Rich, with all due respect, your idea has a REALLY big flaw in it.
I love debate. I'll take that as a challenge :-)
Once government sets a standard, it's going to be a very long time before anything new comes along. No Darwinism (government standards, really that's what the old Ma Bell system in essence was) is even worse.
I agree with you that this is the prevailing wisdom here (and said so). A lot of people really believe this in the United States. That's despite the significant wireless market evidence to the contrary. The FCC set ONE standard for original analog cellular (later knows as AMPS) 30 years ago. Did it stiffle anything new coming along? No. AMPS became the world cellular standard, and companies who invested in it were rewarded with world market. But when digital cellular came along this "new thinking" had set in. A US Digital Cellular standard was written (USDC) and almost immediately companies began crying to do differently (notably Qualcom and Motorola). There was double-talk that if "one" standard is good, "two" standards must be better (nonsense ... if there is more than "one" standard there is in fact "no" standard). The FCC went along with the US wireless industry's request for Darwinism (IMO because there was a new sense that technical flexibility in granting licenses would make them more valuable and Washington was getting an inkling of how much companies might be willing to pay for licenses in a bidding auction system). Essentially we have pure Darwinism in US digital cellular today. Does it serve the public best? Does it serve the carriers best? No to both ... all it did was give-away the entire world digital cellular market to Europe's GSM which had no problem being judged a better choice compared to America's free-for-all. Oh, and your cellphone can't get coverage from 4 out of 5 towers that you pass by (because they're different technologies).
They are now building to catch up
No way. Non-US manufacturers own the digital cellular market, and significant portions of the US infastructure is being replaced with European designed GSM & GPRS. The US lost leadership in 2nd & 3rd generation cellular. A little test: What brand cellphones are the market leaders in America, and where country are they from?
What about boadband wireless internet:
Once government sets a standard, it's going to be a very long time before anything new comes along.
There is a middle ground. When Europe set aside the RLAN band (for hyperlan) they didn't mandate that systems had to be "hyperlan" to get the European equivalent of FCC type acceptance. They picked 2 technical elements of "playing nice" and made them mandatory requirements for type acceptance (TPC & DFS). Systems had to support Transmit Power Control and Dynamic Frequency Selection to be considered for compliance. Europe set this up in the late 90's I think. Oh how I wish US license exempt bands required part-15, *and* TPC & DFS. How would it have impacted wisps that employ 802.11 technologies? Well, 802.11h (I believe it's the "h" suffix) has both these attributes (I presume the "h" suffix version was designed to make 802.11 saleable into European RLAN markets ... can anyone comment on this?). So if this had been a US requirement, equipment for the WISP market would today all support the .h version and it wouldn't have impacted your system ... BUT it would have prevented destructive interference between your system and some other manufacturer choosing to market equipment that didn't "play nice". I think it would have been better for all wisps. No?
Market forces are best left alone.
Standards are a fascinating field into themselves. It's a little politics, public relations, technology, business, and government all rolled up together. Laisse-fare turned out NOT to be in the best interests of the United States manufacturers, carriers, or citizens. It's a world market and citizens expect their government to do what's best for their citizens, their providers, and their manufacturers. History showed us that "let the market work itself out" was not the best answer. A good case study is VHS vs BETA. What did VHS lead in the US market for 20 years even though BETA was better? Better standards strategy! Sony learned their lessons well and did a complete 180 on the standards strategy for 8mm. A well thought out standard helps everyone.
