the adjacent > channels. As a microphone user myself, I know that I'm happy operating > on adjacent channels. > > So, say you have a location where channels 1 and 5 are used. We could > locate on channel 3. The microphone users would end up on channels 2 > and 4, since they would not be limited by the adjacent channel > limitation.The purpose of the microphone users being in the > database, in my mind, is so we know where they are and so we can either > work around or with them... For instance, if they were on channel 3, > we could perhaps work with them to clear out channel 3 for our own use. > > I think the idea is that you separate "high power", nominally-licensed > users by at least one channel, and then you can let the unlicensed users > use what is left. >> Next, I HATE geolocation as the only mechanism. > Ask many operators in 5.2 and 5.4 about how well they like sensing, and > you'll understand why sensing does not make sense. > > I like the proposal, in that it basically says, "broadcasters are > important in this band, and so are the WISP's running licensed lite. > Both of you should be able to put out plenty of power, as long as you > don't interfere with each other - and since we can define where your > transmitters are, you don't have to use sensing. If you instead want > to operate unlicensed you can do that as well, but you must use lower > power and sensing". > > I agree that unlicensed operation in this band is of interest, but I am > also a firm believer that permitting even 1W using just sensing is never > going to fly, just because of the interference potential - what if a > device with a deaf receiver decides it can't hear anything on a TV > station's channel and fires up running 20W? > > For high power, we're probably going to have to live with geolocation. > If we have to live with geolocation, why don't we just discard the > sensing since all it will do is reduce reliability of the service? > >> Geolocation should be used until such time as a sensing mechanism can be >> found that will work. > Already in the proposal. Sensing can be used for unlicensed devices. >> Licensed lite is a great idea. There should be NO first in mechanism >> though. This leads to those with all of the money getting all of the >> prime >> slots and the rest of us sucking hind teet again. > From the proposal: > > "In the unlikely event that no non-interfering base station facilities > could be designed through techniques > such as location changes, power redu
Re: [WISPA] Raining on the whitespaces parade
*nods* WISPA should have a solid stance, whatever that may be. That allows individual operators to say (which I intend to do), "I agree with WISPA except on this one (or two) points.". I'm sure nothing proposed is so grotesque to anyone that they couldn't follow if that was approved. My intent in generating discussion was for education. All I know about white spaces is what I read in the WISPA filing, what the 802.22 Wikipedia entry says, and the occasional article on device testing. -- Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions http://www.ics-il.com -- From: "John Scrivner" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Friday, October 24, 2008 10:42 AM To: "WISPA General List" Subject: Re: [WISPA] Raining on the whitespaces parade > I can tell you myself that I have personally spent hundreds of hours > toward this effort, as has Marlon. As with any group effort there is > no way to please everyone. After exhaustive discussions between > everyone over 3 plus years our FCC committee worked together to > develop a stance. I believe that within our committee Marlon is the > only person who does not support the WISPA filing 100%. There is no > way to have a vote for everything and frankly we usually see low > turnout for votes or surveys. What we do is have open discussions with > everyone and we try to develop a consensus. This discussion has been > taking place since the beginning of WISPA and nobody has been denied a > chance to speak their wishes regarding this proposed filing. > > Please read the plan delivered in the WISPA filing and see what we > have done. We have all developed a plan that EVERYONE except AT&T and > Verizon will support. The only people who cannot live with or should > not support our filing are those who are only happy with having their > own ideas supported exclusively every time. We cannot allow one > person's ideas to control what we file as an organization. We have not > done this with this filing. Our filing represents everyone's ideas as > accurately and fairly as anyone could have ever done. > > I will never try to downplay Marlon's role, or my own for that matter, > but to say this was not a joint consensus position, as Marlon has > said, is just not right. Every part of this has been given lengthy > discussion, thought and effort and it represents a real way for us to > use this band efficiently and effectively to deliver broadband. It is > superior to "wild west" unlicensed-only policy and has every other > advantage of unlicensed supported. In fact it has provisions for pure > unlicensed represented in the plan. > > When we get our policies supported in the final