John,
Yours is an articulate, well written summary. Although some WISPs may
feel "slapped in the face", politics (law-making) is, as we know, not
about face-slapping. Politics is about making laws that bring specific
benefits to specific (large or small) groups of people. I expect the 6
MHz of proposed spectrum is either 1 or 2, below:
1. A sincere attempt to provide more license-free spectrum and to bring
affordable broadband access to large numbers of rural citizens, proposed
by lawmakers who are TECHNICALLY UNEDUCATED about how "x" amount of
spectrum is needed to deliver "y" amount of broadband throughput to
serve "z" number of citizens.
2. An sincere attempt on the part of TECHNOLOGY-SAVVY lawmakers to
improve the business power and dominant political-economic position of
the monopolistic telecom industry while ordinary citizens are "on their
own" to cope with the consequences.
Thank you for your write-up.
jack
Tom DeReggi wrote:
John, Well said.
I agree 6 mhz, a slap in the face.
I understood, Brad Larson's comment that 50Mhz is a lot to be thankk
full for, when Marlon was suggesting that 50 Mhz was not enough, in
critiquing Marlon's proposal. We learned with 900Mhz that we can do a
lot with 30 Mhz, although tough. But 6 Mhz, useless, and pointless.
Tom DeReggi
RapidDSL & Wireless, Inc
IntAirNet- Fixed Wireless Broadband
----- Original Message ----- From: "John Scrivner" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "WISPA General List" <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, April 06, 2006 9:54 AM
Subject: Re: [WISPA] TV spectrum
Please read below and see my remarks on this feeble attempt to help
Americans.
New spectrum legislation crafted
By Dan O'Shea
Apr 5, 2006 12:02 PM
Five members of the U.S. House of Representatives have announced new
legislation that allow broadband wireless carriers and other companies
to use television spectrum in the band between 608 Mhz and 614 MHz for
unlicensed wireless services.
The legislation was introduced by Jay Inslee (D-Wash.) and his co-
sponsors Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.), Paul
Gillmor (R-Ohio) and Rick Boucher (D-Va.).
The Telecommunications Industry Association applauded the move. Agency
president Matthew Flanigan, said in a statement, "TIA believes that
these proposals could provide for more efficient and effective use of
the television broadcast spectrum, as well as have significant
benefits for the public by increasing competition in the wireless
broadband industry and providing incentives for the development of new
and innovative broadband devices and services for businesses and
consumers.
http://telephonyonline.com/wireless/regulatory/House_spectrum_bill_040506/
My thoughts:
The House bill to give us a single 6 MHz channel is far too little to
help and could even be regarded as a slap in the face if you have been
starved for the quality spectrum we need to do the job as we all have
for so long. This does not match the legislation being introduced by
the Senate at all and could lead to making this a dead issue instead
of helping bring broadband to the masses as intended. It does not
surprise me that the TIA has applauded this as it serves their
purposes of holding our efforts back. They would prefer to either have
only licensed spectrum which acts as a means of keeping competitors
out of the wireless space or as we see here they would like to see
competing offers from the Senate and House so that the true
opportunity as outlined in the FCC 04-186 is locked in debate and
taken off the table to meet some compromise or worse yet the effort is
killed from having too little common ground to pass a vote from both
sides of Congress.
If any of you are in the states of Washington, Tennessee, Wisconsin,
Ohio or Virginia I certainly hope you will call your Reps today and
let them know that 6 MHz of spectrum is like giving a spoonful of
water to a man walking in the desert for days. The parched man will
surely take it and wonder why you even bothered to mock him with such
a paltry offer. This is terrible news and we need to act quickly.
The FCC has created the logical platform to move ahead in allowing the
unlicensed use of unused television channels in its 04-186 rulemaking
which it has allowed to leave in a limbo state and tasking the FCC
with passing their own rulemaking is the logical way to move forward
and help the broadband industry. Believing that one 6 MHz channel for
broadband use is helpful is just plain laughable and shows a complete
lack of understanding of our problems in helping deliver broadband to
rural and under-served citizens who are begging for access to
broadband and cannot receive it from any source. These unused
television channels will give them broadband. A single 6 MHz channel
is not a true effort to help and is insulting to the public. Without
several channels to allow for frequency reuse the single channel
forces providers to either segment the single channel into minuscule
sizes delivering substandard speeds or face almost certain
interference as multiple attempts to use the same small 6 MHz channel
space would interfere with adjacent efforts from other operators doing
the same. In short this is not worthy of consideration and should be
scrapped.
The only logical step is for the House of Representatives to pass
legislation which will task the FCC to pass its 04-186 rulemaking
which will open unused television channels up for use as unlicensed
carriage of broadband to Americans. This is not just important, it is
mandatory if we are to truly close the "Digital Divide" which is now
wider than ever due to a lack of quality spectrum able to do the job.
The problem is not that rural Americans do not want broadband or that
private enterprise has failed them in some way, the problem is that
the thousands of Wireless Internet Service Providers who serve them
lack the necessary spectrum to bring their citizens the broadband they
are begging to receive.
Now I want you guys, all of you guys, to go to
http://www.house.gov/writerep/ and write a letter to your Rep. The
site will find your rep by zip code for you. Even if you are not in
the states where this laughable legislation originated you need to
speak out. We obviously do not want to alienate the whole House of
Representatives but we do need them to understand that this is not
going to come close to doing the job they are trying to do and that
this is not going to fix anything unless we have access to a larger
amount of quality spectrum. So please go now and make this happen,
right now, in the next 10 minutes.
Scriv
--
Jack Unger ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) - President, Ask-Wi.Com, Inc.
Serving the License-Free Wireless Industry Since 1993
Author of the WISP Handbook - "Deploying License-Free Wireless WANs"
True Vendor-Neutral WISP Consulting-Training-Troubleshooting
Our next WISP Workshops are April 12-13 and April 26-27
Phone (VoIP Over Broadband Wireless) 818-227-4220 www.ask-wi.com
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