Rich----- Original Message ----- From: "Marlon K. Schafer (509) 982-2181" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "WISPA General List" <[email protected]> Sent: Monday, April 24, 2006 12:33 PM Subject: Re: [WISPA] UL WiMAX update
Rich, with all due respect, your idea has a REALLY big flaw in it.Once government sets a standard, it's going to be a very long time before anything new comes along.Pure Darwinism is bad in that it requires too much capital investment.No Darwinism (government standards, really that's what the old Ma Bell system in essence was) is even worse.The USA isn't quickly adapting broadband for several reasons. One is that the consumer just doesn't value it enough. If broadband was available at $75 per connection instead of $30 there would be much more of it out there. But people aren't willing (in large enough numbers) to pay more for broadband than for dialup or no internet at all.In other countries they've typically had comparatively substandard networks. They are now building to catch up and naturally that building is with the latest gear. Here we have cheap access to phones, cell phones, TV, etc. That's not always the case elsewhere.It's funny. I thought that getting the local businesses on broadband would help me sell more of it. People would use it at work and want it at home too right? Wrong. They just do all of their stuff at work and sometimes cancel even the dialup!Market forces are best left alone. But steps do need to be taken to make sure that the playing field is level and that practical considerations (like roi) are not totally ignored.laters, Marlon (509) 982-2181 Equipment sales (408) 907-6910 (Vonage) Consulting services 42846865 (icq) And I run my own wisp! 64.146.146.12 (net meeting) www.odessaoffice.com/wireless www.odessaoffice.com/marlon/cam----- Original Message ----- From: "Rich Comroe" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>To: "WISPA General List" <[email protected]> Sent: Friday, April 21, 2006 5:08 PM Subject: Re: [WISPA] UL WiMAX updateIt's quite unfortunate IMO but I've concluded that this is a typically American problem. In America the courts broke up the Bell system thinking that it'd be better for the average American to have local phone companies competing with each other. Only here in America does the FCC license any technology the carriers wishes to deploy, resulting in them competing with each other (whatever technology cellphone you carry, there are more towers of different technology that any given cellphone can't access compared to those it). Europe learned almost 2 decades ago that to compete with the United States they needed to mandate compatible technologies that would insure interoperable services to users (things like GSM).For the benefit of all, I wish the FCC would open any/all new bands (3.6, 5.4 thru 5.7, etc) mandating a compatible technical solution, or at minimum one that required all equipment to play nice.Nobody wants to through away the investment that they have made already, and as that investment increases, it gets harder.Right. Too much of a hardship to change rules in bands once deployed. But all new bands should require compatability rules. I just don't see our FCC seeing things this way. There are too many that believe a free-for-all in the market serves the public best. I don't agree.Rich----- Original Message ----- From: "Tom DeReggi" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>To: "WISPA General List" <[email protected]> Sent: Friday, April 21, 2006 6:05 PM Subject: Re: [WISPA] UL WiMAX updateSteve, In theory, I fully agree with your view.The problem is that theory does not always play out in the real world. 5 years later, I still have 10 mbps gear, and very few places that can risk using faster gear. (although we are finding ways, such as getting higher power with PtP to use faster gear reliably, of course we are also wasting spectrum because channels used up with only some of the bandwdith being used, not being able to average its use over PtMP.)The problem is that the longer the FCC waits to impose better rules, the harder it gets for the industry to accept the rules. Nobody wants to through away the investment that they have made already, and as that investment increases, it gets harder.The problem with the rules as they are now, true Darwinism, is that it forces WISPs to be in competition with WISPs, instead of WISPs bandwdith togeather to be in competitions with other industry segments like Telcos and Cable companies. And the inner struggle forces WISPS to be less competitive as an industry in the end. This can not be a good thing for an industry, allthough it may be most ethical for evolutionists.Tom DeReggi RapidDSL & Wireless, Inc IntAirNet- Fixed Wireless Broadband----- Original Message ----- From: "Steve Stroh" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>To: "WISPA General List" <[email protected]> Sent: Thursday, April 20, 2006 1:04 PM Subject: RE: [WISPA] UL WiMAX updatePatrick: I disagree that the market is (directly) rewarding "survival of thenastiest" - it's rewarding systems that are designed to survive in a mixed environment. If that behavior is perceived as "nasty" by systems that areless robust, oh well. But there's a tradeoff - systems whose primary feature is survivability will eventually fall out of favor because their performance will not be acceptable and the users of such systems won't be able to sell services based on that lower level of performance.My "Darwinian Effect of License-exempt Wireless" encompasses not just the technological evolution of license-exempt systems, but also the economicevolution of license-exempt systems. It's not enough to be merely "more survivable" - there's an intense ECONOMIC imperative to bebetter-performing, more cost-effective... otherwise the systems won't getbought.We've seen what happens to systems that are "survivable" but don't evolvetheir performance - two that immediately come to mind are RadioLAN and Airdata WIMAN; both were very robust, but didn't offer competitive performance over time. Older product lines eventually fall victim tonewer, higher-performance, more cost-effective