FCC Report and Order > of the TV Whitespace then everyone here should know you all played a > strong role in developing what was delivered to the FCC. You should > know that with this policy WISPs will finally be represented fairly in > spectrum policy. > > Please read our filing and let your own decision making process decide > whether this filing deserves your support. I know it does even if many > of my own ideas were not part of the final filing. It is the plan for > our future and we should all support it fully. > > If there are things you would like to see done differently then by all > means speak your mind with your own filing. We have delivered the > tools directly to you to allow you to speak your mind with the link to > the comment reporting process and instructions on how to do so. Nobody > is being denied a voice. I believe it is possible for all of us to say > we like this in the WISPA filing and that in the WISPA filing but > maybe we wanted to see this added or that changed or this removed. I > see nothing to gain in us arguing amongst ourselves about the process > which led us to this filing. It is the best filing we have ever made > as an organization in form and content and we need to show our support > for it. > > With sincerest respect for all, > John Scrivner > > > > On Fri, Oct 24, 2008 at 9:44 AM, Mike Hammett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > wrote: >> Isn't that what the elected are supposed to do? Make decisions as to >> what >> they feel their constituency wants without directly asking them every >> time? >> If you don't like whomever was voted in, you vote someone in that will >> speak >> more in line with what you desire. >> >> I would love to hear what others have to say on this issue before I file >> my >> own comments. I was going to file saying "Yup, I agree with WISPA" until >> Marlons comments. Now I want to know what others think. >> >> >> -- >> M
Re: [WISPA] Raining on the whitespaces parade
Maybe I'm asking too much here, but shouldn't the plan include something to get it passed as quickly as possible as well as a defined pathway to what we actually want? Again borrowing from 3650, a lot of devices can use the lower 25 MHz, but the FCC is holding out on the upper 25 MHz until certain requirements are met. Maybe we'll have to give up adjacent channel usage to get it pushed through, but we really want to use that spectrum. Maybe we'll have to settle with geolocation to get it pushed through, but we really want sensing. IIRC, some companies made test sensing equipment that worked just fine. GPS synch is good within a single company as you're likely to have the same policies. However, other companies could tune for other things, making GPS synch meaningless. I believe 802.16h and 802.11y have been working out the whole access-point-sharing-air-time issue. I believe 802.22 is what I'm wanting, but I don't have enough time to figure out it's intricacies and I'm hoping someone here knows more about it than I do. Disagreeing with Marlon, I fully support channel bonding in the white spaces. 6 MHz isn't enough these days to do real data throughput. However, I don't want to see something like Tsunami again, using all of 5 GHz to do what, 45 megabits? I hate to see regulation tied to technology, but maybe there needs to be a minimum bit/Hz to do bonding. The 6 MHz TV channels would only yield approximately 19 mbit/s. We need systems capable of using 2 or 3 channels to provide real bandwidth while still protecting oversubscription. -- Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions http://www.ics-il.com -- From: "Marlon K. Schafer" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Friday, October 24, 2008 1:29 AM To: "WISPA General List" Cc: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: [WISPA] Raining on the whitespaces parade > Hi All, > > As a member of the FCC committee and a long term DC participant (first > went > there as a WISP in 2001 or 2002) I feel I have to point out some critical > flaws in our proposals. I said much of this at the committee level but to > no avail. > > First, let me say this though. The filing is masterful. It's a GREAT > document. My heartburn has nothing to do with the document it's self or > the > hard work that's gone into it. My heartburn is content based. > > Well, most of it is anyway. I have a problem with WISPA changing it's > stance from unlicensed to licensed lite without having consulted with the > membership on this issue. Our last team came back from DC and told us > what > our new position was. That's NOT what I help found WISPA for. I could > have > just stayed with a couple of the other associations that I've been a part > of > and been man handled like that. > > Lest anyone take this the wrong way, I happen to LIKE the licensed lite > concept. I just don't like having a committee that will make a major > change > without discussion before hand. If there was discussion that said we were > going to move from unlicensed to licensed lite and I missed it then I > missed > it. I know there had been discussion about the idea but nothing voted on > by > anyone when it came to an official stance. Not the way to run this > railroad > in my, not so, humble opinion. > > Now, to the whitespaces issue. > > I have MAJOR problems with the stance on adjacent channels. We give up 3 > for 1 every time a TV channel, or microphone etc. fires up in our area. A > TV station goes live and we don't loose the channel that they are on, we > loose it and 2 on each side. This means that in any market that has as > little as 1/3rd of the channels in use by licensed operators (TV stations > AND mics) will be totally useless for us. Why not simply set the out of > band emissions standards high enough that we CAN use adjacent channels? I > begged for that language, it satisfies both us and the broadcasters. I > know > it's not technically possible today. So what? Just tonight as I was > working on an AP I saw a customer connected at the 18meg speed with a > signal > level of -96. Who'd have imagined that would be possible just a couple of > year ago? > > Next, I HATE geolocation as the only mechanism. I use circles on a map. > I > know how inaccurate they really are. They also change dramatically as the > technology changes. When I started my WISP in 2000 a 15 mile cell size > was > the max. And if we got anywhere near 1 meg with a 4 watt EIRP system that > also amped the receive signal by 14ish dB we were oh so happy. Now I can > go > even further than that and get 2 t
Re: [WISPA] Raining on the whitespaces parade
I'm going to ignore the first part of your email (since I'm sure others will discuss), and point out a couple of things you missed: Marlon K. Schafer wrote: > I have MAJOR problems with the stance on adjacent channels. We give up 3 > for 1 every time a TV channel, or microphone etc. fires up in our area. The proposal indicates that we give up the channel, plus the adjacent ones for each DTV channel not microphone users. I'm not sure where it occured, but there was one discussion I participated in where part of the discussion were that the microphone users indicated they were perfectly happy in the middle of the adjacent channels. As a microphone user myself, I know that I'm happy operating on adjacent channels. So, say you have a location where channels 1 and 5 are used. We could locate on channel 3. The microphone users would end up on channels 2 and 4, since they would not be limited by the adjacent channel limitation.The purpose of the microphone users being in the database, in my mind, is so we know where they are and so we can either work around or with them... For instance, if they were on channel 3, we could perhaps work with them to clear out channel 3 for our own use. I think the idea is that you separate "high power", nominally-licensed users by at least one channel, and then you can let the unlicensed users use what is left. > Next, I HATE geolocation as the only mechanism. Ask many operators in 5.2 and 5.4 about how well they like sensing, and you'll understand why sensing does not make sense. I like the proposal, in that it basically says, "broadcasters are important in this band, and so are the WISP's running licensed lite. Both of you should be able to put out plenty of power, as long as you don't interfere with each other - and since we can define where your transmitters are, you don't have to use sensing. If you instead want to operate unlicensed you can do that as well, but you must use lower power and sensing". I agree that unlicensed operation in this band is of interest, but I am also a firm believer that permitting even 1W using just sensing is never going to fly, just because of the interference potential - what if a device with a deaf receiver decides it can't hear anything on a TV station's channel and fires up running 20W? For high power, we're probably going to have to live with geolocation. If we have to live with geolocation, why don't we just discard the sensing since all it will do is reduce reliability of the service? > Geolocation should be used until such time as a sensing mechanism can be > found that will work. Already in the proposal. Sensing can be used for unlicensed devices. > Licensed lite is a great idea. There should be NO first in mechanism > though. This leads to those with all of the money getting all of the prime > slots and the rest of us sucking hind teet again. From the proposal: "In the unlikely event that no non-interfering base station facilities could be designed through techniques such as location changes, power reductions, antenna polarity changes or channel selection, the registrant and the incumbent registrant would be obligated to negotiate in good faith to coordinate their facilities for a period of 30 days and keep records of their discussions in case the information is needed by the Commission." > Just think about how > many mics could cover the Indy 500 if they effectively had 1000 channels > available in every 6 MHz TV channel!?!? > In reality, existing products are nearly this dense. The Microphone users are just worried about having thousands of 'baby monitors' in their space. One poorly designed 'baby monitor' could take out dozens of microphones at an event. As long as the Microphone users can set their gear to a frequency and have some assurance that an interferer isn't