product lines... often fromentirely new vendors. The beautiful thing about the ISM/UNII rules is that no one can be EXCLUDED; you're permitted to TRY just about anything that follows the relatively simple and basic rules. That's what enables the Darwinian Effect. The risks are WELL known... at least they should be, by anyonewanting to try to make a business using the ISM/UNII bands. If the risksaren't to one's liking, well there's always the licensed alternative - little technological risk, but huge economic risk from the cost of the licenses. Understood that the risk/reward of license-exempt spectrum might not be high enough for the biggest players to make multi-million dollar investments into license-exempt spectrum. But... the HUGE market meansthat smaller players seem to keep being willing to try, and that more than balances out the seeming lack of investment from the largest players. For example, though Alvarion deigns to participate in the municipal mesh Wi-Fibusiness, that doesn't seem to be hurting that business as that leaves lots of room for smaller players - Tropos, SkyPilot Networks, BelAir Networks, etc., all offering ample innovation and good performance in providing a service that the conventional wisdom says that wasn't possible. Thanks, Steve On Thu, 20 Apr 2006, Patrick Leary wrote:Tom,You correctly identify the Achilles Heel of modern day UL -- the survival of the nastiest phenomenon. The Part 15.247 rules give equal standing to all types of systems, regardless of how spectrally gluttonous or abusive. The problem with this is that it rewards downward innovation (i.e. dumb and inefficient), offering no incentives for developers to invest R&D to come up with more efficient, higher performing PMP techniques. There is no reward for high performance, especially in PMP where devices are most vulnerable tointerference. This is a genuine reason why there is so little realinvestment in PMP UL. I am not talking about the creative, small market developing and tinkering that goes on, but rather the multi-millions ofserious R&D investment such as that seen on the licensed side. As well, the logical extension of this problem is that WISP operatorsthemselves are not rewarded in a spectrum sense by using the most efficientsystems. [I should insert a note here that recognizes that bringing to market a system that might be considered spectrally abusive so that it itselfsurvives, all while conforming perfectly within the regulations, may be considered to be an entirely sound, even smart, competitive strategy -- therules do not require me to play well with others, so I'm going to doeverything I can to make sure I do not, within the rules of course. However, markets are not fond of investing in R&D to get around artificial problems,i.e. problems created by easily manipulated regulations.]Back in 2002 I was one a few panelists representing the UL BWA market (Steve Stroh was there too on another panel) on the FCC's Spectrum Policy Task Force. The panel I was on was to recommend and debate the evolution of the UL bands. Most were up there thinking WLAN, not WMAN, and they did not even understand the implication of their proposals in the outdoor, metro scaleworld of wireless. A few were up there saying we needed more power for rural. My input regarded changing the rules to allow for some type of slidinghigher power rules based on better efficiency, and that efficiency could come any number of ways, through better and more narrow, high quality (good emitters, without lots of spurious noise) antennas, higher sensitivity and intelligence, better capacity per MHz (especially better packet per second type efficiency), etc. The better one performed, the higher power allowed.To do this, in my head I was thinking that a base line point of measurement would be some type of low performing product connected to an omni. Put that same radio on sector, you get more power. Put a more efficient radio on that omni, you get more power. Put a really efficient radio on a well-performing on a well-performing, narrow beam antenna and gets lots of power. Etc. Etc.I am sure smart people can come up some type of algorithm that incorporates most of the variables that and make something efficient, while leaving room for the formula to advance to accept new techniques that create efficiency. Such a rule would give operators incentive to employ the best systems since such would require the least number of cells and such. And suppliers would be continually encouraged to invest and innovate, because we'd know that the market would be encouraged to support new technology for the rewards inpower and performance to be gained.Another great thing about these proposed rules was that they are technology neutral (the FCC does not like to specify technology these days). The rules simply would have been some type of math formula where the answer was alwaysa reference to allowed power output (EIRP).I also wanted a registration rule, very similar to what the FCC called out for 3650MHz. I wanted it low fee (but enough to provides monies for rulesenforcement), non-exclusive, and open, with only registration (not licensing) of infrastructure nodes and their locations.At the time, I really do not think most in the room or at the Commission fully grasped what I was getting at. Maybe I did not articulate it well enough (though it was all captured on video and remains archived on the FCCweb site). But, I still think that such rules have the best chance of bringing about a positive revolution in UL BWA. Regards, Patrick--- Steve Stroh 425-939-0076 - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - www.stevestroh.com -- WISPA Wireless List: [email protected] Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/-- WISPA Wireless List: [email protected] Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/-- WISPA Wireless List: [email protected] Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/-- WISPA Wireless List: [email protected] Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wirelessArchives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
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