going to come up on-channel, they will be happy. > We also need to set max channel sizes. I agree in principle... I would like to see an eirp per channel related to the width. That is, the narrower the channel, the more power. The problem today is that if you spread out to a 40mhz wide channel, you can get more bandwidth just because you are limited to power. If you were able to increase your power such that higher modulations were able to work in a narrow channel, I suspect that people would be using smaller channels. Most of the wide channels I use today have to do more with total bandwidth needs for the link distances. > Never mind the fact that most of us that need the TV band's can't use the > 5.4 band due to it's low power levels. And that many of the people that can use the 5.4 band find it unusable due to DFS (sensing). > Unlicensed whitespaces devices should ONLY be allowed to connect to > a registered base station. It should be nearly impossible to use > whitespaces for home/office WLANs. > Assuming that the FCC sticks to very low power (t
Re: [WISPA] Raining on the whitespaces parade
I can tell you myself that I have personally spent hundreds of hours toward this effort, as has Marlon. As with any group effort there is no way to please everyone. After exhaustive discussions between everyone over 3 plus years our FCC committee worked together to develop a stance. I believe that within our committee Marlon is the only person who does not support the WISPA filing 100%. There is no way to have a vote for everything and frankly we usually see low turnout for votes or surveys. What we do is have open discussions with everyone and we try to develop a consensus. This discussion has been taking place since the beginning of WISPA and nobody has been denied a chance to speak their wishes regarding this proposed filing. Please read the plan delivered in the WISPA filing and see what we have done. We have all developed a plan that EVERYONE except AT&T and Verizon will support. The only people who cannot live with or should not support our filing are those who are only happy with having their own ideas supported exclusively every time. We cannot allow one person's ideas to control what we file as an organization. We have not done this with this filing. Our filing represents everyone's ideas as accurately and fairly as anyone could have ever done. I will never try to downplay Marlon's role, or my own for that matter, but to say this was not a joint consensus position, as Marlon has said, is just not right. Every part of this has been given lengthy discussion, thought and effort and it represents a real way for us to use this band efficiently and effectively to deliver broadband. It is superior to "wild west" unlicensed-only policy and has every other advantage of unlicensed supported. In fact it has provisions for pure unlicensed represented in the plan. When we get our policies supported in the final FCC Report and Order of the TV Whitespace then everyone here should know you all played a strong role in developing what was delivered to the FCC. You should know that with this policy WISPs will finally be represented fairly in spectrum policy. Please read our filing and let your own decision making process decide whether this filing deserves your support. I know it does even if many of my own ideas were not part of the final filing. It is the plan for our future and we should all support it fully. If there are things you would like to see done differently then by all means speak your mind with your own filing. We have delivered the tools directly to you to allow you to speak your mind with the link to the comment reporting process and instructions on how to do so. Nobody is being denied a voice. I believe it is possible for all of us to say we like this in the WISPA filing and that in the WISPA filing but maybe we wanted to see this added or that changed or this removed. I see nothing to gain in us arguing amongst ourselves about the process which led us to this filing. It is the best filing we have ever made as an organization in form and content and we need to show our support for it. With sincerest respect for all, John Scrivner On Fri, Oct 24, 2008 at 9:44 AM, Mike Hammett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Isn't that what the elected are supposed to do? Make decisions as to what > they feel their constituency wants without directly asking them every time? > If you don't like whomever was voted in, you vote someone in that will speak > more in line with what you desire. > > I would love to hear what others have to say on this issue before I file my > own comments. I was going to file saying "Yup, I agree with WISPA" until > Marlons comments. Now I want to know what others think. > > > -- > Mike Hammett > Intelligent Computing Solutions > http://www.ics-il.com > > > > -- > From: "Marlon K. Schafer" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Sent: Friday, October 24, 2008 1:29 AM > To: "WISPA General List" > Cc: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Subject: [WISPA] Raining on the whitespaces parade > >> Hi All, >> >> As a member of the FCC committee and a long term DC participant (first >> went >> there as a WISP in 2001 or 2002) I feel I have to point out some critical >> flaws in our proposals. I said much of this at the committee level but to >> no avail. >> >> First, let me say this though. The filing is masterful. It's a GREAT >> document. My heartburn has nothing to do with the document it's self or >> the >> hard work that's gone into it. My heartburn is content based. >> >> Well, most of it is anyway. I have a problem with WISPA changing it's >> stance from unlicensed to licensed lite without having consulted with the >> membership on this issue. Our last team came back from DC and t
Re: [WISPA] Raining on the whitespaces parade
Isn't that what the elected are supposed to do? Make decisions as to what they feel their constituency wants without directly asking them every time? If you don't like whomever was voted in, you vote someone in that will speak more in line with what you desire. I would love to hear what others have to say on this issue before I file my own comments. I was going to file saying "Yup, I agree with WISPA" until Marlons comments. Now I want to know what others think. -- Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions http://www.ics-il.com -- From: "Marlon K. Schafer" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Friday, October 24, 2008 1:29 AM To: "WISPA General List" Cc: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: [WISPA] Raining on the whitespaces parade > Hi All, > > As a member of the FCC committee and a long term DC participant (first > went > there as a WISP in 2001 or 2002) I feel I have to point out some critical > flaws in our proposals. I said much of this at the committee level but to > no avail. > > First, let me say this though. The filing is masterful. It's a GREAT > document. My heartburn has nothing to do with the document it's self or > the > hard work that's gone into it. My heartburn is content based. > > Well, most of it is anyway. I have a problem with WISPA changing it's > stance from unlicensed to licensed lite without having consulted with the > membership on this issue. Our last team came back from DC and told us > what > our new position was. That's NOT what I help found WISPA for. I could > have > just stayed with a couple of the other associations that I've been a part > of > and been man handled like that. > > Lest anyone take this the wrong way, I happen to LIKE the licensed lite > concept. I just don't like having a committee that will make a major > change > without discussion before hand. If there was discussion that said we were > going to move from unlicensed to licensed lite and I missed it then I > missed > it. I know there had been discussion about the idea but nothing voted on > by > anyone when it came to an official stance. Not the way to run this > railroad > in my, not so, humble opinion. > > Now, to the whitespaces issue. > > I have MAJOR problems with the stance on adjacent channels. We give up 3 > for 1 every time a TV channel, or microphone etc. fires up in our area. A > TV station goes live and we don't loose the channel that they are on, we > loose it and 2 on each side. This means that in any market that has as > little as 1/3rd of the channels in use by licensed operators (TV stations > AND mics) will be totally useless for us. Why not simply set the out of > band emissions standards high enough that we CAN use adjacent channels? I > begged for that language, it satisfies both us and the broadcasters. I > know > it's not technically possible today. So what? Just tonight as I was > working on an AP I saw a customer connected at the 18meg speed with a > signal > level of -96. Who'd have imagined that would be possible just a couple of > year ago? > > Next, I HATE geolocation as the only mechanism. I use circles on a map. > I > know how inaccurate they really are. They also change dramatically as the > technology changes. When I started my WISP in 2000 a 15 mile cell size > was > the max. And if we got anywhere near 1 meg with a 4 watt EIRP system that > also amped the receive signal by 14ish dB we were oh so happy. Now I can > go > even further than that and get 2 to 3 megs with NO amp and an eirp of 1 > watt > or so. Same exact CPE units that were in place when we pulled the AP'd ap > system out. Actual signal measurement is really the only way to > accurately > determine interference issues. Well, OK, I guess one could just put a > large > enough exclusion zone around the broadcasters to make sure that there is > no > interference. Unfortunately that also means we end up with even less > market > potential. > > Here is my idea for whitespaces. This is what I'll be personally filing. > I'll fine tune it and likely add some ideas that slip my mind right now. > I'm still more than a bit miffed that there wasn't even a vote on our > filing > (I know I'm whining, but I'm well and truly pissed). > > Geolocation should be used until such time as a sensing mechanism can be > found that will work. Lets be honest here guys. NO one knows IF the FCC > will even allow white spaces use let alone with a sensing system. Just > how > much R and D do you think was put into this project in this economy?
Re: [WISPA] Raining on the whitespaces parade
I agree with you Marlon. There seems to be fewer instances where the membership is consulted on issues of importance regarding the FCC. Ron Wallace Hahnron, Inc. 220 S. Jackson Dt. Addison, MI 49220 Phone: (517)547-8410 Mobile: (517)270-2410 e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] -Original Message- From: Marlon K. Schafer [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, October 24, 2008 02:29 AM To: 'WISPA General List' Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [WISPA] Raining on the whitespaces parade Hi All, As a member of the FCC committee and a long term DC participant (first went there as a WISP in 2001 or 2002) I feel I have to point out some critical flaws in our proposals. I said much of this at the committee level but to no avail. First, let me say this though. The filing is masterful. It's a GREAT document. My heartburn has nothing to do with the document it's self or the hard work that's gone into it. My heartburn is content based. Well, most of it is anyway. I have a problem with WISPA changing it's stance from unlicensed to licensed lite without having consulted with the membership on this issue. Our last team came back from DC and told us what our new position was. That's NOT what I help found WISPA for. I could have just stayed with a couple of the other associations that I've been a part of and been man handled like that. Lest anyone take this the wrong way, I happen to LIKE the licensed lite concept. I just don't like having a committee that will make a maj or change without discussion before hand. If there was discussion that said we were going to move from unlicensed to licensed lite and I missed it then I missed it. I know there had been discussion about the idea but nothing voted on by anyone when it came to an official stance. Not the way to run this railroad in my, not so, humble opinion. Now, to the whitespaces issue. I have MAJOR problems with the stance on adjacent channels. We give up 3 for 1 every time a TV channel, or microphone etc. fires up in our area. A TV station goes live and we don't loose the channel that they are on, we loose it and 2 on each side. This means that in any market that has as little as 1/3rd of the channels in use by licensed operators (TV stations AND mics) will be totally useless for us. Why not simply set the out of band emissions standards high enough that we CAN use adjacent channels? I begged for that language, it satisfies both us and the broadcasters. I know it's not technically possib le today. So what? Just tonight as I was working on an AP I saw a customer connected at the 18meg speed with a signal level of -96. Who'd have imagined that would be possible just a couple of year ago? Next, I HATE geolocation as the only mechanism. I use circles on a map. I know how inaccurate they really are. They also change dramatically as the technology changes. When I started my WISP in 2000 a 15 mile cell size was the max. And if we got anywhere near 1 meg with a 4 watt EIRP system that also amped the receive signal by 14ish dB we were oh so happy. Now I can go even further than that and get 2 to 3 megs with NO amp and an eirp of 1 watt or so. Same exact CPE units that were in place when we pulled the AP'd ap system out. Actual signal measurement is really the only way to accurately determine interference issues. Well, OK, I guess one could just put a large enough exclusion zone around the broadcasters to make sure that there is no interference. Unfortunately that also means we end up with even less market potential. Here is my idea for whitespaces. This is what I'll be personally filing. I'll fine tune it and likely add some ideas that slip my mind right now. I'm still more than a bit miffed that there wasn't even a vote on our filing (I know I'm whining, but I'm well and truly pissed). Geolocation should be used until such time as a sensing mechanism can be found that will work. Lets be honest here guys. NO one knows IF the FCC will even allow white spaces use let alone with a sensing system. Just how much R and D do you think was put into this project in this economy? Sensing works great on $60 WiFi cards for God's sake! (Listen before talk, CSMAK.) It'll work for TV channels as well. It'll just take a little more time and effort. Set a high standard, one that will protect the licensed users and then let the market go to work on the problem. Once sales opportunities actually exist people will start working on ways to make this hap pen. Licensed lite is a great idea. There should be NO first in mechanism though. This leads to those with all of the money getting all of the prime slots and the rest of us sucking hind teet again. What we should do instead (and I floated this idea as well) is follow the Spectrum Policy Task Force's recommendation and implement time sharing too. All
[WISPA] Raining on the whitespaces parade
Hi All, As a member of the FCC committee and a long term DC participant (first went there as a WISP in 2001 or 2002) I feel I have to point out some critical flaws in our proposals. I said much of this at the committee level but to no avail. First, let me say this though. The filing is masterful. It's a GREAT document. My heartburn has nothing to do with the document it's self or the hard work that's gone into it. My heartburn is content based. Well, most of it is anyway. I have a problem with WISPA changing it's stance from unlicensed to licensed lite without having consulted with the membership on this issue. Our last team came back from DC and told us what our new position was. That's NOT what I help found WISPA for. I could have just stayed with a couple of the other associations that I've been a part of and been man handled like that. Lest anyone take this the wrong way, I happen to LIKE the licensed lite concept. I just don't like having a committee that will make a major change without discussion before hand. If there was discussion that said we were going to move from unlicensed to licensed lite and I missed it then I missed it. I know there had been discussion about the idea but nothing voted on by anyone when it came to an official stance. Not the way to run this railroad in my, not so, humble opinion. Now, to the whitespaces issue. I have MAJOR problems with the stance on adjacent channels. We give up 3 for 1 every time a TV channel, or microphone etc. fires up in our area. A TV station goes live and we don't loose the channel that they are on, we loose it and 2 on each side. This means that in any market that has as little as 1/3rd of the channels in use by licensed operators (TV stations AND mics) will be totally useless for us. Why not simply set the out of band emissions standards high enough that we CAN use adjacent channels? I begged for that language, it satisfies both us and the broadcasters. I know it's not technically possible today. So what? Just tonight as I was working on an AP I saw a customer connected at the 18meg speed with a signal level of -96. Who'd have imagined that would be possible just a couple of year ago? Next, I HATE geolocation as the only mechanism. I use circles on a map. I know how inaccurate they really are. They also change dramatically as the technology changes. When I started my WISP in 2000 a 15 mile cell size was the max. And if we got anywhere near 1 meg with a 4 watt EIRP system that also amped the receive signal by 14ish dB we were oh so happy. Now I can go even further than that and get 2 to 3 megs with NO amp and an eirp of 1 watt or so. Same exact CPE units that were in place when we pulled the AP'd ap system out. Actual signal measurement is really the only way to accurately determine interference issues. Well, OK, I guess one could just put a large enough exclusion zone around the broadcasters to make sure that there is no interference. Unfortunately that also means we end up with even less market potential. Here is my idea for whitespaces. This is what I'll be personally filing. I'll fine tune it and likely add some ideas that slip my mind right now. I'm still more than a bit miffed that there wasn't even a vote on our filing (I know I'm whining, but I'm well and truly pissed). Geolocation should be used until such time as a sensing mechanism can be found that will work. Lets be honest here guys. NO one knows IF the FCC will even allow white spaces use let alone with a sensing system. Just how much R and D do you think was put into this project in this economy? Sensing works great on $60 WiFi cards for God's sake! (Listen before talk, CSMAK.) It'll work for TV channels as well. It'll just take a little more time and effort. Set a high standard, one that will protect the licensed users and then let the market go to work on the problem. Once sales opportunities actually exist people will start working on ways to make this happen. Licensed lite is a great idea. There should be NO first in mechanism though. This leads to those with all of the money getting all of the prime slots and the rest of us sucking hind teet again. What we should do instead (and I floated this idea as well) is follow the Spectrum Policy Task Force's recommendation and implement time sharing too. All AP's should require either GPS sync or some mechanism that they do among any other AP's that they can hear. Each second should be cut into some number of parts. 100, 200, 1000, whatever makes good technical sense. Then, when all available channels are used up AP's will have to start sharing time as well. This will prevent outages from competitors. It will encourage manufacturers to stuff as much data into as small of a time slot as possible (improving efficiencies) and best of all, will allow mics and other licensed devices to be built with cheap components
